At first glance, the focus for the Samsung SGH-A727 is very obvious: its profile. Or, to be more specific, the phone is only 7/20 of an inch in thickness, making it one of the thinnest phones on the market. While some of the more popular mobile phones are even slighter, they have tended to be flip phones, making this candy-bar model somewhat unique. And with its other minimal dimensions (the phone is only 4-1/2 inches long by 1-49/50 inches wide), the phone weighs very little at 2.82 ounces. Yet despite its thin design, the phone offers quite a few options.

Now that so much business is performed via cell phone (not to mention the popularity of music downloading), 3G-network capability is quickly becoming a must-have feature. The SGH-A727 delivers on this front by supporting HSDPA, which due to its swift download speeds is often referred to as a 3.5G network. With this service, not only can you text photos and download songs quickly, web browsing is considerably quicker than on lesser networks. This becomes very important for users who wish to access streaming media content, and the SGH-A727 works with both AT&T Music as well as AT&T Video. Because of the excellent speeds, playing such files occurs with minimal hiccups and pixilation.

Videos are viewed on the 1-4/5-inch LCD above the dial pad. The screen supports up to 65K colors and delivers crisp viewing with the ability to adjust the size, color, and style of the menu fonts. Meanwhile, the menu configuration is very intuitive, with the most popular features accessible at the touch of a few buttons. Unfortunately, one of the larger drawbacks of this phone is its ease-of-use. Buttons on the dial pad are not particularly distinct from each other, making it difficult to dial by feel. Additionally, the multi-directional toggle is small, so people with larger thumbs will have difficulty navigating, and they will have even more trouble pressing the select button located in the toggle's center. But probably the biggest problem comes when you try to text message. Because of the small size of the buttons, along with the positioning of the camera at the very top of the phone, the device feels slightly off-balance and it's difficult to tap out messages with one hand.

On the back of the SGH-A727 is the lens for the 1.3-megapixel camera, and this feature works reasonably well. Photos can be taken in five different resolutions, but they lack definition, especially in low light conditions--a flaw that is further compounded by the lack of a flash. But there are numerous editing features to adjust settings such as white balance and brightness, along with the ability to do different things with the photos such as taking mosaic shots, or adding fun framing effects. The camera also supports a 4x digital zoom and a self-timer, but unfortunately there is not a self-portrait mirror. There is, however, a dedicated button so you can snap pictures quickly without having to toggle through menus.

Video for the camera is decent and can be taken in varying resolutions, each of which are up to par for what's an inexpensive camera phone. The length of your file is limited only by the available space. Files are stored in the 30MB internal memory with additional space supplied by the microSD card.

The music player is fairly barebones with few high-end features other than shuffle, but support for AT&T Music means that you have access to streaming radio. However, you cannot download songs directly to the phone as of yet. Instead, you have access to services such as Yahoo! Music and Napster, and once you have downloaded files from your PC, you can transfer them over to your phone. If the files are small enough, you can also use your MP3s as ring tones, without having to edit them with special software. AT&T Video, meanwhile, offers up music videos and clips from numerous sites including Comedy Central, NBC, The Discovery Channel, MSNBC, CNN, ESPN, The Disney Channel, and The Cartoon Network. For additional subscription charges, you can also access HBO.

Aside from the 3G aspects of the phone, the SGH-A727 is fairly straightforward. As such, one would expect attention to be paid to the quality of phone calls. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Reception on calls was subpar, with packets dropping (and occasionally the entire call dropping). There were also problems experienced with clarity on both ends of the conversation. The same was true of calls on the speakerphone. In particular, the low quality of the microphone was apparent to callers on the other end (sound quality was thin at best). Battery life, however, was reasonably good, measuring in at four hours of talk time and about nine days of standby.

Otherwise, the phone has many of the standard cell-phone features including an address book that can support up to 1000 contacts, each with the ability to store seven phone numbers and two e-mail addresses. Other features include: alarm clock, currency converter, tip calculator, notepad, calendar, voice recorder, and vibrating ringer. Overall, this is a stylish phone with speedy network access.

Pros: Nice LCD, thin, battery life, HSDPA network
Cons: Poor reception, small keys, difficult to text

Warranty
1 year