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Well, what a disappointment this phone has been. According to Samsung’s website this phone has a Standby time of up to 300 hours (12.5 days) dependant on network and provider. And according to Three’s (3) website a Standby Time of up to 160 hours (6.5 days) is quoted.

With virtually no use  from a fully charged battery (half dozen short calls and as many text messages), this phone is battling to get 36 – 48 hours maximum before it NEEDS recharging. Infact, after 1 day’s use, on the 2nd day if I go out, then the phone will need to be charged first, otherwise it’ll run out sometime during the day – not very MOBILE. And I’m incredibly pissed off with 3’s service & support calls being routed to Mumbai in India – I live in Australia and support should be here too (I feel the same regardless of product or service; if it’s being sold here, then support/service should be located here too).

So, after multiple calls over the 3 weeks I’ve had this phone, I finally drove the 50kms round trip to Perth where the ’service centre’ is located, and after explaining everything to the people there, I’m told that 1 – 2 days battery standby is normal for this phone. When I got home I phoned support again and had that opinion confirmed.

I’d like to know how 160 hours standby translates into 48 hours with little use !! It is misleading and deceptive advertising, and I informed them of such. I’m also getting lots of missed calls (no ringing despite being right next to the phone), and several dropped calls whilst talking; so their network coverage isn’t as good as they claim. I’ve also informed 3 that I intend cancelling the contract next week and returning the phone to them; I shall also be contacting Samsung – they may make great TV’s and PC monitors, and although the Ultra Touch is an amazing piece of technology, it is completely let down by poor battery performance .

All the features  in the world can’t make up for the fact that as mobile phone, it fails miserably  – a mobile phone must have good connectivity and as for being mobile, the battery must have good Standby Time, if not, it’s little better than a glorified hi-tech paper weight.

update:
After many more calls to 3 in Mumbai I finally get through to ‘Premium Support’ – after detailing the problems with the phone,and my intention to move to their sister company Vodaphone for a better phone and a better plan, they make some offers.

Fist they offer to exchange the phone for a new one, then the next day they inform me they have no stock, and offer me phones from lower plans – no way! So next after I refused to drive back to their service centre in Perth (because I’ve been there already), it was suggested that I buy a new battery for which 3 would credit my account – I tried several mobile phone shops (all 3 dealers), but couldn’t get a battery … ‘sorry we don’t stock any batteries, try Battery World‘

So I ended up buying a replacement after-market battery for which 3 credited my account;  note the battery is only a 700 milliamp, not 880 as factory. Battery World also informed me that the battery manufacturers state that lithium-ion batteries NEED a 15 hour first charge, regardless what Samsung, 3 or the phone charging software says – so that’s what I did, and this battery is doing better than original, but not by much … a standby of about 48 hours or a little bit more, still with minimal usage.

3 also put me on a higher cost plan ($49.00/mth) to meet call charges (their call discharge rate is higher than Telstra), but have include the $8.00 data pack (250 MB) at no cost for 12 months.

I’m still looking at getting an N97, as it offers better ‘actual’ battery standby time, has a slide out QUERTY keyboard, and provides full GPS/AGPS functionality (unlike Samsung’s where another $180 is required for 3rd party software);  but I’ll buy this phone outright, and use it with whoever I choose.