We first saw the Samsung Wave GT-S8500 at Mobile World Congress 2010 and this is the first phone from Samsung to run the Bada OS. The OS is not on par with Google's Android or Apple iOS but you will still get that smartphone experience irrespective of geographical location or cost. Samsung says that it is still pretty committed to Windows and Android Phone but still the new OS is pretty exciting. This phone is available unlocked for $370 to $400 which will certainly make a hole in your pocket. The display of the Samsung Wave GT-S8500 is 3.3 inches big (measured diagonally) and it has a AMOLED touch screen. It supports 16 million colors along with WVGA resolution. There are plenty of goodies that come along with AMOLED display like better improved responsiveness and viewing angles. However, the best feature of this technology is the sharpness which is really good. The better quality certainly cannot be described in words here and if you haven't checked out an AMOLED display yet, we will  [...]

Samsung Vibrant has a four inch Super AMOLED touch screen and I think this is the reason behind the name. The screen supports about 16 million colors along with a WVGA resolution. The screen is extremely sharp and very vibrant. Text is really easy to read and the screen is readable even in bright daylight. If you ask me to compare this display with the iPhone's I'd say that the Vibrant's screen is a bit more saturated. It shows rich colors and the blacks too are deeper. On the other side, iPhone's screen is crisper. Vibrant's screen is also quite responsive. It registered my taps quite well and the scrolling too was fast and smooth. Apart from that, there is built in accelerometer which quickly changes the screen rotation when you tilt the phone. You have plenty of input options like the Samsung's own keyboard, Swype,  and the standard Android keyboard. Below the screen, there are four touch sensitive buttons for search, menu, back and home. There are not too many physical buttons on  [...]

When I first got this phone in my labs it took me some time digest the name of the phone. Isn’t the name ‘Smiley’ a bit gay? They have even put the emoticon on the model name for this. I wasn’t too happy about the name and I certainly won’t recommend this phone to any of my male friends. The Samsung reps told me that there is a guy hired by the company who comes with all these names. If he is reading this review, I would like to tell him to think a bit harder before he comes up with the names. Other than the name, the phone is quite decent. Samsung Smiley has a slider design and you have to slide the phone up to reveal the QWERTY keyboard. The display of the phone is pretty decent. There is that emoticon on the home screen wallpaper which irritates me even more. I am just glad that Samsung didn’t engrave the icon somewhere on the back or front. The emoticon is there just on a wallpaper which you can change and get rid of it. Below the  [...]

Samsung Captivate is a huge phone and by it looks, I certainly think it will be a direct competitor to the iPhone 4. Samsung has recently launched a whole new line of Galaxy S handsets and Samsung Captivate is one of them. The big display is really gorgeous and I was drooling on it for hours in my labs. Samsung just sent me the phone but they didn’t tell me the price or the release date so I really don’t know much about it. The company did tell me that they are going to release it this summer so if you are planning to buy a cell phone, I would recommend you to keep your check book closed and wait to see what this phone has to offer. I think, this phone is an excellent alternative to the iPhone. It has a gorgeous screen which is not as good as the retina display but still it will give you a great movie experience. The screen is four inches big. If you aren’t rubbing your eyes already, then let me tell you that the screen is based on AMOLED technology. For newbies, AMOLED screens  [...]

Samsung follows the rule 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it' with this new phone. The feature set and design is quite similar to its predecessor. Both have the same rugged design but the Rugby II has better call quality and it also has voice dialing feature which is getting increasingly popular these days. There are a few drawbacks though, there is no 3.5 mm headphones jack yet. The cost of this device is $99 and you have to sign a two year service agreement with AT&T. The phone is also available without the contract for $249. The external display shows photo caller ID, signal strength, battery life, time and date. The external display is bigger than what you normally have on clamshell phones and this screen also shows recent call log. You cannot use the external display as a viewfinder for the self-portrait photos which is a bit disappointing. On the phone's left, there is the volume rocker and PTT button. You can find these buttons easily during  [...]

