. Stated to be the flagship of Cingular 3G, the SYNC from Samsung gets a good looking over from Eric Lin at PhoneScoop and others. After reading I get the feeling that Cingular is taking two steps forward and one step back with this handset.

The Samsung SYNC / SGH A707 receives high marks from Eric for data transmission and battery life but falls short with handset design, a user interface that is not intuitive, lackluster music, photo and JAVA performance. Subpar even to some 2G phones.

On the other hand, the Samsung SYNC was recently reviewed by CNET and received fairly high marks (7.3 from the editors, 8.5 from 20 users) in the multimedia department, getting praised for both its’ music and its’ 2 megapixel photo quality.

Luckily, CNET and Phonescoop agree that the menus could be improved, but CNET also sites poor call quality. A user over at enGadgetmobile claimed knowledge of internal docs from Cingular regarding problems with Windows Media rights-protected music. That further pushes down the Samsung SYNC, despite praise for its great entry price point, which is under $100.

With so much variation from the Time Gadget of the Week and the fact that Cingular is relentlessly dragging its’ feet with 3G implementation, I don’t know if you should sink $50 clams (after agreement) into the Samsung SYNC when there are other great handsets from Cingular and Samsung that may meet your needs.