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Samsung SGH-T349 – with partial QWERTY keyboard

admin — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 06:37:48 +0000

Sum and Substance:

Thumbs Up:

Good call quality, nice innovative 20 key QWERTY keyboard.

Thumbs Down:

Bad camera and music quality.

Inside the Trunk:

Technology: GSM
Band: GSM 850/1800/1900 (Tri-Band)
Phone design: Candy bar
Caller ID: Yes
Other features: EDGE, GPRS, camera, stereo Bluetooth, music player.

The Whiz Kid Speaks:

The display of the SGH-T349 is 2.2 inch big, has a resolution of 176X220 pixels, music player can read formats of MIDI, AAC/AAC+, and MP3 and the video player can play 3GP, H.263 and MPEG-4. The 1.3 mega pixel camera photos of 220×165, 320×240, 640×480, 800×600, 1,024×768 and 1,280×1024. The video resolutions are 128×96, 160×120 and 176×144.

The phone has 50 MB of internal memory which can be further expanded to 4 GB through microSD cards. The handset has 1000 entry memory for contacts and there is 90 entry memory each for missed calls, dialed numbers and call received. Downloadable content on the phone includes screen savers, ringtones, video files, wall papers and games.

Razzle Dazzle:

The phone has pretty standard candy bar phone design. It is 4.49 inches long, 0.53 inches thick, 1.97 inches wide and weighs about 3.2 ounces. We really liked the attractive lime green and pearl gray color scheme. The phone is 2 inches wide, 4.5 inches high, 0.5 inches deep and weighs 3.2 oz.

Inside Dope:

Samsung SGH-T349 is a messaging phone, which sports the latest in-style 20 key QWERTY keyboard layout. Having a full QWERTY keyboard makes the phone quite big so it has been shrunk but still has great ergonomics while typing. We have seen this keyboard on BlackBerry Pearl’s SureType and we loved it. This is a message centric phone, although great on messaging is low on other features. It has been made for business men who need messaging applications while on the move. There is no GPS or 3G however; there is a music player, Bluetooth and 1.3 MP camera. The handset is extremely cheap at just $15 with a two year contract. It is also available for $99.99 with T-Mobile’s Prepaid service.

The display of the screen is 2.2 inch big and has support for 262,000 colors with resolution of 176X220 pixels. Although a bit small, it serves its purpose. The display is vibrant and bright with colorful animated icons on the interface of the menu. In the display, you can change the size and color of the font, backlight time, background color of the dialing display and the wallpaper can be set up to show the calendar on the home screen.

Below the display there is the navigation array which has 2 soft buttons, talk and end keys, four way square navigation toggle button with OK button in the center. There is also messaging and back key in there. The navigation toggle, back and messaging keys are raised more above the surface as compared to the other keys for easy use. The messaging key is user programmable and can be used for going to your message in-box, audio postcard, instant messaging, e-mail and text messaging. The navigation buttons have shortcuts on each side.

The semi-QWERTY keyboard is a mixed bag with 2 letters per key. It is definitely better than a standard numeric keypad but not as good as full QWERTY keyboard. This keyboard has taken best of both worlds to enhance user experience. The full QWERTY keyboard has been avoided to keep the phone size small.

The hardware on the sides of the phone include a volume rocker, microSD card slot, charger jack and camera key. We thank Samsung for giving us the memory card slot on sides so that we don’t have to go digging behind the battery cover.

The SGH-T340 has a 1000 entry phone book and a single entry can take an email ID and five numbers. There are 19 polyphonic ringtones however you can use your MP3 tracks as ringtones. Photo caller ID and grouping of contacts is also supported.

Other basic features on the stopwatch, timer, unit conversion app, world time clock, tip calculator, notepad, to-do list, alarm clock, calendar, voice recorder, multimedia and text messaging, vibrate mode and speakerphone. For messaging the phone comes preloaded with messengers like Yahoo, Windows Live and AIM, the mobile Web e-mail has support for Comcast, Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, AIM, etc.

The handset has a built in music player which can play formats like MIDI, AAC/AAC+ and MP3. The player has all the music features that you would want in a phone like repeat and shuffle of tracks, album art, etc. The video player can play formats like 3GP, H.263 and MPEG-4. For storing videos and tracks, the phone has 50 MB of internal memory which can be further expanded to 4 GB through memory cards.

Don’t expect great photos from the below average 1.3 MP camera at the back of the phone. It lacks flash and self portrait mirror. It has nine effects for color and five settings for white balance. There is also a mosaic shot mode, multi shot, 4x zoom and self timer. The camera can also take video clips, with the maximum resolution of 160X120 and the options are similar to that of the camera.

The handset comes with two games – Midnight Pool 2 and Block Breaker Deluxe 2. The wireless Web browser on the phone lets you download games, sound and graphics. There is no 3G on the phone, all you get is GPRS and EDGE.

We had nothing to complain about when we tested the phone for call quality. Both parties had a good experience with the calls. Speakerphone calls were better than what you see on other phones. The inclusion of Bluetooth lets you pair up wireless headsets for music or phone calls.

The battery of the SGH-T349 has a rated seven hours of talk time and standby time is of 12.5 days. We were impressed with the battery which lasted about over an hour for rated talk time.

