Samsung M340 (Mantra) Cell Phone Review

The Samsung M340 Interior

Flip open the phone and you will find a TFT screen that measures 1.25” by 1.5,” as shown in Figure 8. The screen which has a resolution of 128 x 160, is a bit fuzzy an text looks slightly jagged. Although useable, we would have liked to see a screen with a better resolution.

Figure 8: The interior screen

The keyboard of the Samsung M340 is shown in Figure 9.

Figure 9: The keyboard

Although the keypad is backlit, the numbers are fairly small and the backlighting is dim. On the top of the keypad is a square four-way navigational pad with an OK button in the middle. To the sides of that are two keys with hyphens on them. These are used for on-screen choices. One nice feature is a Back key between the typical Talk and End keys.

Navigation is similar to other phones of this type. You can set the Menu to either Icon view of Text List. You scroll through Menu choices using the scroll pad. You make selections using the OK and hyphen keys.

The phone is easy to setup, but you must go through an activation process. This can be done with a telephone call to Common Cents or online at their website. The Common Cents website is informative and easy to navigate. Full usage instructions and the user manual can be found on the Common Cents website.

The
phone allows you to enter 500 contacts. It is easy to set up contacts and there is plenty of room for information. The address book will accept five telephone numbers, two e-mail addresses, and an IM address. You can assign ring tones, speed dial, and text tones to any contact and you can set up groups, as well.

Common Cents has a Contact Vault service lets you store your phone’s contacts online for safekeeping. With this service, you can transfer all of your contacts to a new Common Cents Mobile phone. If your phone is lost or stolen, the vault provides a backup and lets you erase the contacts on your missing phone, but retains the Vault information that stored online.