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CNET First Look
Samsung Magnet
AT CTIA 2009, Kent German gets a First Look at the Samsung Magnet, an entry-level messaging phone.
2:17 /
Transcript
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>> Kent German: Hi. I'm Kent German, Senior Editor at CNET.com. We're here at CTIA 2009 in Las Vegas. I want to show you the Samsung Magnet. Samsung introduced a couple of messaging phones for AT&T. The other one is a Samsung Impression. That's the one that had the slide-up keyboard. This is actually a little lower end. It's just a VGA camera. Not as many features as the 3G but still has that QWERTY keyboard down below for faster messaging, has instant messaging. E-mail's only going to be over web base, but still a great device if you're a big texter. Pretty simple design. Looks like a lot of other QWERTY phones we've seen. Maybe like the Motorola Q and a few others. Has a pretty thin design as well. It is orange, though. That's pretty unique. You don't see a lot of orange phones. Has a little texture design here on the back as well. But overall, pretty square. A lot of straight lines, but has a nice feeling in the hand. Feels pretty solid. Display is quite nice. Takes up almost half of the phone. It's pretty bright and colorful. It has pretty decent graphics. Menu system is icon based so you can use the list system too, but either way, it's pretty easy to understand and intuitive. Navigation array is spacious. We have a, a nice toggle in the center. It's pretty big. The OK button in the middle is a little bit tactile. Has a clear button, back key, dedicated messaging button, which is nice. Two soft keys, and the talk and end power key. Down below, we have the keyboard. Keyboard is fine. It may not be the best if you have bigger hands, and if you're a person that's used a QWERTY phone before, you might find this a little small, but if you've never used a QWERTY phone, Samsung is really positioning this in sort of a person's first QWERTY phone, a first, a person's first messaging phone. It's not too bad. The keys are pretty tactile. They're beveled so you can get a nice feel when you run your finger over them. Have a number of dedicated shortcut keys down here in the bottom taking you to your games and applications. One can open the camera, and the other can open the instant messaging application. On the side, you have a volume rocker. Over on this side is the proprietary headset charge jack. So that does mean you can only use one peripheral at a time, and of course, that means you have, you have to use the headset that Samsung gives because it has that proprietary connection. If you want to use your own headset, you will need an adapter. But the phone really doesn't have a music player. It has a voice recorder, but it doesn't have anything that you'd want to use a headset for, for a lot anyway if you weren't using it making calls. It does have Bluetooth. Has some organizer features. Has a speakerphone. Pretty much an entry-level messaging phone, but the orange color - definitely unique. I'm Kent German, and this is the Samsung Magnet.
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