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Review: I have been using this Samsung SGH-D500 phone for a couple of months now and would highly recommend it. The phone is small enough to fit comfortably in a pocket and is reassuringly weighty without being too heavy. The slide function is beautifully designed and the phone opens and closes with a satisfying 'clunk'. The display is bright and sharp, some paleness in very bright sunlight but no so bad as to make it unreadable, otherwise perfect. Customisable wallpaper (which also lets you use animated GIFs) and a well designed menu system including numerical menu shortcuts make interacting with the phone easy and fun. All the basics (address book, SMS, MMS, calendar, alarm clock) are well designed and easy to use, there is a also a calculator and a convertor for imperial-metric units and for currency. The Mp3 player works well, however with the 80+ MB user memory there isn't room for a lot of music, especially if you want to keep memory for pictures, video etc. The camera on this model is one of the best around, offering 1.3 megapixels on the highest resolution setting. There are some fun shooting modes: sepia, negative, emboss, etc and an LED flash which works well, albeit only within a 1-2m distance. The video camera is also of a decent quality for a mobile phone, and there's room for up to 60 min recording. A dedicated button on the side of the phone allows instant access to the camera function. In terms of design, this is a very stylish phone- the buttons are well spaced and easy to use. One thing that I feel could have been improved is the cover for the power socket. Unlike the headset socket which is protected by a sliding cover, this is protected only by a plastic plug, which is not attached to the phone. I lost this soon after getting the phone. Battery life is good- charges from empty to full in under 30min (4 hours recommended for the first charge), and my battery lasts me about 48h- allowing for 30min or so talking per day, and probably an hour or so using text, calendar, camera functions. This is with Bluetooth on all the time- i expect battery life would improve with it off. All in all - a quality piece of technology with good looks and great usability | 
mobile phones
