Display & Audio
The 2.1” 240x320 262K Color TFT display is simply gorgeous. As with the
T809 and many of their other recent phones, Samsung has shown that they really know how to make a top-notch display. Text and images are rendered bold, bright, and crisp, and the screen is large enough to make everything from reading an incoming Caller ID to navigating through files easy on the eyes.
Samsung took advantage of the D900's brilliant display by designing an operating system full of visual features ranging from the clever (sub-menus that remember where you left them) to the silly (an animation of a pencil drawing numbers on paper as you dial them). The phone is fully customizable with a choice of themed interfaces or user-definable wallpapers taken from clip art, the integrated camera, or files transferred from a PC. Caller IDs can be customized with photos or videos that play when recognized contacts are calling you.
As mentioned later in the review, the D900 has a built-in Web browser that's on par with other cellphone browsers but certainly nothing revolutionary. What is nice about Web browsing and other information retrieval on the D900 is that up to 12 lines of text can fit - and actually be read - on the display at once. This helps to make mobile viewing of office documents somewhat more palatable, too. Viewing brightly colored animations and photos on the D900 is a joy, as is looking at (and playing) the included Java games featuring a long overdue mobile version of the Sega classic, "Sonic the Hedgehog."
Using the phone outdoors in direct light was easier than average thanks to the brightly lit display. An adjustable backlight setting lets you choose between higher screen brightness and better energy conservation.
Call quality on the D900 was excellent. The quad-band 850/900/1800/1900 MHz GSM radio performed well on T-Mobile's network, pulling in reception on par with other quad-band phones I've tried on the same network here in the San Francisco bay area. Voices were generally clear and loud (once I removed the protective film that covers the screen and the main speaker!),and callers reported no trouble hearing me on the other end.
Audio quality was also good using both the included stereo handsfree headset and the built-in speaker phone. The headset also works pretty well for use with the audio player - on par with Apple's standard iPod earbuds - though I'd really like to see a standard 3.5mm headphone jack on a phone like this. Samsung went to the trouble of building a digital audio amplifier into the D900, but you won't really be able to appreciate it without quality headphones to listen through. As mentioned, this requires the purchase of an optional adapter.
I also tried the phone with a Bluetooth headset. The D900 easily paired with the headset, and audio quality over Bluetooth was good. Stereo audio over Bluetooth is also supported, though stereo Bluetooth headsets are just now starting to find their way to the American marketplace
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4.5
