Samsung SGH-T809 review: Samsung SGH-T809

Samsung SGH-T809
If you follow design trends in cell phones even just a bit, you'll notice that slim is definitely in. It all started of course with the Motorola Razr V3, which made its debut in late 2004. Since that time, the Razr has rocketed to popularity, and as 2005 closed, it was the top-selling cell phone of the year. To compete with Motorola's winner, Samsung countered in December with its own Razr emulator, the MM-A900. And now, Samsung takes the slim factor a step further with the slider SGH-T809 for T-Mobile. The result is a stylish handset that packs a wealth of features into a compact form factor. Although the ergonomics could be refined and overall performance was patchy, it is a solid phone that should appeal to mobile fanatics. Be warned, however, that all those attractions come at a high price: The Samsung SGH-T809 will cost you $299 with service. Like the Motorola Razr that inspired it, the Samsung SGH-T809 doesn't appear too exciting when viewed straight on. It's rather boxy from that angle, with sharp corners, though the black color scheme adds a touch of class. To really appreciate the SGH-T809's form factor, you'll need to flip it on its side, where the slim design is clearly apparent. Measuring 3.9 by 2 by 0.6 inches, the SGH-T809's dimensions are almost the same as the MM-A900's, and it's just a hair bigger than the Razr. On the weight side, its 3.6 ounces makes it lighter than its Samsung sibling but a bit heavier than the Razr. But like the Razr, the SGH-T809 is so small that it's difficult to feel the vibrate mode when it's in your pocket; plus, it's uncomfortable to position between your head and your shoulder when on a call. You can operate the SGH-T809's slider mechanism with one finger, and the handset feels very solidly built overall. It's worth noting that there's a default setting to automatically accept a call when you put the slider up. This can be changed, however, inside the settings menu. There's also an annoying default setting for ending any operation (including calls) when you put the slider down, but fortunately you can change it.

Like most Samsungs, the SGH-T809 has a striking display. With support for 262,000 colors, the 320x240-pixel screen measures a generous 2 inches diagonally and shows the date, the time, battery life, signal strength, and caller ID. The display is great for viewing the simple but flashy menus (there's a choice of two styles), and though you can change the backlighting time and the brightness, there's no contrast setting. Font settings vary, depending on which text you're talking about. For the display font (the time and the date), you can change the style and the color but not the size, while with the dialing text, you can change the font size and the color, as well as the background color. Unfortunately with messaging text, you're left with one relatively small size, so be sure to give the SGH-T809 a test-drive if you have visual impairments.

Below the Samsung SGH-T809's display are the navigation controls, which consist of a four-way toggle with an OK button; two soft keys; the traditional Talk and End/Power keys; and a Clear button. Although they're large enough, they are somewhat difficult to use, as they are flush with the surface of the phone. In particular, the OK button was tricky to manipulate, as our fingers kept sliding off when we were trying to move it. It was also hard to get a grip on the toggle, so people with large digits should take care. As with most Samsung phones for T-Mobile, the OK button in standby mode opens T-Mobile's T-zones Internet service rather than opening the menu; that's accomplished through a soft key. It's not a huge deal, but we've never been a fan of the arrangement. For other shortcuts, you can program the toggle to give one-touch access to four user-defined functions.

We also had some issues with the Samsung SGH-T809's keypad. Since it's hidden behind the slider, it's recessed into the phone itself, leaving a slight rim around its edges. Although we got used to it over time, it just felt weird to reach "into" the phone to dial. Also, the flat keys are rather slick, so it's difficult to dial by feel. On the plus side, they have bright backlighting.

Other features on the Samsung SGH-T809 include a thin volume rocker, a charger/headset port on the left spine, and a TransFlash slot on the right spine. It should be noted that the SGH-T809 trumps both the Razr and the MM-A900 by including an expandable memory card slot. At the top of the phone is the camera lens, which swivels 180 degrees from the back to the front. Curiously, however, the lens rotates down rather than up, which means it takes pictures in just two directions (front and back). We wondered why it didn't move the other way, as it would have enabled us to take a picture pointing straight up. There's no flash or self-portrait mirror, but the latter isn't needed, as the display functions as your viewfinder.

