Review: Samsung SGH-T209 (silver)
Intro:
Positives: The Samsung SGH-T209 has a compact design, user-friendly controls, and a speakerphone. Negatives: The Samsung SGH-T209's volume level is somewhat low, and there's no backlighting adjustment on the external display. Facts: If you're in the market for a basic, no-hassle T-Mobile cell phone, the Samsung SGH-T209 is a solid choice. Note: This product is part of the Samsung SGH-T209 series. .
Samsung SGH-T209 (silver)
Samsung churns out another simple cell phone with the new SGH-T209 for T-Mobile. Modeled after the Samsung SGH-X495, it retains the same basic features and overall design but ditches the white color scheme in favor of two differently hued versions: silver and candy-apple red. Like the SGH-X495, the SGH-T209 offers a sleek if relatively staid design and a low-range feature set that includes a speakerphone and instant messaging. Although it's a tad expensive if you pay the full price of $119, service rebates will lower it to a more reasonable $19. The SGH-T209 has a simple, compact design. The Samsung SGH-T209 has exactly the same dimensions as its predecessor (5.5 by 1.9 by 1.0 inches), but it weighs slightly more, at 3.3 ounces. The SGH-T209 also inherits the same body design; it's relatively sleek with rounded edges and no external antenna, but the overall look is rather dull. The candy-apple-red version, however, is definitely appealing. The SGH-T209 takes its external display cues from the SGH-X495's. The postage-stamp-size screen is monochrome, but it shows useful information, such as the date, the time, battery life, signal strength, and caller ID (where available). However, we don't like the fact that you can't change the backlighting time on the screen. When the backlighting goes off, the time can be difficult to read, and you must open the phone to make the screen active again. Beneath the display is a small grille for the speakerphone, which marks another difference; the SGH-X495 also has a speakerphone, but it's inside the handset. Inside the Samsung SGH-T209 is a 1.75-inch, 128x160-pixel screen that shows 65,000 colors. It's no different from most Samsung displays in that it's bright and vibrant, but it can be too bright at times, and it's difficult to see in direct sunlight. Still, it does a serviceable job and works well for scrolling through the menus. You can adjust the brightness, the contrast, the backlighting time, and the font color. Below the display are the standard Samsung navigation keys, which consist of a five-way toggle, two soft keys, the Talk and End/power buttons, and a Clear key. The keys are easy to use, and the toggle acts as a shortcut to the messaging menu, instant messaging, the voice recorder, and the phone book. The pill-shaped keypad buttons are also typical of handsets of this caliber. They're decently sized, and they're lit by a bright backlight, but they're flush with the surface of the phone. The only external features are a volume rocker and a headset jack on the left spine. The Samsung SGH-T209's feature set is basic, but it should please most cell phone users. The 500-contact phone book has room in each entry for five phone numbers and an e-mail address; the SIM card can hold an additional 250 names. You can organize contacts into caller groups, but in a change from the SGH-X495, individual groups can be paired with one of 20 polyphonic ring tones, 10 of which are MegaTones. You can also assign groups a picture, but since there's no camera, you'll have to be creative. In any case, the image won't show up on the external display. As for other features, you get a vibrate mode; Yahoo, ICQ, and AOL instant messaging; an alarm clock; a calculator; a calendar; a to-do list; 1-minute voice memos; text and multimedia messaging; a timer; a stopwatch; and a unit converter for length, weight, volume, and temperature. We were glad to see that Samsung threw in a speakerphone, but you can turn it on only after you've made a call. Overall, the SGH-T209 has 3MB of shared memory. You can personalize the Samsung SGH-T209 with a variety of wallpaper, messaging tones, and display patterns. If you're bored with those, you can download more options from T-Mobile via the WAP 2.0 wireless Web browser. You get two Java (J2ME) games--SnowBallFight and BubbleSmile--but more titles are available if you want them. We tested the dual-band (GSM 850/1800/1900; GPRS) Samsung SGH-T209 in San Francisco using T-Mobile's service. Call quality was good overall and somewhat better than that of the SGH-X495. Voice quality was clear, but volume was a tad low; users with hearing impairments should test the SGH-T209 before buying. Callers could tell we were using a cell phone, but they reported no significant problems on their end. It's worth noting, however, that when using automated phone services such as an airline-reservation number, we had to speak loudly to be understood. Speakerphone calls had more volume and were clearer than on the SGH-X495, due to the external position of the speaker. The SGH-T209 has a promised talk time of 5 hours and a rated standby time of eight days. Our tests revealed a talk time of 4 hours, 30 minutes and a standby time of eight and a half days. According to FCC radiation tests, the Samsung SGH-T209 has a digital SAR rating of 1.29 watts per kilogram.
Our recommendation: Buy
Reviewed by Jason Williamson - Jasper, Georgia
Keywords: cell phone number belongs to, t mobile phone services
Review: Samsung SPH-M500 (red)
Intro:
Positives: The Samsung SPH-M500 offers good call quality and a generous range of features, including Bluetooth, a speakerphone, an external memory card slot, and EV-DO compatibility. Negatives: The Samsung SPH-M500 has slippery keys, and its video and music quality is below par. Facts: The Samsung SPH-M500 is a decent option for a low-end multimedia phone. Just don't expect too much. Note: This product is part of the Samsung SPH-M500 series. .
