After covering the camera and the web browser in separate posts, the biggest “extra feature” left for me to review is the mp3 player. I was happy with the sound quality on this model. Despite the very limited equalizer options, music sounded very good. It’s not quite as good as an iPod in my opinion, but it’s pretty close. It’s also a big plus that you can use standard headphones to listen to mp3s, since some other models require an adapter or special headphones.

However, I was once again disappointed with the navigation and organization of the mp3 player software. It appears to be the same software as on the Samsung r451c, which is also available for Straight Talk. The problem with this music player software is that I could not find any easy way to setup playlists to play in a specific order. All songs played in alphabetic order, as determined by the file name. Even when songs were added to a playlist, the songs were sorted by filename rather than any custom order determined by the user.

The music player can be shifted to the background while you do other things such as take pictures, browse your photo gallery, or compose text messages, but NOT while you browse the web, which is unfortunate. Incoming phone calls will interrupt your music, but the music then resumes automatically when the call is either rejected or ended.

Another feature that is sadly lacking is the ability to add your own apps. There are a few different sites that advertise as offering free downloadable applications for the Finesse. I tried two different sites that I found, and in each case the r810 failed to even download the applications I chose, let alone install them. And in the case of the Opera mini browser, I attempted to download directly from the opera site. In this case, the downloaded completed, but then the phone said the filetype was unsupported. This lack of application support really limits the functionality of this device.

The organizational tools are pretty standard, although I must say that the qwerty keyboard makes entering appointments into the calendar a breeze. The notepad is also nice, especially if you use the handwriting entry method I showed in the text messaging video. The alarm clock works fine as well, and I like that it allows to set the volume of the alert tone, as well as the snooze duration and number of snoozes for each separate alarm. This can be very helpful if you use the alarm function a lot, as you don’t need the same settings for all of your alarms/ reminders. The alarm has a limit of 4 alarms; after that you’ll need to use the calendar instead.

Voice service is a very nice feature on this phone. I found that it was quite accurate in deciphering my spoken commands, even when I was using my bluetooth headset. I used it both for calling people from my contact list (for example, “Call Bob Smith”), and for directly dialing a number (such as “Call 9-8-7-5-5-5-1-2-3-4″). This could be very helpful if you’re using your phone while driving (in which case, remember, safety first – you’re navigating a potential deadly weapon down the highway!)

Other tools include world time, calculator, stop watch, unit converter, and tip calculator. These are pretty commonplace, so I won’t take the time to explain them here other than to say that they function properly.

The Finesse comes with 150 mb of internal memory, but also includes the microSD memory card slot for tons of extra storage. The phone accepts memory cards of up to 32gb, which is a ton of space even if you’re loading up on mp3s and videos for mobile entertainment. If you’re looking for a starter memory card, though, I’d suggest 2 or 4gb, which are very reasonably priced. For example, check out this $10 4gb card from Amazon.

Here are a couple other random thoughts that I didn’t squeeze in elsewhere in the review, so I’m including them now in bullet-point form:

• I was able to transfer my contact list from one bluetooth-enabled phone to the Finesse.
• My iPod headset, which is also the same as used by the iPhone, worked extremely well with the Finesse both for listening to audio and for use during calls. Here’s the pair that I use.

Well, that’s pretty much the extent of my written content about this phone. I’ll be back soon with a conclusion to summarize it all.