Samsung UpStage-M620 Review - Features

Features
For such a small phone, UpStage is loaded to the hilt with features.  Its main calling card, of course, is music.  UpStage can play music sideloaded from a computer via Bluetooth, USB, or memory card, or songs purchased and downloaded direct from Sprint's Music Store.  Upon introducing UpStage at CTIA in March 2007, Sprint also dropped the price of tracks from their store to 99 cents each.  Your dollar gets you a low-quality version of the track that downloads via EV-DO to the phone in a minute or two, and also a high-quality version of the same song that you can access via Sprint's Web site from a computer.  That's a pretty good deal, I have to say, and I wonder if Apple will follow suit once their iPhone ships later this year.  Note that the 99-cent per song fee does not include data charges or monthly Power Vision subscription fees. 

UpStage is also compatible with Sprint's Power Vision network, including Sprint TV and Sprint's streaming music services, including Sirius Sattelite Radio, VH1, and MTV.  I experienced mixed results watching Sprint TV video clips: watching from the back seat of a car headed north from the San Francisco Bay Area was an exercise in futility, as the video was blocky and play back stopped, started, and sputtered.  Watching clips a week or so later from my home in Oakland was an entirely different story - after a quick buffering period, playback started right up and was smooth, with synched audio.  Watching short comedy clips widescreen mode was fun, but you're not likely to spend more than a few minutes at a time watching TV on a 2" screen. 

Beyond that, UpStage comes with a few bundled games and a fairly standard suite of personal information management applications.  Everything's a dual-edged sword on this handset - games look good on the big display, but they're hard to control using the touch pad.  Similarly, the calendar app is a pleasure to view but adding or amending entries requires flipping back and forth between the phone's two side.  Flipping UpStage means pressing the side-mounted Flip button and then actually flipping the device over.  If you get this phone, you'll get used to the concept in a hurry. 

UpStage also supports multi-tasking to a limited extent - generally speaking, you can keep listening to music while you do other things.  This is a nice touch - while UpStage isn't a smartphone, playing music in the background is a feature generally limited to smarter-than-average handsets.

Camera
UpStage features a pretty standard 1.3 megapixel camera mounted on the phone side of the handset.  What's nice is that the phone's larger screen works as a viewfinder for camera, and photos can be snapped in widescreen mode.  Pictures taken in good light came out a bit better than average for a 1.3 mp camera phone, with good color saturation and sharp detail.  Photos can be used as wallpapers and photo caller IDs, or attached to MMS messages.  Pics can also be transferred to a computer or printer via USB, Bluetooth, or memory card. 

The camcorder can shoot 3g2 format video with sound at 176x144 resolution and 15 frames per second. Clips can go as long as you want, provided you have sufficient memory available in the phone or on a memory card; videos designated for MMS messages are capped at 512KB.  Camera phone videos came out fairly well, considering the limitations on resolution and frames per second.