FairMusic playback is a natural fit for cell phones, as any iPhone user can tell you. But with the advent of cheap flash memory and DRM-free online music, it's now possible to carry 4,000 songs on a 4GB microSD card that costs no more than $30. Verizon is well aware of this, and hence presents the Samsung Trance SCH-u490, the latest in a long line of music-themed handsets like the LG Chocolate 3 VX8560 and the Samsung Juke SCH-u470. The midrange Trance is compelling given its attractive look, touch-sensitive controls, and powerful music player. But design and music performance issues, a lack of features, and a slew of competing music phone options make it tough to recommend the Trance highly.
The Samsung Trance is available in electric red or piano black; both come with a glossy black front panel. The handset measures 4 by 2 by 0.6 inches (HWD) and weighs 3.5 ounces. It's full of buttons, including a volume rocker, a lock switch, and a speakerphone toggle. Normally you don't need a separate lock button on a slider phone (since you can just slide the keypad closed), but the Trance's has one because it's easy to bump the side-mounted buttons while on a call. The front panel contains an array of haptic-feedback touch controls. The little vibrations are welcome, but overall the effect is disappointing: I'd rather have a regular control pad that picks up key presses on the first try. On the plus side, the handset slides vertically to reveal the numeric keypad via a smooth, rigid mechanism. The recessed keys are a bit tough to punch, but they engage with pleasant clicks.
Unlike most recent Verizon phones, the Trance is a dual-band (800/1,900-MHz) CDMA device but without a 3G EV-DO radio—a disappointment. Voice calls sounded a bit hollow on my end but were plenty loud for outdoors. I happened to test the Trance on a very windy day; callers were well aware I was walking in a stiff breeze, but no one had trouble understanding me. Reception was on the low side. I saw maybe two bars in 1X mode while other nearby Verizon handsets rang up three and four bars in EV-DO mode. Fortunately, this issue didn't surface in any of the Trance's test calls. The speakerphone offered punchy sound quality suitable for use outdoors. I also had no problem pairing with a Plantronics Voyager Pro Bluetooth headset; calls sounded great. But battery life was poor at 3 hours 36 minutes, reflecting the handset's slim profile (and consequent lack of room for a large battery).
The Trance comes with 2.1-inch, 176-by-220-pixel LCD screen that's standard for this class of device, and it features glittery, music-themed graphics on the home screen. Its Web browser is typical for Verizon: slow and hobbled, with the added downsides of a poky 2G radio and a relatively low screen resolution. On the other hand, the built-in GPS chipset means the Trance is VZ Navigator–compatible for voice-enabled, turn-by-turn directions at $2.99 per day or $9.99 per month. It also works with Verizon's Chaperone feature for keeping tabs on kids. The phone book can store 1,000 contacts; there's also a personal organizer, an alarm clock, a world clock, a calculator with unit converter, and a stopwatch on board.
You get some serious audio features here, but the results are mixed. Things begin well with support for Verizon V CAST with Rhapsody, a standard-size 3.5mm headphone jack, and a side-mounted microSD card slot for moving music on and off the phone easily. My 8GB SanDisk microSDHC card worked fine, and there's 1GB of internal memory if you don't have a card lying around. What's distinctive here is the inclusion of a Bang & Olufsen ICEpower speaker, which is there to amplify the sound coming out of the handset. Unfortunately, the claims made for the speaker's sound quality are all hype. Although the internal speaker goes a bit louder than those on most phones, it sounds tinny when playing music—worse than an iPhone 3G I had nearby, which went almost as loud and didn't make me want to plug my ears with cotton. I even pitched the Trance some easy targets, like Billy Idol's 1980s classic "White Wedding," which has a full mid-bass and soft treble. It's a track many small speakers do well with, but not the Trance.
Wired audio performance via the headphone jack was also disappointing. System of a Down sounded harsh and indistinct through a set of Creative Zen Aurvana earbuds, especially when compared with the iPhone 3G playing the same tracks through the same earbuds. Fiddling with the Trance's various EQ presets and surround-sound modes made everything sound worse, not better, but that's typical for digital sound enhancements. Fortunately, a paired set of Motorola MotoROKR S9-HD stereo Bluetooth headphones sounded the way they typically do. You can also pair the Trance with two separate stereo Bluetooth headsets to let a friend listen—a nice touch. Also, the phone can play music in the background while you surf the Web or read e-mail.
The Trance's music features may be pumped up, but Samsung chose a camera with circa-2006 specs. The 1.3-megapixel sensor lacks an LED flash and autofocus capability. There's also no video recorder, an unusual omission. Fortunately, test photos were fine given the low specs. The handset had some trouble with light balance and blacked out low-light spots, but overall the pictures were well balanced and offered reasonable detail—the Trance did infinitely better in this respect than the Motorola EM330 on AT&T, which offers the exact same specs on paper but does not take good photos.
Those who want a phone that does music well have plenty of choices on Verizon. If you plan on surfing the mobile Internet, go for the LG Chocolate 3. It offers a full QVGA screen and a 3G data radio but keeps the dedicated music controls. At $89.99 (with two-year contract), the Chocolate 3 costs $40 more than the Trance but is worth the money. The music-focused Samsung Juke is decidedly low tech compared with either of these, but at this writing, it's free when you sign a contract. The Nokia 7205 Intrigue is a slimmer model with better touch controls, a hidden OLED front-panel display, a 3G radio, a QVGA (240-by-320-pixel) internal display, and a more robust 2-megapixel camera. But at $129 it's more expensive, and it has a few voice quality issues. Finally, the $99 LG enV2 VX9100 is a solid music phone option, with the added advantage of a concealed QWERTY keyboard for messaging.
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