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>> Hi. I'm Kent German, senior editor here at CNET.com. Today, we're gonna take a First Look at the Samsung Alias2. This is also called the SCH-U750, and it is a phone for Verizon Wireless. The Alias2 is an update to this SCH-U740 and the Alias, but a problem we had with the previous two phones is that the keyboards are really crowded. But what this does is instead of just the backlighting changing; actually the keys change themselves. I don't really know how it does this. It's not like just lighting is being removed from one key, and then lighting is going on another. This is the same key, and actually the symbol on that key is changing. So I'll show that to you as we go along. External display, it is full color. It does show photo caller I don't, also works as a viewfinder for the camera lens, which is just here. Down here, you'll see that there are dedicated music buttons. Of course, they allow you to get inside the music player, play any tunes you want without our opening the phone, but they also work as counter buttons, so you can take a self-portrait with the viewfinder down here. If we open the phone for making calls, we have a pretty nice internal display. It's bright. It's colorful. A lot of different menu choices. Some of them were a little overly stylized, so I like this basic icon-based menu. One thing that I did like is that you have a dedicated folder here that shows up on the main menu page for your photos. Now, moving down to the keypad, you notice that it does look a little different. There are a lot more keys, and there are a lot of keys that aren't being used. In this mode you only need the numeric keypad, which you see here. You'll see these keys, right here, take the form of a toggle. So you have four directional keys. Okay button in the middle. These are two soft keys. I would have preferred if they were a different color than the other keys, just because they blend in with those numeric keys, so you really have to look at it the first time. To move to the keyboard, you just close the phone like that, tilt it this way, and open it up. Right now, you'll see that the keyboard also has a lot of things unused. There is more numeric keys, so you can make a call in this mode. There's a messaging key that will take you to a dedicated messaging menu, navigation controls down here. To change to the keyboard, press that button right here. You'll see it says ABC 123. So you can cycle through, and there's actually another keyboard that has just basic symbols. And there you go. So the keyboard changes. And it's kind of cool. I really like how it does that. It's pretty innovative. Haven't seen this before. On the whole, I'd say it's a great messaging phone, certainly innovative. Takes a little acclimation, but still think it does a good job and has good performance. I'm Kent German, and this is the Samsung Alias2.
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