Samsung Blast SGH-T729 (T-Mobile)

[ Music ] ^M00:00:02 >> Hi, I'm Kent German, senior editor here at CNET.com. Today we're going to take a first look at the Samsung Blast. That's also the SGHT729. This is a new phone for T-Mobile service. We waited a while for T-Mobile to come out with something a little sexier, a little more design friendly. Here it is. Definitely a Samsung phone. Samsung is very, loves being thin these days, so this phone definitely counts. It's a slider design now, just slide it right up like that. Like the black, red color scheme a little bit. Sliding mechanism works well. You can use it with one finger, but it's not so loose that its slips around accidentally. Display is pretty nice and bright. So you can see it shows color well. So you can use it as a viewfinder of the camera as well which is back here. The camera does not show up when the phone is down, so you need to just slide it out to be, in order to expose it. Also, there's a self-portrait mirror, just no flash. Navigation controls, like these a lot. I thought the Samsung did a good job with it for what they had in the space. Each key has its own definition. It's also large, it's easy to use by feel. You have a toggle. You have an okay button in the middle. Couple of soft keys. Buttons direct for your T zones. And a short cut button. And talking in keys in the clear. This phone does have a sure type keyboard, which they got from rim blackberry devices. There's a previous Samsung phone, the T719 that actually had the same sure type actually offered blackberry connect. This phone does not offer blackberry connect. But it does have that keyboard. Sure type keyboard has two letters on one key. So it's not the same as using an accordion keyboard, but it can be faster than using a regular nine digit key pad. Some people like it, some people don't. But it definitely does let you type text messages a little bit faster. And also, we did like the red definition on the keys highlighting the numbers. So it just makes them easy to see. Also a lot of shortcuts down here as well. Here on the side, you just have a volume rocker. On this side, you have a camera button. Headset and charger port. And a mike rest ease slot here on this side. So overall pretty stylish phone. Since T-Mobile doesn't have a 3G network, you won't find any high-end multimedia features. It's limited to the mega pixel camera. A very rudimentary MP3 player and a Bluetooth, speakerphone and things like that. Overall a very sexy phone, just not really high end featured. I'm Kent German and this is a Samsung Blast for T Mobile. ^M00:02:08 [ Music ]