Samsung Solstice a887 Phone (AT&T)

Pretty smart for not being a smartphone! October 10, 2009

Reviewer:  B. Kurth  (Boston area) -

The Solstice syncs nicely (using the free PC Studio software downloaded from the Samsung website) with the Calendar, Contacts, and ToDo list on my desktop PC Outlook program, and it does so even though it's not a smartphone, which saved me from having to buy a monthly data plan from AT&T. The basic phone function works well, the battery life seems quite good, and the voice recognition feature is quite handy. I couldn't figure out how to turn on the speakerphone for a while, so I finally broke down and read the owner's manual. Ah, you SLIDE the speakerphone switch which shows up on the touchscreen, not simply depress it! Dumb me. The touchscreen works well, with only an occasional misstep. Very nice display, and I like how it can do a slide show of the pictures I put into it from my PC. The alarm is very easy to set and use, and shuts off by simply turning the phone from face up to face down. The music player even sounds good, once I set the built-in sound equalizer to the "Wide" or the "Dyna" setting (a total of 9 equalizer settings are offered), and has enough volume. No earphone jack though, so sound quality is a bit limited compared to what headphones would offer. I am very pleased with this phone!

Update: someone has just pointed out to me that Amazon lists a headphone jack adapter. I did a quick search, and it's $0.99 from Amazon. It doesn't list the a887 as one of the phones it fits, but it does list the a867 and a877, and I think those Samsung phones use the same data jack as the a887 Solstice.

Another Update: Want to be able to read a Word or Excel document on your Solstice? Just select "Save As" and save it as a Web Page on your PC. Copy it into your Solstice into a folder such as "Other Files", click on My Stuff, then Other Files, and voila! it will open up in the phone's web browser. You won't be able to edit it on the phone, of course, but you will be able to read it! This is very handy for text documents or numerical data that you frequently reference and want to have with you in your phone.

Love the Solstice! September 22, 2009

Reviewer:  Nancy R. Keller "Keller2"  (Roseville, MI) -

Great phone! I initially bought the Eternity and returned it because I found out it did not have speed dial and the battery did not last but 48 hours. It also did not have the ability to customize the Widget as the Solstice does. The Solstice is smaller than the Eternity and fits better in your hand. The battery seems to last longer and the phone is totally customizable. The camera takes great pictures and the voice quality, even on speaker is wonderful. The Internet is easy to access and the screen gives good detail. I would recommend this phone to anyone who is looking to upgrade to a touch screen.

Over all Great Phone!! - Poor Speakerphone - No Gmail September 24, 2009

Reviewer:  B. Marshall  (Dallas, TX USA) -

I just got this phone a few days ago and after figuring out all the features, overall I am very happy with it. The one disappointment is that the speaker phone is no good to use; the caller on the other end says it echos and they cannot hear you ( happened to every call I did). Disappointing because I have always used it on my other Samsung phones with not problems. Another downside was that it did not come with a printed user manual, which would have help me, as this is the first touch screen phone that I have bought; 190 pages to print is a little much (located on the CD). Also you cannot use Gmail with this phone's "Mobile Email" App; is seems to have every other email system except mine under the "Applications - Mobile Email" I hope they will update this if that is possible. I did download an app from Gmail, and you can always look it up under the Web Browser too. One cool feature I found is that you can zoom in with the camera. It takes Ok photos. The internet seems to load fairly fast. It was very easy to update, change/add Contacts with the USB connection through Samsung PC Studio on your computer, which you can download from their website (not included on CD). The touch screen is very easy to use, and the full QWERTY touch keyboard is very cool and easy to use. Over all a Great Phone.

Solstice is a solid phone (even the speakerphone) September 25, 2009

Reviewer:  A. Ellis  (Dallas, TX USA) -

I searched high and low for a good alternative to touchscreen "smartphones" with all their fancy doo-dads and high monthly costs, and I found it with the Solstice. The longer I have it the more I like it.

I chose this over the Eternity (last year's model) because the touchscreen interface performs better: it is noticeably snappier and faster responding. I chose this over the Impression because of personal tastes: I liked the lighter weight and trimmer form factor of the Solstice; it fits nicely in your hand. I also do not care for slide-out qwerty's (I have big thumbs); I prefer texting with T9, and the Solstice's vibration-feedback touchscreen works great for me. Battery life is not great, but good: I have run the phone for 2-3 days without re-charging if I don't use the Bluetooth, but normally I do, so I recharge every night, but I've yet to run it down in one day. Call quality is not the best I've heard, but still pretty good. Beware that there is a real issue on this model, where SOME phones have a terrible echo on speakerphone (for the person you are calling). My first Solstice had this problem, but I took it back to the AT&T store where they cheerfully exchanged it, now my speakerphone sounds just fine to everyone I call. Web browsing is ok; I can get from the main menu to a nice animated radar loop in about 20 seconds when I'm on 3G. It has GPS, built-in clients for Facebook and MySpace, YahooIM, but not Twitter. That kind of thing was not a priority for me so I can't speak to it more. I wanted a good, easy to use, music player, and the Solstice delivers, making it easy for me to play hundreds of my favorite tunes over Bluetooth to my car stereo. Being able to customize the home screen with your favorite tasks is a very nice touch on the interface.

