Samsung Mythic a897 Phone
Filed in Phone Cell on Feb.06, 2010
- 3G-enabled messaging/social networking phone with 3.3-inch touchscreen and intuitive Samsung TouchWiz interface
- Compatible with AT&T Video Share, AT&T Mobile Music, and streaming video from Cellular Video service; AT&T Mobile TV capabilities
- 3.2-megapixel camera/camcorder; Bluetooth stereo music; MicroSD memory expansion to 16 GB; access to personal email
- Up to 3 hours of talk time, up to 360 hours (15 days) of standby time
- What’s in the Box: handset, rechargeable battery, charger, USB cable, quick start guide, user manual
Amazon.com Product Description
With one-touch access to features including AT&T Mobile TV and social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, the Samsung Mythic for AT&T is a portable entertainment powerhouse. It features a 3.3-inch touchscreen with virtual keyboard and Samsung’s innovative TouchWiz user interface, which allows you to simply drag and drop widgets for your favorite and most commonly used features and functions on the phone’s home screen.
The Samsung Mythic’s large 3.3-inch touch display makes it an ideal device for viewing AT&T Mobile TV. This phone can quickly download video, music and more over AT&T’s lightning quick HSPDA 3G network. And the Mythic is the newest AT&T Mobile TV-capable d… More >>
February 7th, 2010 at 1:51 am
I put in the cd and it stated that “file to large AOL cant open. Went on line cant seem to find the manual anywhere.Cant say if I like the phone yet or not.Went shopping for a protective case -there are none out yet. Went shopping for a screen cover-there are none out yet.So with out a manual I will sit here and just keep on pressing the screen and see what happens lol
Rating: 4 / 5
February 7th, 2010 at 3:20 am
Sumsang sucks at their PC software for this phone. Their current PC software (called Samsung New PC Studio) CANNOT even sync outlook address book with the phone!!! What kind of smart phone is this stupid? I have got close to a hundred contacts on my old blackberry. I dumped them into outlook and plan to upload them into this phone I just bought, and their software does not even support the sync function!!!
Ok. Just in case you are like me, who got stuck with Samsung’s stupidity, here is the fix if you are lucky enough to find the following links still exist:
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The second link provides the detailed instruction, which I re-state here:
How to sync the AT&T Samsung Mythic sync with Outlook tasks, contacts, and calendar via PC studio or other sync software? As this problem, some users are saying that the Samsung Mythic does not sync with Outlook by using PC studio.But other some users say there are able to sync their Mythic phone with outlook. Here’s how they do it.
Note: The version of New PC Studio for the Mythic does not have the phonebook sync feature, but the build Samsung_NPS_1.2.1.IH1 does have it.
1. first installed the PC studio for the Mythic Samsung_NPS_For_Mythic_Build_IH3
2. After seeing it did not have the phone book sync feature uninstalled it and installed IH1 version list above. 3. After hooking up the phone please get the phonebook window
you can’t see the option on the bottom of the program where you select the function you want. you only have Media Manager just like in the IH3 version .But the phonebook window is open with the x to close the window greyed out.
4, The sync worked perfectly so the software needed to get the job done is present on the Myth
Rating: 1 / 5
February 7th, 2010 at 4:44 am
There is NO wired option to make phone calls with the Mythic. I have contacted Samsung and after many emails, their final response was:
“In summary, the 3.5 is designed to allow for both music and calls. However at this time there is not an accessory that can complete both functions. Your option for both functions would be to use a Stereo BT device.
Thanks,
Technical Support”
They will not admit they screwed up. They only will say that there are no accessories invented that will work with the 3.5mm jack even though every other phone with a 3.5mm jack works fine with any phone compatible headphone. CLASSIC!! Please call Samsung and let them know that this is unacceptable.
Rating: 1 / 5
February 7th, 2010 at 4:57 am
The Samsung Mythic looks like an iPhone, but it is far from being able to be an iPhone.