Nitty Gritty:

Samsung SGH-T349 is good messaging phone; it has all the features that you need for messaging. However, it is pretty average for music and camera quality. Don’t buy this phone if you use the latter two features a lot.

Samsung SGH-T239 – A No Fuss Simple Basic Phone

admin — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 09:24:14 +0000

Sum and Substance:

Thumbs Up:

Inexpensive, good price for the features it offers.

Thumbs Down:

The clear key is on the slider keypad, low volume in call quality.

Inside the Trunk:

Technology: GSM
Band: GSM 850/1900 (Dual Band)
Phone design: Slider
Caller ID: Yes
Other features: Bluetooth, camera.

The Whiz Kid Speaks:

The Samsung SGH-T239 is a basic phone which has a 2.8 inch TFT LCD display and has a resolution of 220×176 pixels (262,000 colors). The device has a 300 memory for storing contacts. The phone has 0.3 mega pixels (VGA camera) which can take resolution of about 640 x 480, it has 4x digital zoom. The internal phone memory is 10 MB.

Additonal features include alarm clock, reminder, calculator and calendar. There is support for IMs like AOL Instant Messenger Service (AIM), Yahoo! Messenger and Windows Live Messenger (MSN Messenger).

Razzle Dazzle:

Samsung SGH-T239 is a pretty basic phone and the design itself will make it clear. The phone has outdated design, the buttons placement and the look will take you back to about 2-3 years when Samsung made a lot of phones like these. Since then there have been smart phones coming in the market and such design then disappeared in to the oblivion. Samsung tries to bring us back to those old days but we are not sure we want them.

Inside Dope:

We do not blame Samsung for making such smart phones, after all not everyone out there is a gizmo gadget freak. Some people don’t use phone for anything but call and text messaging. This phone is aimed at such users but the design of the phone could have been a bit more attractive.

The 2.8 inch size of the Samsung SGH-T239 is a bit big for an entry level phone (but we are not complaining) which gives you a resolution of 220×176 pixels and supports 262,000 colors. The display is good and the text on it is easy to read thanks to the bright LCD. You can change the look of the menu from grid to list and you can also change the dialing font, color and backlight time. The screen is LCD which means you will struggle to see it in bright sunlight. But you can’t expect an AMOLED screen in such phones, can you? You can change the message greeting message, tones and wallpaper in the display.

Below the display are a set of physical keys which give the old look to the phone. The two soft buttons, call/call end button and the four way navigation keypad along with the central OK button make up the physical buttons below the LCD we would have also liked a cancel or back button.

Below the LCD is the second half of the phone which makes up the spacious keypad. The keypad buttons aren’t sufficiently raised above the surface of the base, just like most slider phone keypads but they aren’t hard to use. In fact, we didn’t have any mis hits when typing on these keypad buttons. There are short cuts at the top of the slider keypad for browsing and messaging.

On the sides of the Samsung SGH-T239 there are a couple of ports like camera button and a single port for charger and headset. We have been frowning a lot at the presence of a single port which lets us use a single peripheral at a time. There is also a volume rocker and using it is easy while on a call.

The phone book of the Samsung SGH-T239 is pretty small and you can store more than 300 contacts. But you always have the SIM card in case you run out of phone memory. The SIM card lets you store 250 contacts. A single entry will hold five phone numbers, notes, e-mail address and photo for caller identification. You can put your contacts in a group and you can assign a unique ring tone to them. There are about 15 ring tones for you to choose from.

Other features of the Samsung SGH-T239 include text and multi media messaging; vibrate mode, calendar, alarm clock, calculator, task list, tip calculator, world clock, unit and currency calculator, stopwatch and timer. Advanced features include voice recorder, Bluetooth and speakerphone.

The Samsung SGH-T239 has camera behind the phone rather than behind the slider, which is better. Photos are horrendous considering this is a VGA rated camera. There are editing options like self timer, night mode, 4X zoom, four white balance settings, brightness control, four sounds for shutter and four tones for color. You can send photos using an audio post card or you can store them in the ten megabytes phone memory. The camera will just take photos and will not record video.

The Samsung SGH-T239 doesn’t have any built-in games but you can download some from T-Mobile. The screen of the phone is a bit big but still not good enough for mobile gamming.

Samsung SGH-T239 is good when it comes to call quality. The phone has been made only for calling and sending text messages and it would have been laughable matter if phone quality had been bad. The only issue is the volume is a bit low and it will be a problem when hearing in noisy places. But otherwise the phone quality is excellent and our friends also gave similar results.

Speaker phone calls are good but you will have to keep the phone close to your mouth while talking or you won’t be heard. Bluetooth headset calls are good but that depends on the quality of the headset. We tested the Samsung SGH-T239 with a couple of headsets that we had and all of them were fine.

The Samsung SGH-T239’s lithium ion battery has enough juice for seven hours of talk time and 12.5 days of stand by time.

Nitty Gritty:

Samsung SGH-T239 is a basic phone and is defiantly not for people who look for a phone which is high on features. But this phone is just for calling, sending text messages and nothing else. It also performs well for the features it promises.