The Samsung Haven forgoes a camera not necessarily a detriment and focuses instead on making the calling features on this flip phone easily accessible. As with many senior phones, the Haven’s large font and dialpad keys are desirable attributes, as are the in case of emergency numbers and shortcut buttons to key features. The phone isn’t without its warts, which include mediocre call quality and some frankly hokey software offerings. However, $39.99 with a new two-year service agreement is a tough price to beat. The new Samsung Haven U320, though not a whole lot has changed, as it is still intended for the ‘senior demographic’ with a healthy-sized screen and keyboard. But is this the best phone for your Grandparents, or does it fall short? Let’s take a look and see.
For a flip phone, the Samsung Haven is a bit large, at 3.92 inches tall by 2 inches wide by 0.72 inch thick. Yet, the phone’s boxy solidity (3.49 ounces) makes it easy to hold despite a slick backing. The Haven is attractive enough with its dark gray exterior, black pinstripe accents, and muted black interior. On the front is the Haven’s 1.07-inch external display, which shows the time in large letters, and also the signal strength and battery life. You can illuminate the display after it fades by pressing and holding on the volume rocker.
The 2.2-inch display is bright and colorful, with a 176×220-pixel resolution and support for 65,000 colors. A large default font makes for easy reading, though you can further enlarge it. The screen shows the phone number, the time, and the date, and you can customize the wallpaper, banner, and backlight time.
The Haven is a dual-band 1xRTT (850/1900 MHz) device with no Wi-Fi. Voice calls sounded loud, crisp, and clear in both directions. The earpiece sounded warm and full, and went sufficiently loud. Reception was solid.
The main menu was well organized, and featured large, crisp fonts outlining the available function categories. One unusual touch: a “Wellbeing & Health” [sic] category includes several interesting apps, such as a fitness trainer app that displays various exercises in step-by-step fashion. There’s also a Healing Music player with four new-agey tracks and appropriate wallpaper, and a medical info notepad that lets you track medications, conditions, and other emergency info.
You can probably tell by now that this isn’t much of a multimedia phone. There’s no IM, e-mail, Web browser, music or video player, no card slot, no GPS, and—get this—no camera. They’re really not kidding about the simple thing. There’s 24MB of free internal memory for saving ringtones and, uh, that’s about it.
The Samsung Haven has a rated battery life of 5 hours, with up to 14 days of standby time. It has a tested talk time of 5 hours and 4 minutes. FCC tests measured a digital SAR of 0.41 watt per kilogram. Overall, the Haven is an OK device for those looking to just use it as a basic phone, with occasionally sending and receiving messages. But if you’re looking for some added features, then you may want to consider the LG Clout VX8370.
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