Samsung r400 Slider Phone Our Rating:

After some very bad luck with the Kyocera Strobe, our lead reviewer Chris decided to move on to a Samsung, thinking He would be much more impressed.  Unfortunately, that was far from being the case.  He concluded that while Samsung does have some very nice phones currently on the market, this is definitely one to steer clear of.  Here’s what he had to say:

First of all, one of my biggest annoyances of cell phones was true of this phone as well – the “silent” mode is not 100% silent.  When the battery gets low on this phone, even if you’ve got the volume turned off, it’s going to beep at you.  Certainly not the way I want to find out when I’m in the middle of a meeting.

Actually, a lot of the software on this phone was very unimpressive.  There’s no way to change how the slider works, so it will always hang up on your call when you close it, even if you don’t want it to.  The ringer doesn’t turn on automatically when you plug the phone in to charge, and the volume controls in general are very confusing.

The phone seems to be cheaply made as well.  The slider seems weak and flimsy when compared to other phones on the market.  The battery does not hold a very long charge either.  Also, on the original as well as a warranty replacement of this phone, the signal seems to run into lot of dead zones, even though it is not generally weak.  Perhaps there is some sort of problem with the antenna getting interference.

At any rate, if you’re in the market for a slider phone, you’re probably going to want to keep looking.  This is yet another phone that is definitely not getting raves from us.