Samsung U550

The Samsung U550 may look like a regular clamshell, but it’s packed with features, and at $49 it will be attractive to both parents and teens looking for a basic flip phone that doesn’t skimp on usability. Kids will love the ability to access Verizon Wireless’ music and video services. Meanwhile, parents will like the phone’s Chaperone Child feature, which will alert them if kids wander outside a proscribed area (school or camp, for example), and its budget pricing.

Design and Interface

The U550 is comfortable to hold in your hand and has a nice balance of size and weight. Measuring 3.8 x 1.9 x 0.7 inches and weighing 3.4 ounces, it’s small enough to stow away and light enough to forget it’s there. Its lid sports a reflective blue framing the display, and the rest of the body is silver with black accents. Aside from a small screen that displays the time, battery status, and connection, the face of the phone features three capacitive-touch music control buttons, so you can access your music library without opening the phone. Each glows red when pressed, and you can lock them with a switch on the side of the phone, should you decide that you don’t want music playing in your pocket. Conveniently, the screen also shows song information and album art, too.

Inside the clamshell is a 2.1-inch display that is both bright and colorful, and the resolution (220 x 176 pixels) is just high enough that icons look smooth. Below the display is a generously sized keypad and five-way navigation pad. We prefer the Sony Ericsson Z750a’s keyboard over the Samsung U550’s, but the latter’s was still easy to type on nonetheless. All the buttons are large and offered nice feedback, although the navigation controls felt a little cramped, and at times we’d hit the wrong key. The phone has volume controls and a lock button along the left side, a camera quick-launch button, speakerphone button, and a 2.5mm headphone jack on the right side.

Stodgy User Interface

One of the few things weighing the U550 down is its use of the Verizon Wireless menu system. This system has been nearly unchanged for years and is fairly inflexible in its functionality; for example, it doesn’t offer a Favorites menu like the Sanyo Katana LX does, or a unique media playback interface like the Sony Ericsson Z750a has (modeled after the PSP and PS3 interface). Nonetheless, after spending about five minutes with the U550, we got used to the menu structure and can access most of what you’d like in short order.

GPS

The Samsung U550 supports Verizon Wireless’ VZ Navigator version 4.1.2 software, which uses the phone’s assisted-GPS capabilities. The software is easy for beginners to pick up and provides turn-by-turn spoken directions as well as traffic conditions to the user. The service costs $9.99 per month, or $2.99 per day if you’d like to use it during a quick road trip. We downloaded the software in 30 seconds from the Tools on the Go menu.

VZ Navigator worked well and was fairly intuitive to use. The phone locked onto a satellite signal in less than a minute, accurately mapped a route between two points, and was able to correct the route when we took a wrong turn. Inside a building, it placed us about a block off course, but outdoors it was much more accurate and could serve as an in-car replacement if you blast the U550’s speaker.

Are the Kids Alright?

Parents who give their children a U550 can use the phone to keep tabs on them by activating the phone’s free Chaperone Child feature in-store or online. It will allow them to set a perimeter inside of which their child is free to roam and will alert the parent via text message if the kid leaves the predesignated area. Parents using this feature can go online and locate the phone—and presumably their child—on a map.