Samsung SCH-U740 Review - Display & Audio

Display & Audio

I'm not entirely sure why Samsung opted for a relatively low-res main display on the u740, given its VCAST compatibility and stereo speakers.  The 2.2" TFT main screen can display 262,000 colors, but only at 176 x 220 pixels.  While this is fine for reading and writing messages, it makes for lousy full-screen viewing of images and video clips, which is really too bad considering that holding the handset in widescreen orientation makes it feel like a miniature theater what with its wide display and dual speakers.  Bumping the resolution to QVGA (320 x 240) really would have done a lot for the handset's multimedia capabilities.  That being said, the display is just fine for messaging, which really is the u740's main calling card.   

As mentioned, the menu system on this phone is passable at best and quite frustrating at its worst.  Beyond the locking out of certain features depending on which way you have the phone flipped open, Verizon really didn't seem to do much to optimize their standard UI for the u740's widescreen capabilities.  Music store and Mobile Web screens, in particular, could really take much more advantage of the landscape orientation than they do. 

The external display is a 96 x 96 pixel STN color display that can render 65,000 colors.  It works well for status updates, caller ID, and music player functionality when the phone is shut.   

I tested the dual-band CDMA u740 on Verizon Wireless' network in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Voice quality through the internal earpiece was generally excellent.  I almost always captured a strong signal, and voices were generally loud and clear on both ends of the conversation, though I did hear some hiss here and there during calls. The speakerphone worked well, and was quite loud during both speakerphone calls and music play back.

The u740 comes with a 2.5 mm headphone adapter, but no stereo headset or standard (3.5mm) headphone adapter.  Listening to stereo music over headphones requires the purchase of an additional 2.5 to 3.5mm adapter or wireless bluetooth headphones.  When I got the u740 wired up to headphones (using two adapters daisy chained together), music played from the phone sounded pretty good, though songs I purchased from the VCAST store were of the low bit rate variety currently favored by wireless carriers.  

Bluetooth audio devices are supported, though the A2DP Stereo Bluetooth profile is not. I had no trouble pairing a mono earpiece with the phone using Bluetooth, and voice quality was quite good.
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