Samsung M400 (Sprint)

In the age of texting, it's easy to forget that the?cell phone was initially meant for making calls. That's still true, but most phones do a whole lot more than that nowadays. Not everyone wants or needs a smartphone, though, and it's getting harder and harder to find a quality alternative. Luckily, the free Samsung M400 for Sprint fits the bill. It's a super-simple flip phone with a large number pad and good call quality. While it's pretty much devoid of any multimedia features, it's a good choice for anyone who needs a phone primarily for talking.

Design and Call Quality
The Samsung M400 measures 3.84 by 1.99 by 0.72 inches (HWD) and weighs 3.65 ounces. It's made entirely of dark gray and black plastic, with a lightly textured panel on the back and a faux-metallic finish on the front. There's a Camera button on the right, as well as buttons for Volume and Voice Control on the left. The 1.07-inch external display shows the time, date, reception, and battery life at a glance, and will display the name or number for incoming calls.

Flip the phone open to access the M400's excellent number pad. The backlit keys are large, well-spaced, and springy. You won't have any trouble dialing here. The control pad above is equally well crafted. There's a directional pad with a Select button in the middle, flanked by buttons to start and end a call and activate the speakerphone. You also get a button that automatically dials 911 (you're asked if you actually want to dial it after your press it), as well as a programmable In Case of Emergency button. You can add up to three contacts you'd want to notify in the event of an emergency.

The internal 2.4-inch display features 320-by-240-pixel resolution. Text and images look sharp enough, but it's highly reflective, and narrow viewing angles make it tough to see if you aren't looking at it dead-on.

The M400 is a 3G device with no Wi-Fi. Reception is good, and call quality is solid across the board. Voices are clear in the earpiece, and volume goes extremely loud, but the louder you go, voices start to crackle and sound a bit fuzzy. Calls made with the phone sound very clear and easy to hear, with good noise cancellation. Calls were fine through a?Jawbone Era?Bluetooth headset, and the Nuance-powered voice control app worked very well. You can use it to make calls or send text messages, or even to open the phone's Web browser. The speakerphone sounds okay, and gets loud enough to use outside. Battery life was on the low side, at 4 hours and 56 minutes of talk time.

Apps, Multimedia, and Conclusions
The M400's UI is simple to navigate and responds quickly to key presses. The home screen displays all of the same information as the external display, and gives you quick access to your contacts and text messages. The main menu, meanwhile, features nine different shortcuts, including your camera, messages, Web, and app store. Don't get too excited about apps, though?there's barely anything in the store, and you only get 9.61MB of free internal storage, with no microSD card slot for expansion.

There are no email or IM clients, though you can still access email through the Access NetFront 4.2 browser. The browser delivers decent WAP pages, but it's really only good for occasional use. Instead of IMs, you're better off sending text messages. The M400 displays messages individually, or threaded, in the style of a conversation. You'll need to type by using the number keys, which is always a pain, but at least they're big and easy to press.

Multimedia features are nearly nonexistent. There's no music player, video player, or camcorder. You do get a 1.3-megapixel camera on the front of the phone. It lacks an LED flash and auto-focus, though it comes with some fun features like continuous shooting, mosaic, and panorama. Unfortunately, test photos look soft and hazy, almost like someone smeared Vaseline over the lens.?[Really? Ew.?Ed]?And since there's no memory card slot, the only way to get photos off the phone is to send them over the air.

So while the Samsung M400 doesn't have much in the way of extras, it isn't trying to be anything other than what it is: a cheap, simple voice phone. The only other flip phones on Sprint are the rugged Kyocera DuraCore ?and Kyocera DuraXT, both of which are far too big and bulky for casual users. The Samsung Array?gets you a keyboard and some extra media features, but has painfully slow 2G speeds for Web browsing, and isn't quite as simple to use as the M400.

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