Cons: Can't think of many. Wish the camera was better than 2MP (Eternity had 3MP), but it takes decent pix and has a zoom. The multi-tasking capability is a little hard to get used to (especially with the music player), but that's just a learning curve.

Could have been a very good phone November 10, 2009

Reviewer:  XYZ  (Bay Area, CA) -

This phone has the potential to be very good. Sadly, AT&T has crippled it, so it's a lot less useful than it could have been.

-3G can't be turned off. If you leave in a marginal 3G area, or if you simply don't use a lot of data and would rather have longer battery life, you're out of luck.
-Java is, for all practical purposes, useless. Only applications bought by AT&T are usable. Google Maps or other navigation applications can't access the GPS receiver, and every third party application that tries to access the network causes the phone to prompt you to confirm if you want to allow this very frequently. Try to scroll the map in Google Maps, and you'll yet a prompt every few seconds. Try to use Gmail, you'll be prompted whenever you refresh your inbox, try to read a message, or send a message. You get the idea.

If it wasn't for this, it could have been a good phone. It's no iPhone, but it would have been just fine for what it is.

Amazon won't tell you any of this, and I think it's very important to know especially when you take this into account:

Be extremely careful when you buy a phone from Amazon. You'd better be really, really sure that you'll like the phone. Hate the phone but want to keep the service? Too bad. Amazon won't let you exchange for a different phone under any circumstances. You have to return it, wait for several days while they "process" your return, then either cancel your service and be out your non refundable activation fees and the number you just ported, or return it and just through a lot of hoops to try to get a new phone from AT&T instead. I think I've managed to succeed in the latter, but I'm not sure yet as Amazon is still hard at work "processing" my return.

Love the phone, but battery is too hot! October 6, 2009

Reviewer:  MilAlegna  (Arizona) -

I really like this phone, especially since I haven't upgraded to a new phone in 5 years. The only problem is that the phone gets extremely hot, to the point where I get a "charging paused. Phone too hot" message. I only use the phone to make some calls and use no other applications, but the battery dies within half a day after a full charge. I never turned on the phone until I had a full battery charge the first time. I turned off vibration, lowered the backlight and even turned off my phone overnight, but when I turned it on in the morning, it says "battery low." Also, I'm able to make the calls, but my friends can't seem to call me. It goes straight to my voice mail although I checked to make sure the phone isn't on "forward all calls". I had the phone for 3 days now.

Good phone with speakerphone flaw November 13, 2009

Reviewer:  S. Wuu 

I really want to like the phone. However, one major flaw is its speakerphone is useless with bad echo for the person on the other side of the call. This problem only occurs as long as the voice command has been used once. If I reset the phone to factory setting, then the problem goes away. However, I like to use voice dial, but once I used it once, there goes the speakerphone echo problem regardless if I use voice call to initiate the call. Sadly, I like to have both voice call and speakerphone features.

For those who rate the phone highly, have you used the speakerphone and the voice call with no problems?

Other issue is I found the ringer not loud enough.

I like how the widgets can be customised (to some degree) on the desktop and the virtual keypad.

You will love this easy to use phone! But what's up with those wallpapers? November 17, 2009

Reviewer:  Brian Stromberg 

The Samsung Solstice is a well designed phone. It hits on every mark. I couldn't be happier with my purchase.

Screen: Beautiful
Sound quality: Excellent
Interface: Easy to use!
Touch Screen: Responsive
Battery Life: Good

My favorite part about the solstice is the intuitive interface. There is almost no learning curve. Just play with it a bit and you will have it figured out in no time. Some reviewers have mentioned problems with the speaker phone, however I have not experienced that. My speaker phone is loud and clear. I love that I am not tied to an AT&T data plan with this phone. My only complaint is the included wallpapers. You can NOT delete them and most of them are hideously ugly and when the phone is locked they randomly display.

fantastic for next to nothing November 3, 2009

Reviewer:  N. Hammond "boiledokra"  (Rochester, NY USA) -

these phones are dirt cheap now... [...] dollars with a [...] dollar mail in rebate card coming back to you. fantastic phone, IMO, just be sure to get screen protectors (duh). easy to use the virtual keyboard, even with my thick fingers... much easier than the real ones on bar phones... came from the samsung magnet (don't do it) to this, and am VERY happy. feels like iPod-lite (quite lite, but that's OK), with all the gadgets on it... expandable memory via microSD, which i've yet to do, but this thing's about to become my mp3 player. OH, all samsung phones have proprietary headphone jacks... can't use your regular earbuds on them, if you haven't seen that yet.

Best Cell Phone so far October 19, 2009

Reviewer:  CBS1000 

Samsung Solstice is one of the best cell phone I have ever used. I have been a Motorola fan for so long that I was hesitant to get this phone. But as soon as I got it and started using it, I am really happy and satisfied with all the features it offers. I would recommend this phone to anybody who likes texting, since it really is so easy to use. For people who is likes listening to music, you can add an external memory card for all the songs you would like to hear whether you use the speakerphone, bluetooth or just a headphone. You can add pictures too to the external memory card. This cell phone is all that I would ever need for my everyday work. So far, I have no problems using it. I had the cell phone for about a little more than a month now. I rate it as 5 stars.