Samsung's SGH-A617 with American 3G

There are very few branches of the government capable of brightening our day, but as usual, leave it to the FCC to take a rather bland Thursday and turned it right into an entry-level 3G lovefest. Though the documentation makes zero mention of a destination carrier -- and the handset itself is carrier logo-free -- it's safe to say that the SGH-A617 is destined for AT&T on account of its WCDMA support on the 850 and 1900MHz bands. Strangely, the user's manual makes no mention of Video Share, though that might be attributed to the fact that this partiular prototype is unbranded. Other features include Bluetooth, a camera of unknown resolution, an external display, and an unfortunate (and entirely unwanted) aerial antenna. We'll cut it some slack if the signal strength turns out to be killer.

[Via Phone Scoop]

[(Unverified) Posted May 10th 2007 5:26PM]

on a sad note this phone looks exactly like the d-407 that at&t currently carries

[(Unverified) Posted May 10th 2007 9:28PM]

um, isn't at&t GSM based, not cdma?

[(Unverified) Posted May 16th 2007 7:01PM]

@1 sadly, almost all the samsungs look the same

@2, gsm's umts (3g) is wcdma

@news, why would it reference video share? this doesnt have a cam that faces the user. unless you mean to receive signal.

[DonaldMick Posted May 11th 2007 8:51AM]

Jeff: The key there is "W"CDMA (Wideband CDMA). It's the 3g upgrade path for GSM networks.

And when it comes to Samsung phones, "xx7" usually means "attingular" (also, "xx9" = T-Mobile).

[(Unverified) Posted May 11th 2007 7:45PM]

I've never found external antennas mean better reception -- and on flip phones I find it makes it worse when the antenna is mounted on the hinge like this one. Your hand covers it up when holding the phone to you head, killing the 1900Mhz signal. The RAZR style built in antenna at the bottom works so well because you hand is no where near it when holding the phone up to your head.

(And I must say my RAZR V3xx has amazing reception -- one of the best phones I've used. Much better than a Blackjack -- which isn't too bad.)