Review of Samsung's SGH-P735 / P730

Samsung SGH-P735I first came across the Samsung SGH-p730 at the 2004 CeBIT show in Hannover, Germany. At the time, Samsung was touting the phone's unique form factor and 3D gaming engine. The form factor is certainly interesting, and the games look pretty sharp, so that's a good start. A megapixel camera and RS-MMC memory card slot help round out the spec sheet.

It's now almost a year later and we finally have the phone in hand, in the form of the T-Mobile USA SGH-P735 version. Many thanks to LetsTalk.com for supplying the phone to us.

Physical design

The Samsung SGH-P735 is not a small phone. The unique flipping and rotating hinge used to attach the upper half of the clamshell to the base adds quite a bit of weight and thickness to the device. Our test unit weighed in at 127g, which is fairly significant for such a phone. Closed, the SGH-P735 is 94mm long by 45mm wide (3.7" x 1.8") - not counting the stub antenna. That's not bad. Being 26mm (1") thick, though, is what makes it a bulky phone. By comparison, the Motorola V710, already a big phone, is only 23mm thick.

The finish of the phone is standard Samsung: silver paint. If feels solid, and seems to be reasonably scratch resistant. On the left side of the bottom half of the phone you will find a volume control rocker switch and the IR port. The right side of the base houses the RS-MMC card slot, a dedicated camera button, and the headset jack. The bottom is where you will find the power/data connector. The bottom connector and the headset jack both have a nicely attached cover that swivels out of the way when needed. The RS-MMC slot has an unattached cover that appears to have been an afterthought - the cover makes it much easier to install a card: you use the cover to push it in and secure it at the same time. Inserting a card w/o the cover can be difficult due to the thinness of the card.

Up top there is a stub antenna. It doesn't house an extendable whip antenna, even thought it might appear that way. The back of the handset is home to an external antenna port, the 1 megapixel camera's lens, and a dedicated microphone for use during video recording - which is a good thought. You'll also notice that the d-pad controller is accessible when the handset is closed. It doesn't not appear usable for any function in this position, though.

When you open the SGH-P735 up, it looks much like a regular clamshell. A little rubber stop on the top of the round d-pad housing keeps the device from opening up all the way flat - though it is possible to open it that way if you twist it 90 degrees first. The keypad keys are pretty nice and well back lighted. You'll find the standard red and green call control keys, a pair of softkeys, a dedicated clear key, and the typical numeric keypad. At the top of the keypad, by the hinge/d-pad, you will find another dedicated camera button. This is one of my major gripes with the SGH-P735 from a usability standpoint.

I find it very aggravating that the camera button is closer to the display than the softkeys are. It is just unnatural. The very high position of the d-pad relative to the keypad is already distracting. You really have to move a long distance to go back and forth between selecting something or navigating with the d-pad and hitting one of the softkeys to initiate an action. The camera button, being located closer to the d-pad, feels too much like a softkey. Samsung should have put the softkeys up top and put the camera button next to the C button. All of the issues; the height of the d-pad, the camera key, and the distance from the softkeys to their respective lables on the display, these all make navigating on the SGH-P735 far more cumbersome than one would like. Sure you can still operate it, sure you kinda get used to it, but it is just poor design.

 

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