Item Details

Samsung Mythic a897 Phone (AT&T)

(24 Customer Reviews)

Price: $0.01
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Technical Details

• 3G-enabled messaging/social networking phone with 3.3-inch touchscreen and intuitive Samsung TouchWiz interface
• Compatible with AT&T Video Share, AT&T Mobile Music, and streaming video from Cellular Video service; AT&T Mobile TV capabilities
• 3.2-megapixel camera/camcorder; Bluetooth stereo music; MicroSD memory expansion to 16 GB; access to personal email
• Up to 3 hours of talk time, up to 360 hours (15 days) of standby time
• What's in the Box: handset, rechargeable battery, charger, USB cable, quick start guide, user manual

 

Product Details

Product Weight: 1.08 pounds

Shipping Weight: 0.01 pounds

Model: a897

Manufacturer: Samsung

Sales Rank: 6322

 

Accessories

Customer Reviews

Great phone!,
by Nancy, 2010-06-22

Obviously, if you're used to smartphones (ex: Blackberry, IPhone, Droid) then it's probably not the phone for you. This phone is mostly for people who like to occasionally check their emails, Facebook, weather or latest news and something a little more flashy than a standard slider/flip phone. This is my first touch screen phone and I love it! These are the features that I use the most:

Texting - I have unlimited texting (finally) and I love going crazy with texts! The qwerty keyboard when you turn it is great. It's pressure sensitive so I'm happy I'm able to use my nails to text. It took me a week or so to get used to the keyboard (I had a 3 year old slider phone before) but now I'm getting better.

Internet - Again, it's mostly for checking small things like emails, Facebook, weather or latest news. Youtube does work, but heavy internet use will drain its battery. Also, the more graphics there are on the screen, then the longer it will be to load. Otherwise, load times are fine. I do occasionally get the "Unexpected Failure" notice but I just keep trying and eventually it goes through. I blame that on AT&T's network.

Battery - I only need to charge the battery every two days or less. It all depends on how long and how much you text, make calls and use the internet. Obviously if you do all three a lot, then the battery will be drained often.

Look and Feel - It is a finger print magnet, but it is very sleek! I assume it can scratch easily, but I usually never drop my phones and I have a cheap case for it to prevent every day scratches. The back is a burgundy/maroon color so it is kind of girly and so are the wallpapers. The screensaver pops up when you lock your phone, which I wish I can turn off, but oh well. The sensitivity of the touchscreen is fine by me, sometimes I find myself clicking on a link I didn't want, but I just need to get used to it.

Interface - The user interface is very intuitive and I had no problems finding my way around it all. There are three home screens you can scroll through (all can have their own wallpapers) and it is a great way to organize the widgets.

Only negative things about this phone is that sometimes the person I'm talking to has trouble hearing me sometimes and sometimes the phone freezes up while I'm texting. When it unfreeze, all the letters I put in while frozen comes rushing in.

It is a great phone for first time touch screen users and for people who occasionally use the internet. Honestly, just go to the At&t store and see if you like it yourself and try out the internet, texting and other features. I really think you won't be disappointed!

 

not liking it,
by James Hewitt, 2010-06-03

It is okay as a basic phone but it is very awkward for texting and I have found that when you want to change simple settings like ring tone, it is a lot less intuitive than the other recent phones that I have owned. Who has time to look at a complicated manuel? the best electronic devices are the ones that are very intuitive.

 

Not bad,
by Booyah, 2010-03-14

I've had this for about 4 months now.

Pros:
-Battery life is great.
-Fairly simple to use.
-3 customizable home screens.
-Display looks great.
-The alarm function is surprisingly nice and simple to use. You can set multiple alarms, change the snooze time, number of allowed snoozes, and the wakeup tone.

Cons:
-The touch screen isn't very accurate, even after I calibrated it twice. I get a lot of typos on the virtual keyboard, and sometimes have to press a button on the touch screen two or three times before it executes the command.