You might think that Samsung wasn't able to pack much into the slim SGH-T809, but you'd be mistaken if you did. Inside, you'll find a wealth of features that will please midrange users. As a T-Mobile phone, it can't compete with its thin cousins that have 3G support, but it trumps the original Razr with its high-resolution camera. In terms of the basic offerings, there's a 1,000-contact phone book that holds five numbers and an e-mail address per entry. Contacts can be organized into groups, and you can pair them with a photo and one of 45 polyphonic ring tones. The SGH-809 also supports MP3 ring tones, and you get a selection of six. Other features include a vibrate mode, a calendar, a calculator, a file manager, a world clock, a unit converter, a timer, a stopwatch, text and multimedia messaging, instant messaging (AOL, ICQ, and Yahoo), and a 1-minute voice recorder. Business-oriented apps are above average but nothing near those of a smart phone. There's Bluetooth and a speakerphone (operable after you make a call) but no apparent e-mail support.

The Samsung SGH-T809 comes with a 1.3-megapixel camera. As we said earlier, you don't get a flash, but the lens swivels from back to front. The camera takes pictures in seven resolutions--1,280x1,024, 1,152x864, 800x600, 640x480, 320x240, 240x320, and 240x180--and you get a wealth of editing features. Included are nine picture effects; 29 fun frames; a self-timer of up to 10 seconds; multishot (up to 15 pictures) and mosaic-shot options; brightness, white-balance, and image-orientation adjustments; metering exposure and ISO settings; a night mode; four viewfinder size choices; and an 8X zoom, which is usable even at the highest resolution. You also get a choice of five shutter sounds, but there's no silent option. To help you manage all these functions, the soft keys and all number keys perform a specific shortcut. It took us a while to memorize them, but a convenient list is featured in the user manual and in the camera menus. Picture quality wasn't the best we've seen for a megapixel camera; lines tend to be fuzzy, and colors bleed somewhat. If you want to tweak your pictures, the phone comes with a rudimentary image editor.

The Samsung SGH-T809's camcorder takes videos with sound in two resolutions: 128x96 and 176x144. There are two choices for video length; those meant for a multimedia message are capped at 30 seconds, or you can film for however much memory is available. Editing options are similar to the still camera's, but the grainy videos are of average quality. You can save your shots and clips to the phone's 70MB of shared memory or to the TransFlash card. One 32MB card is included with the phone.

The Samsung SGH-T809 also comes with a serviceable MP3 player. You can play music stored on the phone or on the TransFlash card and transfer it between the two locations. But what's really cool is that you even can accept MP3 files sent via Bluetooth. You can organize tracks into playlists and utilize a variety of settings--including repeat and shuffle modes, as well as equalizer and 3D sound--which didn't seem to do much. The player's interface is user-friendly and attractive, with a number of graphics to match the playing music and two interface designs.

You can personalize the Samsung SGH-T809 with different wallpaper, color themes, and sounds. If you want more options, you can download them through the WAP 2.0 wireless Web browser. Gaming options are plentiful, with five tiles included: Forgotten Warrior, Freekick, Arch Angel, Tetris, and Block Breaker Deluxe. As always, if you want more choices, you'll have to buy them from T-Mobile.

We tested the quad-band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900; EDGE) Samsung SGH-T809 world phone in San Francisco using T-Mobile's service. Call quality was generally good, with adequate volume and clarity. Voices sounded a bit metallic, however, and callers could tell without being asked that we were using a cell phone. The phone picked up a bit of wind noise, but we noticed no significant interference from other electronic devices. The speakerphone calls were loud enough, but the metallic voice quality was exacerbated. We quickly paired the SGH-T809 with the Plantronics Explorer 320 Bluetooth headset and experienced similar audio quality when we were on normal calls.

Audio quality on the Samsung SGH-T809's MP3 player is about what you'd expect. It can't compare to that of Sony Ericsson's Walkman phones, such as the W800i or even the Motorola Rokr E1, but it's not terrible either. There isn't much in the way of bass, but if you're hungry for some tunes and your MP3 player is at home, it will do the trick.

The Samsung SGH-T809 has a rated talk time of 3 hours and a promised standby time of six days. The talk time was on the low side for a GSM phone, and we got 3.5 hours in our tests. Our standby time was also low at 4.5 days. According to FCC radiation tests, the SGH-T809 has a digital SAR rating of 0.32 watt per kilogram.