Samsung UpStage-M620 Red Review - Display & Audio

UpStage's two displays do their jobs quite well, despite the inherent design flaws that led to frustration with not being able to access all features from either display.  The main display, a 2.1" LCD screen capable of displaying 262,000 colors at a resolution of 176 x 220 pixels, is bright and vivid, and made for easy viewing of menus, messages, images, and photos.  UpStage uses Samsung's newer user interface, a modern design that's heavier on icons and lighter on pop-up sub menus than older of the company's phones.  The menus are, of course, customized with Sprint-only options and content, but generally retain a clean, easy to use feel. 

The secondary display, on the phone side of UpStage, is a 1.4" LCD limited to 175 x 65 pixels and 65,000 colors.  While the display itself is bold and colorful, the problem is that its too small for many of the input-related tasks associated with the phone side of the handset.  Composing messages, entering Web URLs and contact information - all of this is much more easily accomplished via the phone side's dialing keypad than the music side's touch pad (you can enter data on the music side, but it requires an amazing amount of scrolling).  Unfortunately, the phone side's display can only show a few lines of information at a time.  As such, it's really difficult to read or write a long text message, or scroll through a long contacts list using this display.  

I tested the dual-band CDMA UpStage on Sprint's network in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Voice quality through the internal earpiece was generally quite good.  With a few exceptions, I was able to hear people I was talking to, and they me.   The speakerphone worked well, and voice dialing via Bluetooth headset was a treat.  While I don't expect much from music playback through a cellphone's built-in speaker, UpStage's speaker is positioned on the phone (non-music) side of the handset.  As such, it projected sound away from me when I was using it to listen to music.  That's not such a good thing for a device being pushed as the next great music phone.

Bluetooth support includes stereo over Bluetooth.  I had no trouble pairing a Bluetooth earpiece with the phone, and voice quality with the earpiece was good.  One excellent feature on UpStage is the Bluetooth caller ID: When listening to music, if a call comes in the software will first pause the music and then announce the caller's name through the earpiece.  Very cool.

Music playback on UpStage was generally quite good, with plenty of volume.  Some tracks felt a bit bass-heavy at times, but nothing too out of the ordinary for a music phone.  The included 3.5mm stereo adapter allows the use of your favorite headphones with UpStage, and while I generally complain about music phones that don't feature 3.5mm jacks built right into the handset, given UpStage's ultra-slim profile I guess I'll lay off this time.
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