-Sometimes the phone doesn't recognize that you rotated it and you have to shake it a little to get the qwerty keyboard to come up.

-The phone cycles through the preprogrammed pictures as the lock screen and there is no way to delete or change those pictures. Some of these pictures (like the giant butterfly or the flower) aren't my taste. I spent about 2 hours messing with the phone, reading the manual, and searching the internet and never was able to solve that problem. Nobody on the message boards I've been to has solved this problem either.

Other thoughts:
-Something about the phone interferes with two radios that I have. If the phone is near one of the radios when I receive a call or a text, the radios will start making a loud and irritating noise for about 5 seconds.

-Call quality I would say is average. I sound fine to the person I'm talking to, but I have to ask people to repeat themselves more often than I did with my last phone.

-The camera has a ton of features but oddly no zoom function.

-I never had dropped calls on Verizon's network, AT&T occasionally drops them, but of course the plan is cheaper so I'm fine with it.

Conclusion: You won't be unhappy with this phone, but I think you can find a better one.

 

Crap Phone! Beware of all the Issues,
by Constructive Review, 2010-02-26

From outside & pictures it looks like mini-iphone. But its crap because,

- PC connectivity (New PC Suite) software allows only media file transfer. NOT POSSIBLE to synchronize Phone Address book/Contancts/Calendar with outlook etc. Which age are we living where there is NO Contancts/Calendar sync feature with PC?
- On standby with only 1-2 voice calls daily and with bluetooth, media player, data plan TURNED OFF, battery is dead in 2 days....first 2 days only 1 battery bar is consumed & in last 1 hour all bars are consumed with low battery indication.
- Can not connect to PC using bluetooth. Tried 3 PCs, 2 different versions "New PC Studio software", Samsung's L1, L2 & L3 support. Samsung L3 support says if USB cable works then we don't support bluetooth...so funny!
- You can not change screen savers. So nice LCD displays shows all photos which annoys you.
- Camera is very very slow. It take picture 3-5 seconds after clicking so always photo saved is different than photo shown when you clicked
- GPS is turned off unless you pay AT&T to turn it on using their map program. You can't use any other mapping program with it.
- The touch screen is not very responsive for fast movements.
- It comes with a bunch of apps that you have to pay to use, and it does not let you use the many java apps that it is capable of using.
- The browser is slow and does not display web pages well. Not really functionally usable. It will drain whole battery in half an hour
- This phone is simply a trick by AT&T to suck more money out of your pocket once you buy it because you have to pay for everything (apps/games)

 

Excellent phone . . .I have been pleasantly surprised thus far.,
by G. Dowling, 2010-02-26

This is a cool little phone. I love the social networking widgets on the home page I can tap and I'm into my facebook or MySpace. I have not figured out how to get a Twitter widget, but I'm sure there's a way. I've only had it for a couple of days. I love the universal micro USB charging port, which means I can use all of the accessories from my last phone. One con I have read is that the phone is too slippery . . .I bought a snap on case for it which took care of that as well as a screen protector which does not afftect the touch screen responsiveness. I would suggest calibrating the screen whenever you use one. The sound is great, the speakers are LOUD if you want them to be. The best feature is the touch keyboard for web and text. It is highly responsive and I make very few mistakes, the only one I have had that experience with as I have used the Vu, Dare, among others. My only gripe is that the left margin widgets and apps pull out in the home screen when they are touched and this also occurs when I scroll down with my finger. This is hard to control, and a bit annoying. It also does not always vibrate in response to pressing buttons on website, so you may hit it a couple to times thinking it did not work, but just look at the progress icon at the top and it tells you. These are nitpicks, but this is a very slick phone that meets all of my needs and it's a lot of fun to use. I would suggest a case and screen protectors for accessories on this. Don't be a cheap-ass. This will help keep your phone nice and new and you will enjoy it more. Amazon's price also makes this phone a slam dunk. It is very pricey at the retail stores and even at stores like RadioShack. This is the way to go.