The Samsung SCH-A561 "Rainbow" mobile phone is the official mobile phone of Telstra's Mobile Loop service, and currently only available through that channel. Considering you are likely to get this phone if you choose to join Mobile Loop, and no service is fun through a bad device, we thought we'd give it a test run for you.

The Samsung SCH-A561 is the CDMA2000 1x version of the SGH-T100, and there are a lot of similarities and a lot of differences. The handsets of the two phones are almost exactly the same: A small 88 x 50 x 21.9mm unit that clam-shells open when you want to use it. On the front is a small two-tone display that contains most of the information you need -- time, signal strength, and battery charge, as well as notification of incoming calls and messages.

The 128x160 pixel colour screen of the aptly-named Rainbow is just as impressive as that of the T100, and viewable from all angles. There are the standard answer call, reject call/on-off button, as well as a dedicated "clear", which is quite useful. The two softkeys have been replaced with a 'menu' key and an 'OK' key, which also takes you straight to the messaging menu from the opening screen.

Also similar are the 12-button keypad, the volume buttons on the side and the series of buttons that together resemble a flying saucer. These four arrow buttons double as hotkeys to the address book, ringer tones, voice memo and address book. The button in the middle sends you straight to Telstra's Mobile Loop service.

Obviously, the phone has GPRS capabilities, otherwise it wouldn't run on Mobile Loop. Mobile Loop has a theoretical limit of 144kbps, although the actual speed will be somewhat lower than this. To investigate what is available on the data side of the phone, visit our review of the Mobile Loop service.

The display is better utilised in the Rainbow than in the T100. There are two menu styles you can choose from, and there are several 'wallpapers' -- including one of Telstra Mobile Loop. You can adjust the backlight time and the LCD contrast, and enter two different time zones. This last feature is enhanced by one of the wallpapers, a 'dual clock' mode that shows the two different times.

One thing the Rainbow lacks that the T100 has is a cable to link to the computer, and appropriate software for that. This means the images that come with the phone are pretty much the ones you are stuck with. You can e-mail images to the phone, but it's not clear how to manage them once they get there.

The service does allow you to download ringtones and easily utilise them, and the 40-tone polyphonic ringtone ability on the Rainbow means you can get some pretty successful tunes out of it.

On the traditional services, the Rainbow stacks up quite well. We found the call clarity on the CDMA service to be comparable to that of the GSM service, and standard menu options such as 'Calls' and 'Messages' to be easy to use. One thing that is surprising in a phone of this calibre is the lack of MMS capability.

The phone book has room for 250 entries (and there's a 'memory' function included to tell you how many spaces you have left) and allows you to store a lot of different information on each contact - including e-mail, Web address and birthday. You can assign different ringtones to each contact, and even assign one of a choice of several cartoons. The choices range from various people stereotypes to animals, so there's plenty of scope. One good feature of the phone book is the ability to make an entry "secret", effectively a security device that prevents people seeing the details unless they know a four-digit code. They can still dial the number, but won't see it displayed anywhere.

A 'Planner' menu contains calendar functions as well as alarm, calculator, world time and countdown applications. There are two games included with the phone, if you don't want to use the ones on Mobile Loop. Push Push is a PC standard requiring you to push crates onto certain positions, and Puzzle World mixes up pictures into nine or 16 tiles so you have to rearrange them into the original picture. The Nokia 3650 has an advantage over this version of the game by allowing the user to mix up their own pictures.

The mobile includes voice dial and voice answer, and the ability to set different ringtones to different alarms and callers.

The Rainbow is a good phone with some amazing features, such as the fantastic screen quality. However, any decision to purchase one of these mobiles is by necessity linked to a decision to use the Mobile Loop service, and should be considered accordingly. It is available free as part of a plan when you sign up on the service, with a AU$100 per month two year contract, which includes AU$100 worth of voice and data usage.

SGH-T100
Company: Samsung
Price: Dependant on plan chosen
Distributor: Samsung

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