Samsung A501 Overall Impression

Back in October or thereabouts I migrated from CDMA to NextG and in
particular to a Samsung A501 NextG flipphone.

This weekend gone I went away to NSW and was able to test the phone out.
Merimbular in the past had patchy CDMA coverage. But this time round it
seemed to be better for NextG. Had fairly consistant coverage along the
Princes Highway heading to Merimbula from Gippsland.

Parts of Southern NSW seemed to be better, for example, around Bombala.
Bugger all coverage 20 km south of Bombala.

However, what was disappointing was the phone's battery life. Since
buying it I haven't really travelled. It could sit for up to a week on
the desk at home or in my work bag before I needed to recharge it.
However, 24hrs after taking it off the charger, I noticed that the
battery was down to 1 bar on the charge/battery life scale.

Maybe the NextG phones work like CDMA in that when signal strength is
low the phone works harder to try and pull in a signal. Whatever, going
from XXX hrs standby time to 24hrs is somewhat disappointing. But I
shouldn't be surprised by it. My now retired Nokia 2280 CDMA phone did
the exact same thing, and almost in the same time frame. When travelling
in areas of poor coverage I found that it too had a drastically
shortened standby reserve.

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Spokes wrote:
> On Feb 19, 3:54 pm, Emjaye <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Back in October or thereabouts I migrated from CDMA to NextG and in
>> particular to a Samsung A501 NextG flipphone.
>>
>> This weekend gone I went away to NSW and was able to test the phone out.
>> Merimbular in the past had patchy CDMA coverage. But this time round it
>> seemed to be better for NextG. Had fairly consistant coverage along the
>> Princes Highway heading to Merimbula from Gippsland.
>>
>> Parts of Southern NSW seemed to be better, for example, around Bombala.
>> Bugger all coverage 20 km south of Bombala.
>>
>> However, what was disappointing was the phone's battery life. Since
>> buying it I haven't really travelled. It could sit for up to a week on
>> the desk at home or in my work bag before I needed to recharge it.
>> However, 24hrs after taking it off the charger, I noticed that the
>> battery was down to 1 bar on the charge/battery life scale.
>>
>> Maybe the NextG phones work like CDMA in that when signal strength is
>> low the phone works harder to try and pull in a signal. Whatever, going
>> from XXX hrs standby time to 24hrs is somewhat disappointing. But I
>> shouldn't be surprised by it. My now retired Nokia 2280 CDMA phone did
>> the exact same thing, and almost in the same time frame. When travelling
>> in areas of poor coverage I found that it too had a drastically
>> shortened standby reserve.
>
> Get Messagebank Roaming added to your service - it should pull a
> slightly better signal after you re-boot it.
> also a general point about the A501: I spoke with a back of house rep
> for Mobility Sales (Telstra Direct to some of you) recently. He told
> me that of the NextG handsets, the A501 is at the bottom of the list
> for number of returns he handles. the A701 is not far behind.
> Anyone others in the know of this NG can back that up?
>

I've had a A701 for a couple of weeks now. So far, so good. It does
seem to flatten the battery quite quickly if I use any 3G services.
Voice calls and SMS aren't too bad though.

What is Messagebank Roaming and how will it improve the signal?

Spokes said...

> Get Messagebank Roaming added to your service - it should pull a
> slightly better signal after you re-boot it.

How does this work? Given that the transmitters are still in the same
place working at the same signal levels, I don't udnerstand how this
would make the phone either work any better, or to extend its battery
life on standby in low/non-existant signal areas.

> also a general point about the A501: I spoke with a back of house rep
> for Mobility Sales (Telstra Direct to some of you) recently. He told
> me that of the NextG handsets, the A501 is at the bottom of the list
> for number of returns he handles. the A701 is not far behind.
> Anyone others in the know of this NG can back that up?

What faults are being reported? So far, mine's worked great without any
real issues that could be described as faults.

> Get Messagebank Roaming added to your service - it should pull a
> slightly better signal after you re-boot it.
> also a general point about the A501: I spoke with a back of house rep

Don't be ridiculous

> for Mobility Sales (Telstra Direct to some of you) recently. He told

It hasn't been called that for over 4 years now

I too have one of these - gets quite hot at the back when you talk for any
length of time - I took the first one back as it got so hot it was
uncomfortable to hold, but while the replacement still gets hot it is nowhere
near as bad. However, as you have found the battery goes down very fast at
times

David



Graeme Willox wrote:

> >
>
> I've had a A701 for a couple of weeks now. So far, so good. It does
> seem to flatten the battery quite quickly if I use any 3G services.
> Voice calls and SMS aren't too bad though.
>
> What is Messagebank Roaming and how will it improve the signal?

Michael said....

>> Get Messagebank Roaming added to your service - it should pull a
>> slightly better signal after you re-boot it.
>> also a general point about the A501: I spoke with a back of house rep
>
> Don't be ridiculous

OK, one guy reckons that "Messagebank Romaing" helps phone performance,
another reckons that this is bull****.

Who are we to believe? (the other guy hasn't told us why MR works and
Michael hasn't explained why it doesn't.)

"Emjaye" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Michael said....
>
>>> Get Messagebank Roaming added to your service - it should pull a
>>> slightly better signal after you re-boot it.
>>> also a general point about the A501: I spoke with a back of house rep
>>
>> Don't be ridiculous
>
> OK, one guy reckons that "Messagebank Romaing" helps phone performance,
> another reckons that this is bull****.
>
> Who are we to believe? (the other guy hasn't told us why MR works and
> Michael hasn't explained why it doesn't.)

A network feature CANNOT change your phone's hardware (reception)