Samsung SPH-M520

When it comes to cell phones, sometimes "good enough" is actually pretty nice. For example, although the Samsung SPH-M520 is not a great mobile phone, it's fine for people who want to start dabbling in the wide world beyond voice but don't necessarily need all the capabilities of a smart phone. Still, there are better choices out there for folks interested primarily in talking or texting.

The M520 is a wide, silvery slider with comfortable, nicely spaced keys. At a slim 4 by 2 by 0.5 inches (HWD) and 2.3 ounces, it won't bulk you up or weigh you down.

The 2.2 inch, 176 by 220 pixel screen is unusually large and bright. Volume and camera buttons occupy the device's sides, along with a micro-SD card slot that accepts cards up to 4GB my 4GB SanDisk card just worked fine.

One attractive innovation is the phone's home screen.

Many people aren't aware of exactly how powerful today's feature phones are, so sprint pulled some of its best none calling features right to the top menu level, such as GPS navigation, music, streaming TV, and e-mail. It's a pleasant reminder of the things you can do apart from just talking.

As for audio quality, the M520 delivers faithful, well rounded sound. Transmission through the microphone sounded loud and clear, though background noise came through as well. The speaker phone also sounded fine.

Reception could have been much better, though the M520 performed poorly when connecting calls in weak signal areas. Battery life, at 3 hours 47 minutes of talk time, is acceptable.