This is a feature phone, so it does not require a data plan. However, a lot of applications in the phone requires data access to the network. So if you do not want to pay for a data plan ($15/month), a lot of the goodies are wasted. There is no WiFi, but it is not expected in this range of phone anyway.
The screen is large and beautiful, but it is a capacitive touch screen, so it requires you apply pressure on the screen to register the click. Of course there is no multi-touch. However, it tries to allow you to do grad and drop operation. As you know, applying pressure on a plastic screen while draging on the screen at the same time never has a good experience.
The touch wiz interface from Samsung is pretty good, it allows a lot of customizaiton, and you can customize 3 home screens with widgets and up to 5 screens in the main menus. You can arrange the location, add or take out icons in the main menu. It is pretty neat. I spend about 30 minutes to arrange the meny icons to the grouping I like, and take the icons I don’t like to the last screen.
There are 3 dedicated buttons at the bottom, left is call, center is back, and right is cancel button, which takes you to the home screen. Such layout works pretty well.
The problem with the Samsung touch wiz screen is that it is very easy for yout to unintentially move widgets on the home screen.
There is accelerometer, but not every operation of the phone takes advantage of it. You can only use it when you type using the on screen QWERTY keyboard. The on-screen keyboard is not bad, I do not mistype as much as I do on an iPhone.
The battery is rated 1150mAh, 4.26Wh.
The phone supports Korea display language and Korean input. I wish it has Chinese and Japanese too. That will be very cool.
This phone comes with a USB cable, so you can sync with Samsung PC Studio, Windows Media Player, or use it as a portable thumb drive. The Samsung PC Studio is a joke. I gave up on it right away. Synch with Windows Media Player is pretty good, but I have no idea where I can find the music on the phone after the music is sync.
I expect the phone has good media playback function like an iPod or Zune. I am very disappointed. It does not support most of the podcasts mp4 video I downloaded, because it either does not support the codec, or it says the video resolution is too high.
I sync the Windows Media Player default clip that shows a HD video of wild life. When playing back on this phone, it looks so pixelated, it looks like it is shot in the wilderness with a camera phone.
MP3 playback is good, and you can create your playlist. However, the speaker that comes with the phone is so bad, you cannot hear a thing when it tries to play the music on the speaker. I thought the speakers on iPhone is bad, this speaker trumps the iPhone on badness. The good thing is, there is a 3.5mm headphone jack. However, I heard you cannot use this jack with a headset with microphone.
The CPU of this phone is pretty slow, a lot of UI animation and transition feels sluggish.
There is light senser on the phone, so when you use it as a phone, you are not doing any face dialing.
So, what can you use the phone for? Making calls is OK, not better or worse than other phones, but the speaker phone is pretty weak. Playing video is a no no. Playing mp3 is OK as long as you are using a head phone. Many AT&T applications requires data on the network, which costs extra each month. You can wave this phone to your friend and say you pay a penny on a phone that looks like an iPhone. If you consider the price you pay and what you get out of this phone, this phone is a steal.
I think in the near future, this class of feature phones are improved to include a faster CPU, capacitive touch screen, and AMOLED screen,
Rating: 3 / 5
February 7th, 2010 at 7:41 am
Ive had this phone since 11/21/2009,or should I say, I’ve had three of them!! I’ve had to replace it again and again because of faulty software…first the screen letting you know what you’ve rec’d, ex; text, call…wont open until you’ve hit it at least 10 + times, then the texting was delayed and the screen would not tip sideways when turned on its side…now awaiting my third Mythic in a little over a month! That is hideous. I should have just gone with my first instinct to get the iphone, but thought the Mythic was perfect for me, not too much phone and not alot I didnt need, yet still have the great touch screen features and internet. Boy was I wrong….Beware the Mythic…Happy for you if you got one of the few nondefective ones. Next time I’ll be more careful and take more time buying a phone fresh off the line!
Rating: 2 / 5