Samsung SPH-M500 (red)
Once in a while, a cell phone manufacturer will repackage one of its handsets for a different carrier. No, it's not very original, but that didn't stop Samsung from putting out its new SPH-M500 for Sprint. Samsung fans should notice immediately that the SPH-M500 is basically T-Mobile's Samsung SGH-T619 but with a Sprint logo stamped on the front. The design of the phones is identical, but the SPH-M500 does offer some extra goodies, such as an external memory slot and support for Sprint's EV-DO network. Like the SGH-T619, the SPH-M500 is slim, but it's certainly not sexy. Thin-phone fans will appreciate the compact dimensions (3.9x2x0.6 inches) and its trim weight (2.8 ounces), but overall this phone isn't very exciting. Other exterior features are the same, including the color internal and external displays, the location of camera lens and charger port, and the design of the navigation control and keypad. Again, we weren't impressed with the latter two as we found them a bit slippery. The external controls are alike as well, except that the headset jack has been moved from the left spine to the right spine with the aforementioned Micro SD card slot positioned just below it. Though they share many similarities on the outside, the SPH-M500's internal features are quite different from the T-Mobile's. The phone book is smaller, with just 500 contacts instead of 1,000, but there's room in each entry for five phone numbers, e-mail and Web addresses, and notes. You can save callers to groups and pair them with a photo and one of 29 (72-chord) polyphonic ring tones. Other features consist of a vibrate mode, text and multimedia messaging, voice commands and dialing, instant messaging and e-mail, a scheduler, a task list, a countdown timer, a memo pad, a world clock, an alarm clock, a calculator, and a voice recorder. There's also Bluetooth, a speakerphone, and in an unusual twist, a Spanish/English dictionary. All of the information is stored on the phone already, and if you can type fast on the alphanumeric keypad, it'll come in handy. The SPH-500 more clearly sets itself apart from its sibling when it comes to high-end offerings. While the SGH-T619's data speeds clock out at T-Mobile's 2.5G EDGE network, the SPH-M500 offers full support for Sprint's 3G EV-DO coverage. That means the phone is compatible with the carrier's Power Vision steaming video service and its Sprint Music store for music downloads to the onboard digital music player. The SPH-M500 comes with a respectable 50MB of internal shared memory (more than twice what's on the SGH-T619), but you must use a Micro SD card in order to download music. Furthermore you get Sprint's On Demand service for access to a host of information such as news headlines, sports scores, and weather updates personalized for your zip code. Like the SGH-T619, the SPH-M500 has no flash. The SPH-M500's 1.3-megapixel camera also shows some differences from the SGH-T619. The 1.3-megapixel camera allows you to take pictures in four resolutions (1,280x960, 640x480, 320x240, and 176x220) as opposed to six on the T-Mobile phone. Other camera features include three quality settings, brightness and white balance controls, a multishot mode, a self-timer, seven color effects (as opposed to five), 10 fun frames, and a 4X zoom that's not usable at the highest photo resolution. There are also four shutter sounds plus a silent mode. The camcorder records QCIF clips in 176x144 resolution with sound. Clips meant for multimedia messages are capped at 30 seconds; otherwise you can shoot for about 45 minutes. For easy photo printing, the SPH-M500 supports Sprint's PictBridge technology for transferring images directly to a printer. In our tests, photo quality was acceptable for a megapixel camera. Colors were sharp for the most part, and though smaller objects were a tad fuzzy, we weren't bothered by it. The SPH-M500 has decent photo quality. You can personalize the SGH-M500 with a variety of screensavers, menu colors, display themes, clock and font styles, and alert tones. If you're looking for more options or additional ring tones, you can download them through the phone's Web browser. The SGH-M500 also supports MP3 tunes and comes with a generic digital music player (see the SGH-X820 review). Gaming options include demo versions of six Java (J2ME) titles--Midnight Pool, Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Tetris, World Poker Tour, and Zuma--but you can always download more. We tested the dual-band (CDMA 800/1900; EV-DO) in San Francisco using Sprint's service. Call quality was a bit improved over that of the SGH-T619. Voices sounded natural and there was plenty of volume. Callers reported no significant problems, but we noticed a slight amount of static at times. It wasn't too bothersome, and speakerphone calls were satisfactory as well, provided we spoke close to the handset. If we moved more than a few feet away, callers had a lot of trouble understanding us. Calls on a Bluetooth headset were fine. Music quality wasn't the best as tracks sounded tinny and faded over the SPH-M500's sole speaker. We definitely wouldn't want to listen for music too long. Video quality wasn't much better. The picture size was tiny and videos were way too pixelated. What's more, the volume level was variable and ranged from too low to bass-heavy. On the upside, the phone's EV-DO connection was strong and fast, but much better multimedia phones are in Sprint's stable, such as the LG LX550. The Samsung SPH-M500 has a rated talk-time battery life of 3.5 hours and a tested talk time of 3 hours and 40 minutes. According to FCC radiation tests, the SPH-M500 has a digital SAR rating of 1.44 watts per kilogram.
Our recommendation: Buy
Written by Annabelle Johnson - East Prairie, Missouri
Keywords: cell phone companies in canada, free centro mobile phone radio
Review: Samsung SGH T209 – cellular phone – GSM
Intro:
Product Short Spec: Band / mode: GSM 850/900/1900 (Tri-Band) Talk time: Up to 300 min Weight: 3.2 oz
Samsung SGH T209 - cellular phone - GSM
Our recommendation: Undecided
Provided by Marion Pryor - New Philadelphia, Ohio
Keywords: cell phone downloads, cheap pay as you go mobile phone
