Hey, everybody.
I'm Jessica Dolcourt with CNET.
And this peacock I have in front of me is the Samsung Character for US Cellular.
This is the carrier's latest messaging phone, and surprise, surprise, it's aimed at teens or at least for those who are young at heart.
But don't worry, because if you don't like it in electric blue, it also comes in a much more somber looking gray color.
Now this is a touch screen handset.
It's got a 2.8-inch display and a slide out
QWERTY keyboard.
This isn't one of those cellphones that lets you choose between the physical keyboard or the on-screen keyboard because there is no virtual keyboard.
So you'll need to do everything with the slider.
It's a pretty good keyboard though.
Interface-wise, the Character runs Samsung's Touchwiz Lite UI.
There are 3 home screens and a widget bar that lets you drag large widget icons on and off the screens.
There's also easy access to the dialer, the address book, texts and the menu.
There are a bunch of additional
apps in this phone as well, like, mSpot Radio, there's a music player, there's contact backup and there's a device search feature that will scour your phone memory for your search term.
I really like the idea but I wish it were a home screen widget.
I think it would be much more useful there.
There is a 3.2-megapixel camera on the Character.
The photos aren't great but I do appreciate that there are editing tools you can use after you take a shot.
Beneath the back cover is a micro SD card slot that can hold up to 32 gigs.
Overall this is a nice handset for first time phone owners and for texters.
I'm really especially thinking about tweens and teens who are not entering the smartphone market.
The Character costs 39.99 after a $50 mail in rebate.
I'm Jessica Dolcourt and you should check out my full review of the Samsung Character on CNET.com.
