At first glance, technophiles may not give the Samsung Reclaim a second look as the phone lacks some high tech features, but the Reclaim is more than just marketing gimmick. And if you give it a chance, the phone actually will leave you feeling foolish for labeling it as purely the trendy fashion accessory or among the neo-hippy, tree-huggers. Rather, it’s a sophisticated handset that grows in charm, does good for the environment, and curiously juggles a fine balance between form, function, and usability.
The Samsung Reclaim isn’t America’s first eco-friendly mobile handset. Rather, Motorola was first to market with the Renew, but I am focusing my review on Samsung’s CDMA Reclaim, available on Sprint’s EVDO wireless network.
Packaging: The packaging of the Reclaim is truly unique. Samsung and Sprint partnered to use a hard cardboard that seems untreated, reminding me a lot of expensive, high end art supplies. Its more subdued than some of the more decadent smartphone packaging out there, like the MyTouch 3G Android handset on T-Mobile, but the handset still retains a luxurious, minimalistic sense of style, class, and high-end art feel. The outer sleeve contains a picture of the phone as well as some text, all printed from soy ink.
printed with Soy ink, and is compact as to not waste space and save on
freight and fuel in transporting
Removing the cardboard sleeve, the theme continues with the cardboard materialthis time, plain and untreated with no writing or pictures. Lifting the flaps leads to the revealing of a compartmentalized box feeling, much like a nice pencil box with trays. There are two trays. One tray holds the phone, made from the same unbleached cardboard material, and the second tray reveals a package with a quick start guide, some documents, and an envelope to send your old phone and accessories to Samsung and Sprint for recycling.
Lifting the two trays reveal an Energy Star compliant charger and a compartment for the 1000 mAh battery, which actually lasts for 6 hours of continuous talk on Samsung’s EVDO 3G network. The charger is micro USB, which is nice as it can be cross-compatible with other micro USB devices. Samsung ditched their proprietary charge and sync jack, implemented a standard charge, and made the charger smart.
So how is the charger smart? The charger actually shuts off and consumes less power when plugged in and idle than a traditional charger, meaning less energy consumption.
I truly do appreciate the thoughtfulness of the soy ink, unbleached cardboard packaging made from recycled materials, and the recycling envelope. Samsung did a fabulous job of thinking green about the phone, both inside and out.
Form: Made from bio-plastics, essentially corn, the Reclaim takes styling cues from its bigger Windows Mobile brother, the Propel Pro, with the sliding QWERTY keyboard and large screen that covers the diminutive fascia. The unit is small, measuring a mere 3.9-inch by 2.3-inch when closed, with an organic shape that echoes its green roots, much like the Palm Pre.
The Reclaim is available in two colorsgreen and baby blue. The device has a large 2.6-inch landscape screen with soft keys and call and end keys. It has a circular directional pad as well as two circular buttons that flank either side for quick hardware button access to speakerphone and the back key. At first, the Reclaim didn’t seem as polished as its smartphone brethren like the Samsung Jack, but I’ve grown to like its whimsical looks.
Its hardware keyboard, when the screen is slid up in portrait slider mode, is actually one of the most comfortable I’ve used. Its not as large as the keys on the awesome Motorola Q9h keyboard, and doesn’t have contours and ridges like the newer BlackBerry Curve 8900 keyboard, but offers a good amount of tactile feel and isn’t too stiff nor mushy. In fact, I found the tactile feeling of the keys more balanced and uniformed than the Samsung Jack.
The 1000 mAh battery lasts for quite some time without needing recharge. Moderate users can go for around two days of using the phone.
The handset also has a 3.5 mm headphone jack, which is nice as no adapter is needed so no energy or resources are wasted in creating a disposable adapter. This is quite the about face for Samsung, which has traditionally used a proprietary jack, as evident in the Windows Mobile Omnia.
