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 The phone has outdated design, the buttons placement and the look will take you back to about 2-3 years when Samsung made a lot of phones like these.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.

Sum and Substance:

Thumbs Up:

Nothing in particular.

Thumbs Down:

Outdated looks, low on features.

Inside the Trunk:

Technology: GSM
Band: GSM 850/900/1800/1900
Phone design: Slider
Caller ID: Yes
Other features: Music player, camera, recording, speakerphone.

The Whiz Kid Speaks:

Samsung SGH-T659 has a 2.5 inch display, resolution is 320×240 pixels and has 262000 colors. It has a numeric keypad below the display of the screen. The phone is 3G capable and has EDGE/GPRS/HSDPA1.8 Mbit/s/UMTS/HSDPA 1.8 Mbit/s/HSDPA 3.6 Mbit/s. For phone book the features are 1000 names capacity, picture ID, multiple numbers per contact, ring ID, caller groups.

Supported audio formats for the MP3 player are AAC+, WMA, AAC, MP3 and supported video formats are H.263, 3GPP, MPEG4, H.264. The phone has 80 MB of built in memory and is expandable through microSD card. The mobile has WAP 2.0, stereo Bluetooth. The phone has a slide out interface with just a numeric keypad and no QWERTY keyboard.

Razzle Dazzle:

The Samsung SGH-T659 is a bit of a loser when it comes to looks. It looks pretty old and the old days have been revisited. Such phones are now stopped being made and maybe Samsung has been cleaning out closets and trying to sell old phones. What we are trying to say is that the design is old and no one makes it now. This doesn’t mean that the phone is ugly but in these days everyone is looking at the beauty of the phone rather than the features (which is why the iPhone is still hot property) and we don’t know what Samsung was thinking when they made such a design for this phone.

Inside Dope:

The Samsung SGH-T659 has old looks but the features, though few, are pretty up to date. This is a basic phone, it is not made for your gizmo gadget freak but it serves well for the functions it is offering.

The display of the Samsung SGH-T659 is 2.5 inch big and will give you a resolution of 320×240 pixels. The screen has 262,000 colors, the icons and the text is good and clear. In the display you can change brightness, font size, color, type and backlighting time. A lower backlight gives you larger battery life. The phone is slider material and it is quite sturdy and strong. It was also comfortable to hold in the hand. You can also change the alert tones, wallpapers and colors of background.

Below the display there is a structure of buttons which will again remind you of the old days. There are two soft buttons, the call and call end buttons and the middle OK button that is surrounded by the four way navigation circle.

The keypad will reveal it self when you slide the Samsung SGH-T659 upwards. The keys are comfortable and it is a small phone and there is no mess of too many keys on the keypad.  On the sides of the phone there is a volume rocker and a slot for putting a microSD card. We were unhappy with the charger jack which is also the port for putting your headphones. You cannot charge and use the headset both at the same time. Also we would have liked a 3.5 mm head set jack instead of a proprietary port. There is also the camera shutter on the side.

Samsung makes sure you never run out of storage space for your contacts by giving you a generous 1000 entry phone book. The SIM card is capable of storing additional 250 contacts. A single entry can take four phone numbers, three instant message IDs, e-mail ID, birthday, URL, anniversary, notes and home address. You can make a group and put your friends in that group and you an also pair up a photo with a contact and you can assign a ring tone an individual out of the 72 built in polyphonic ring tones. You can buy more from the T-Zone of the WAP browser.

The Samsung SGH-T659 has POP3 connectivity but with this small display and basic numeric keyboard we didn’t enjoy it much. The phone has a WAP browser and that too was not good.

There is a 2 mega pixel camera on the camera and it is located behind the slider so you will have to open the Samsung SGH-T659 to access the camera. Camera located behind the slider will protect if from accidents and dust as it closes when not in use. But we would have liked a camera on the external body itself and with a lens cover because holding the camera is a bit difficult horizontally.

The camera has a mirror for self portrait. The maximum resolution that the camera can take is 1600X1200 and the least is 320X240. There are three quality settings, three white balance settings, self-timer, adjustable brightness, three shutter sounds, a night mode, three color tones, spot metering and a silent option.

The camera also doubles up as a video shooting device which gives you a 176X144 resolution. If you intend to shoot MMS then you cannot go beyond the capped 45 seconds but for storage on the memory you can shoot your heart out. Camera quality is good considering this is a 2 mega pixel camera but a 3.2 MP camera would have been better.

Camera has no flash so if you shoot in low light conditions there is a possibility of getting a big black block as the picture.

Other features on the Samsung SGH-T659 worth mentioning are multimedia and text messaging, voice recorder, calendar, vibrate mode, speakerphone, alarm clock, task list, memo pad, world clock, stopwatch, timer, unit, tip calculator and currency converter.

The Samsung SGH-T659 has a music player built in so you can groove to your favorite tracks. The supported formats are AAC+, WMA, AAC, MP3. We would have liked a 3.5 mm jack so that we could plug in our own set of phones without an adapter. The features for the music player include airplane mode, equalizer, shuffle and repeat modes and play lists. There is no support for album art but there are few visualizations. Music quality is not very good and speakerphone makes it worse. Video player of the phone is capable of playing 3GPP, H.263, MPEG4, H.264 formats.

The Samsung SGH-T659 has games like Brain Challenge 2 and Platinum Solitaire 2. Both are pretty basic games and you can buy more from the store if you think that this display is good enough for gamming.

Other features on the Samsung SGH-T659 include instant messaging, stereo Bluetooth, RSS reader, GPS, PC syncing. You can use the memory of the phone as mass storage device.

The Samsung SGH-T659 was tested for call quality and it was quite good. We could hear the voice clearly and the other party could also hear our voice clearly. There will be a bit distortion when you push the volume to its limits and the distortion will be more in the speakerphone mode. But it is loud enough even when it has not reached the limits except in places where there is too much crowd and noise around. There is Bluetooth in the device and you can plug in your Bluetooth headsets. We tried the headset and the quality was pretty good.

Nitty Gritty:

Samsung SGH-T659 belongs to the same category as 2xxx family in Nokia. It is very basic and is meant for people who just need a phone to calling and sending text messages and occasional browsing. The outdated body, 2MP camera, proprietary jack make it a bad phone.