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Samsung E-715 and T-Mobile
By Jacob Cohen | January 2, 2004
T-Mobile and the Samsung E-715 have a bit of a way to go when it comes to ease of use, intuitive interfaces, and feature usability. Here’s a small list of things that I simply can’t believe a modern pair of companies would fail to fix:
- When talking on the phone (or checking voice mail) the screen turns off after about 15 seconds, as do the keypad lights, so its impossible to find certain keys to press when navigating menus in the voice mail system. There is no option on the phone to keep this from happening (the back-light duration setting only affects how long the screen stays lit when the phone is open, but you’re not making a call).
- The list of options in the voice mail menu does not include a way to repeat the message you just heard.
- If you forget your password to log into the My T-Mobile web site, it will prompt you for your phone number and say that it will send the password to your mobile phone. After entering your number, however, it simply asks you the answer to the question you picked on sign-up, and never sends anything to your phone.
- When a new voice mail is received, a text message appears in the phone that says “You have a new voice message. Dial 123 to listen to it.” However, Dialing 123 does nothing, and you annoyingly have to navigate through a couple layers of menu to delete these text messages that appear every time you get a voice mail. There doesn’t seem to be any way to disable this.
- The voice mail indicator on the phone disappears after you erase the above message, even if the voice mail is still waiting unlistened on the server.
My previous phone, one of the ancient Motorola Star-tacs, had a much more intuitive menuing system, especially when it came to voice mail. Combined with Sprint’s voice mail service, it was exceptionally easy to use. If a voice mail arrives, it lights the voice mail icon on the screen. If you call and check the voice messages, the icon disappears. The menu in the voice mail system includes all of the options you might like to use, including saving, erasing, re-listening, and replying to a voice message.
Despite all this, however, the new phone and service are pretty good. I can get service in my office, which never properly worked with Sprint. The phone has exceptional battery life (even compared to the Star-tac), and has a bunch of other useful features that work quite well. I think Samsung and T-Mobile, and perhaps the other providers and vendors, are concentrating a bit too hard on the cameras and games and fancy ringtones at the expense of plain, simple usability and its intended purpose as a phone.