Utility: The Reclaim is an interesting proposition. It’s not quite a smartphone, but it’s more than a dumb phone, otherwise known as a feature phone. However, despite Samsung PR’s claims that the phone actually synchronizes with Outlook, like many smartphones do, the Reclaim actually only syncs with Outlook Web Access (OWA). Not all is lost for the smartphone user. Plugging in your Exchange account with Outlook Web Access will enable you to retrieve emails, sync contacts, and get calendar appointments.
Moreover, if you’re on the consumer side and don’t wish to go with an Exchange account, its Google integration can give the Android OS a run for its money. Although the Google integration isn’t as deeply integrated, for a non-smartphone, the Reclaim does a great job. You can plug in your Gmail credentials and get access to email, Google Calendar, and Google Contacts.
The phone also packs in a decent browser and good call quality. Outgoing calls sounds great, but calls on the user’s end felt a bit hollow and there was a bit of noticeable static. Calls overall were good, but could be better.
The integrated out-of-the-box Google Maps for Mobile experience is also smart. A recent study found that having a connected GPS experience with traffic actually helps to shave off four days for every year per driver. That not only means less time stuck in traffic for you, but it also means saving gas and lowering your emissions.
The phone has a simple, but smart carousel UI. Navigating with the directional pad left or right brought up tabs that shows more options on the main screen. In fact, in use, I am reminded that it’s a less feature rich version of TouchFLO 2D.
Samsung’s green intentions didn’t stop just on the phone design and on the packaging. The firm made sure that the green experience surrounds the phone. There is a tab on the carousel for “Best of Green,” which shows you some simple steps to being more eco-friendly, a green glossary, some green guides, and best practices of what’s being done out there to make our Earth last for many more generations to come.
For a revisit to the whimsical side of the phone, the Reclaim packs in some colorful ringtones with nature sounds like crickets, streams, and chirping birds.
Conclusion: If you’re the type of user that derives all your information over the air (OTA), you should consider the Samsung Reclaim. You can download Java apps at your leisure, navigate with Sprint Navigator or find your way with Google Maps, and find your appointments and talk to friends with Outlook Web Access synchronization. And because you’re doing most things OTA, a computer is not needed, saving energy in having to power the computer and synchronizing your phone.
If the Reclaim is what is to come from Samsung, I am excited about the prospect of eco-friendly, smartphones and smarter phones. The company already has plans for another handset, called the Blue Earth, which is a non-smartphone smarter phone like the Reclaim that packs in a touchscreen and is made from recycled plastic water bottles rather than bio-plastics.
At the Greening Up media event, Samsung has committed to bringing the Omnia II to the US, stating that the handset will be the world’s largest OLED smartphone to date. OLED is a great, greener technology as it consumes less power than LCD screens, typically found in resistive and capacitive touchscreens.
Back to the Reclaimwhile I understand that the io-plastics is meant to help the phone “decompose” after it has reached its end of life. However, that thought makes me sad as it is quite a chic phone that intelligently marries form, function, and utility. It takes a minimalist zen approach to the cluttered world of apps and complicated user interfaces of smartphone.
The Reclaim is available now from Sprint for $50 after two-year service agreements, instant savings, and mail in rebate. Best of all, to affirm their commitments to the environment, Samsung and Sprint will donate $2 of proceeds to the Nature Conservancy Adopt an Acre program.
Pros:
-Smarter phone concept handles Outlook Web Access and integrates with Google nicely
-Great messaging phone
-Green theme is thought through the entire phone experience from packaging to phone to after the phone has reached its end of life.
-Samsung did a great job of creating a green experience that transcends marketing talk.
-Attractive, eco-friendly packaging doesn’t detract from a glamorous unboxing experience
-Energy Star charger intelligently consumes less power when idle
-Gren guide is built-in
-GPS and connected navigation experience should theoretically help to shave 4-days of traffic time per yearthat means less power and energy consumption!
-Long battery life between re-charges
-Bio-plastics mean the phone can decompose when it is thrown out
-Outgoing voice quality sounds really good and warm
-Can’t wait to see what Samsung and other manufacturers come up with
Cons:
-Not a smartphone
-Call quality could be richer. Outgoing calls sounds warm, but on the user’s end, call quality was not great.
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