Samsung SPH-M520

The SPH-M520 has a design that we've seen many times before from Samsung. In case you haven't noticed, we're growing a little tired of the thin slider phone trend. However, since Samsung keeps pumping them out, we might be in the minority. At 4.01 inches by 2.04 inches by 0.5 inch and 2.75 ounces the SPH-M520 is neither too big nor too small it slips easily into a pocket and it won't weigh you down.

The slider mechanism is sturdy enough but we could still open and close the phone with one hand. The SPH-M520's 262,000 colors display measures a generous 2.1 inches (176x220 pixels). Like many Samsung displays, it's bright and colorful and shows just about everything well. You can change the brightness, the back lighting time, and the dialing font size and color.

The basic menu interface is easy to use but Samsung added a new layer to the standby screen. There you will find shortcut icons to seven functions the main menu, the On Demand content, Sprint TV, the Sprint Music Store, email, GPS, and a menu for checking your Sprint account balance.

You can cycle though the options while pressing the navigation toggle and make your selection with the OK key. It's a convenient arrangement but you can turn it off and use the traditional toggle shortcuts instead.

The navigation controls are well designed and are much better than many slider phones. The square toggle is large and is raised above the surface of the SPH-M520.

We had no problem thumbing through the menus and selecting options using the tactile OK button. Surrounding the toggle are two soft keys, a dedicated speaker phone button (nice), a Back key and the Talk and End or power controls. The keypad buttons are also released and are neatly separated form each other. Quick texters shouldn't have a problem.

Finishing the exterior of the phone are a volume rocker and the charger port or headset jack on the left spine and a camera shutter key and the microSD card slot on the right spine. The SPH-M520 has a 500-contact phone book with room in each entry for five phone numbers, an email address, a Web address, a nickname, and notes. You can save contacts to groups and pair them with a photo and one of 19 (72 chords) polyphonic ringtones for caller ID.

Other essentials include a vibrate mode, text and multimedia messaging, a file manager, a speaker phone, a calendar, a scheduler, a voice recorder, an alarm clock, a memo pad, a calculator, a countdown timer, a task list and a world clock. You'll also find stereo Bluetooth, USB mass storage, GPS support with Telenav access, voice dialing and commands, wireless backup for your contacts, modem capability, email and instant messaging and PC syncing. The SPH-M520 also offers audible caller ID that will route through to a Bluetooth headset.