The Samsung Juke is a 2GB music player that happens to make phone calls too. Looking more like an MP3 player than a phone the Juke sports a swivel display to hide the keypad making it very easy to slip into a pocket. Key features include a 1.3 megapixel camera, Bluetooth, 500 song capacity, speakerphone and voice memo capability.
The Samsung Juke for Verizon is a cool little phone that makes calls, plays music, and tucks away almost unnoticed in a pocket or purse. Featuring two gigabytes of built-in storage, a front-mounted scroll wheel for navigating through your music library and contacts list, and a unique switchblade design, Juke is small, slick, and easy to use.
Samsung and Verizon left a lot out of Juke in order to make it tiny and inexpensive. There's no 3G data, no access to Verizon's VCast multimedia offerings, and a very small - if bright and sharp - display. You're not going to want this phone if you text, email, or surf the Web a lot on the go, and Juke's VGA camera and low-res screen won't do much for the technophiles out there, either. But if you're looking for a cool little handset for calling, listening to music, and the occasional GPS usage, Juke is a neat piece of gear that works really well. If you like its look, that is.
Juke is a uniquely designed handset. It's long, narrow, and a bit on the thick side, and somehow reminds me of an oversized, squared-off tube of lipstick. Samsung sent me the Blue version of the phone, which features a shiny silver click wheel as well as a silver keypad.
While Juke measures a pretty thick 21mm from top to bottom, with a length and width of just 97 x 30 mm, this is a long and narrow phone. As such its display is a mere 1.45" across. The front panel of the phone is taken up by the display and the metal scroll wheel, which I found responsive and easy to use. Flicking or twisting the panel swivels the phone open with a satisfying snap - it takes a fair bit of force to get the motion underway, but the mechanism works quite well.
Inside there's a standard dialing layout with a twelve button keypad and navigational array consisting of two soft keys, Send and End/Power keys, a Clear button and a dedicated key for the camera. The scroll wheel doubles as a D-Pad for navigational purposes, as well. While the keypad is a bit crowded, the buttons themselves are big and I found them surprisingly easy to use.
Flipping Juke over reveals a back panel speaker mounted along side the camera lens in a black plastic mount. When the phone is in the open position, a self portrait mirror mounted on the back of the top panel is revealed. There's also a volume rocker switch on one side of the phone and a hold switch, charger/accessory port, and a plastic-capped 2.5mm headphone jack on the other side.
All in all I really liked Juke's design, with a few notable exceptions. First off, the phone is pretty thick, and while it's overall diminutive dimensions and fashionable design help offset its thickness, its still, well, thick. More importantly, direction in which the top panel swivels is a bit counter-intuitive, and whenever I flipped the thing open or shut I had to immediately turn the whole device upside down in order to read the display - someone in Samsung or Verizon's UI department should have figured out how to program Juke's screen rotation to avoid this issue.
Also, while Juke does come with a wired stereo headset, it uses a 2.5mm headphone jack which just seems silly to me. If you're going to bother putting a headphone jack on a music phone at all, why not just make it the universal 3.5mm size that will work with the headphones people already own?
With the Samsung U470 being slated as the Juke, this has to be short for Jukebox since the device offers a 2GB music player and comes with stereo earphones and a USB cable right out of the box.
The Samsung Juke for Verizon is a cool little phone that makes calls, plays music, and tucks away almost unnoticed in a pocket or purse. Featuring two gigabytes of built-in storage, a front-mounted scroll wheel for navigating through your music library and contacts list, and a unique switchblade design, Juke is small, slick, and easy to use.
Samsung and Verizon left a lot out of Juke in order to make it tiny and inexpensive. There's no 3G data, no access to Verizon's VCast...
Juke is being marketed as a music phone and it does feature a very intuitive, easy to use music player. However, it doesn't work with Verizon's VCast Music store (or the company's other VCast services). While I can understand that Verizon wanted to leave 3G off the Juke in order to reduce its size and cost while maximize battery life, I can't understand them launching a new music phone that doesn't let customers purchase and download tracks over the air. Silly.
That...
Juke's display is tiny but bright and easy to read, so relative to the overall goal of making a small handset with a trick design and good music player, I think Samsung did a good job here. Just 1.45" across, the display's resolution is only 128 x 220 pixels, but it does support 262,000 colors. As such, fonts, menus and images all rendered quite well on the LCD screen. Customization options include adjustable font sizes and styles and display themes as well as backlight...
Juke supports SMS and MMS messaging, but it's tiny display and somewhat small keypad make it a poor choice for heavy-duty texters. That being said, Samsung's T9 predictive text implementation is solid and the optional Get it Now mobile IM application supports AIM, Yahoo! and Windows Live Messenger. Email is not supported on Juke.
Internet on Juke is limited to Verizon's Get it Now options for purchasing ringtones and wallpapers, and the optional Mobile IM client. Juke...
It's nice to see companies pushing the design envelope at both the low and high ends of the mobile phone spectrum. While expensive smartphones and feature phones are gaining full frontal touchscreens and easier-to-use user interfaces, some lower end models are also getting design overhauls, often based around a single advanced feature. T-Mobile's Blast (also a Samsung phone), for instance, is a mid-range slider built for messaging with a SureType keypad and a customized Email...
With the Samsung U470 being slated as the Juke, this has to be short for Jukebox since the device offers a 2GB music player and comes with stereo earphones and a USB cable right out of the box. Other key features include stereo bluetooth, a built in GPS chip that will work great with Verizon's GPS navigation services.
By: Tim n. on Thursday, June 26, 2008 From: Fords, NJ (United States) Experience: 7 Months
Pros: music, sound, options, Cons: small buttons, small screanSummary: The good thing about this phone is that you can use this like an ipod or MP3 I purchased it in november and now I really dont like it too much, mostly because of the small buttons. Its actually prety easy to text message but it sometimes takes a while because you hit 4 buttons at the same time. The small screan is also a minus I find it often hard to read the text or icons. Calling is very easy because the ear peice fits snug in your ear and the volume is perfect. I would recomend this phone more for a child or a person that doesn't text message alot. this phone being a newer model it gets perfect reception in most places. I am a teenager so i have over 3000 text a month so i really dont recomend this phone for a "texter"
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Juke is a uniquely designed handset. It's long, narrow, and a bit on the thick side, and somehow reminds me of an oversized, squared-off tube of lipstick. Samsung sent me the Blue version of the phone, which features a shiny silver click wheel as well as a silver keypad. 
