Straight Talk Samsung Finesse R810c

Touch Screen Phone With 2 MP Camera, MP3 Player, and Web 

The Straight Talk Samsung Finesse R810c was one of the first touch screen prepaid or no-contract phone available in the USA. It was priced above $300 putting it out of many people's budgets. Still, it had a lot of nice features as you can see below.

Color Touch Screen

The R810 has a “hi-res” color touch screen instead of the usual buttons. When you want to dial a number or send a text message, a virtual keyboard appears on the display screen and you press the buttons that are displayed. For sending text messages, you can turn the phone sideways and type out your text message on the virtual QWERTY keyboard.

2 Megapixel Camera

The 2 megapixel camera on the Straight Talk Samsung Finesse R810c takes photos at up to 1600 x 1200 resolution. This is a step up from the R451C and should give you some pretty nice pictures that you can even print. You can adjust the settings of the camera for different lighting conditions and also set the brightness separately. There are even some nice tinting (what Samsung calls “shutter tones”) effects such as B&W and Sepia tones. The camera doesn’t just take still pictures, it’s also a . . .

Camcorder

You can take video at up to 320 x 240 resolution. You can even set the timer if you want to get in the video yourself, which is pretty cool. You can find out more about how to use the camera by checking out the the Straight Talk Samsung Finesse R810c tutorials

MP3 Music Player

You can play all your favorites mp3 tunes as long as they fit on a 16 GB microSD card which you can slip into your Straight Talk Samsung R810 phone. This is a great way of passing the time when you’re on the go and don’t want to carry another mp3 player around with you.

Bluetooth Stereo

The experience gets even better if you’ve got a stereo Bluetooth headset. Then you don’t have to mess with those wires.

When you get tired of music or your podcasts, you can get on the we.

Mobile Web

You have access to the mobile web. It’s not unrestricted, but you can go to Google, Yahoo, and Windows Live, which means you can access your email there.

There are some further capabilities you have via widgets including one especially important one.

TouchWiz Widgets

The R810 is capable of running small widget-like application. These so-called TouchWiz apps are supposed to be based on an open platform, but it’s not clear yet, if these will be available on the R810. But what is probably the most important app you could have is already there.

Facebook

You can access Facebook from your Straight Talk Samsung Finesse R810c phone. (This was a big deal at the time.) Combining that with the inexpensive unlimited plan sounds fantastic.

Great. So what else do you need to know?

Talk, Text etc.

You can make all the phone calls and send all the texts you want if you get the Straight Talk Samsung Finesse R810c with the $45 unlimited plan. Even with the $30 All You Need plan, you get 1000 minutes and you can send up to 1000 messages. If the All You Need plan is all you want, then it'll just cost you $30 every 30 days. You only get 30 MB of data with this plan, however, so if you’re planning on making extensive use of the Facebook app, you’ll need the unlimited plan.

Here are a few more nice things about this phone:

Hearing Aid Capability

The R810 is rated M4 which is the higher rating and makes this a good phone if you want this capability. I’ve never understood why companies release phone with the lower rating but they do. So it’s nice to have a high end phone with this rating.

Voice Dialing and Speech Recognition

This Straight Talk phone runs on Verizon’s excellent network, and has voice dialing capabilities. This comes in handy when you don’t want to touch the screen.

500-Entry Phone Book

Some phones with these capabilities sometimes sacrifice the Phone book space to save memory, but here they’ve at least provide for 500 entries, which is probably good enough. In a pinch, you can use the web access to access the address book in your email accounts for more info.

Physical Features

Size and Weight

The phone measures 2.3 x 4.6 x 0.5 inches and weighs 3.6 ounces.

Battery Life

Battery life is pretty good on the Straight Talk Samsung Finesse R810c at 4.5 hours talk time and up to 12 days standby time. This is just a rough measure of the battery strength. After all, if you get this phone, you’re going to be using it and not letting it sit on standby. You should charge it every night.

Which Plan?

By getting a Straight Talk Samsung Finesse R810C you pay up front for a full-featured phone and enjoy the savings of having a touch screen no-contract mobile phone, with a music player and 2.0 MP camera that costs you as little as $30 a month for a 1000 minutes and 1000 text messages.

Of course the R810C costs more than most prepaid phones, and it may or may not be for you. You should think carefully before you order. There is a 30-day guarantee (from their website):