Cell phones are improving day by day but there is a section of people who don’t seem to care. All they want is a simple phone that can call other people and send text messages. Samsung SGH-a107 GoPhone is a phone that is made to cater to the entry level users. This is one of the most basic phones we have ever come across in our labs. There is no camera, Bluetooth, or music player. Bluetooth is a omission, we see it on all the phone these days, even the cheapest ones. This phone is yours for $29.99 and there are no contract obligations. Samsung SGH-a107 GoPhone has a 1.43 inch display with support for 65,000 colors. The resolution is quite low and images look a bit blocky. But this isn’t unexpected in an entry level phone. The text would have been more legible if the display was a tad bigger. You can adjust the greeting message, idle screen display and wallpaper of this phone. Below the Samsung SGH-a107 GoPhone’s display, there is a basic  [...]

Samsung Strive SGH-A687 has a 2.6 inches display with resolution of 320x240 pixels. The screen has support for 262,000 colors and seems both vibrant and bright. You can change the display theme, wallpaper, background color, backlighting theme and the dialing font’s color, size and type. The menu can be adjusted in grid or list style and both ways, it is user friendly. Navigation array of the Samsung Strive SGH-A687 is well designed with tactile and spacious controls. It houses back button, four way navigation button with confirmation key in the center, two soft keys, pop up shortcut menu button, and Talk and End/Power keys. The toggle can be programmed for four shortcuts. Our only complaint here was that the OK button opens up Web browser in the standy mode. We would have liked if it brought up the menu. You might say that the QWERTY keyboard is too small, we too were skeptical about it. But after some 30 odd minutes of usage, we were  [...]

The Samsung Innov8 and the Motorola Zine ZN5 were the top-notch camera phone with 5-megapixel. Now, the Samsung Memoir T929 for T-Mobile has changed the situation and becomes first U.S. cell phone with 8-megapixel camera. Its picture quality is excellent and camera features are well-comparable to a digital point-and-shot camera. What’s more – it also offers uploading the pictures to Photobucket and the Flickr. $249.99 priced the Memoir T929 has music player, GPS, 3G network, full HTML browser, and Samsung TouchWiz interface. Its design is almost similar to a digital camera. Only T-Mobile branding and call keys notify that it is not a camera, but it is a cell phone. 2.6 inches touch screen of the Samsung Memoir T929 has 240×400 pixels resolution that supports 18-bit (262,000) colors. It also works as gigantic viewfinder for the camera. The display is enough vibrant to display sharp graphics with vivid colors. The Memoir T929 provides haptic (vibration) feedback that notifies your  [...]

The Samsung SGH-T119 for T-Mobile has a traditional candy-bar design and low-profile just for making calls. It does not match the T-Mobile Shadow (2nd version) and Motorola Renew W233. The T119 features acceptable call quality and functional feature set. However, it lacks dedicated clear key and volume rockers. Its plastic casing gives a cheap feeling. If you are looking for an entry-level handset with camera and Bluetooth, then you have to look elsewhere. 1.6 inches display of the Samsung SGH-T119 has 128×128 pixels resolution that supports 65,000 colors. You cannot expect sharp graphics from such a low-resolution display. You can customize the contrast, backlight and font style, color, and size. We like the intuitive and simple icon based menu interface. The navigation array sits beneath the display and consists of two soft keys, Talk button, four-way toggle with middle OK button, and Power/End button. You can customize the four directions  [...]

Samsung is not a new manufacturer for the messaging mobile phones. The AT&T had announced to launch some messaging phones at CTIA 2010 and the Samsung Sunburst was one of them. The Sunburst features 3-inches touch-screen display, virtual QWERTY keyboard, 2-megapixel camera, excellent messaging features, and Web browser; but does not support 3G. Despite its sunny name, it does not transude a feeling of joy and warmth. It looks like other Samsung touch-screen phones such as the Caliber. The Sunburst costs $59.99 with two-year AT&T contract. On the dark side, its touch-screen is slow to respond occasionally. Still, the Samsung Sunburst is the first cell phone to feature AT&T online cloud services including AT&T Address Book. 3-inch touch-screen of the Samsung Sunburst has 240×400 pixels QVGA resolution that supports 262,000 (18bit) colors. The touch-screen is resistive instead of being capacitive. So, it is slow than the touch-screen  [...]