Samsung Flight SGH-A797 (AT&T)

>> Kent German: Hi, I'm Kent German, senior editor here at cnet.com. Today, we'll take a first look at the Samsung Flight. This is a new phone for AT&T service. It's also called the SGHa797. Samsung Flight is an interesting phone for a couple of reasons. The design takes a few elements and squashes them together. It's not a smartphone. But it's not more than just a messaging phone, and it's a little more than just a media phone. It does have a touch screen and a full QWERTY keyboard. We have seen phones that combine these two things together, but the Flight does it a little differently. First of all, the touch screen is only 2.8�inches. Normally, on a touchscreen phone, I'd say that's much too small, but you have to remember a couple things. The Flight doesn't have full HTML browser. It has an Opera Mini browser. It does not have a virtual keyboard. You actually use this keyboard down below. It does have a virtual dial pad, but that's a little different. Also, it doesn't have Samsung's Touch Wiz interface. So a lot of those things that I really need a large screen for especially the browser and a full virtual keyboard doesn't have. So I will give it a pass on the size of the display in that sense. The display is pretty colorful. It's pretty bright. Has a normal Samsung menu interface though it doesn't have the Touch Wiz, you can see there's three touch icons down below. It will take you to the messaging folder, your favorite contacts menu, and a programmable shortcuts menu. If you have the phone open, you'll be prompted to use the number buttons down here. The keypad may look a little squashed, but I actually didn't have a hard time using it. The buttons are raised just slightly above the surface of the phone. There is four rows of keys and actually the top row isn't set too close to the bottom of the slider. Here on the side you'll see a volume rocker, there's a [inaudible] USB port that's also used for the charger, and there's also a separate shortcut button. Here on the other side you'll see a handset locking switch. That's so you can lock the display so you won't press anything accidentally if the phone is in a bag or in your pocket. And over here there's the camera shutter. On the back there's a camera lens. There is no flash. The border around the lens is mirrored so it does work as a selfportrait viewfinder of sorts, also a small speaker right next to it. The phone comes in red. As you see here, it also comes in gray. Features are the same on both phones. Inside, pretty standard features. You'll find a 2megapixel camera, media player so it does it does work with AT&T Mobile Music, also Cellular Video for the streaming video, organizer features, Bluetooth, PC syncing, USB mass storage. On the performance side, felt streaming video was fine when it was working. Did feel that did see that most videos had to buffer a few times while I was playing them. The external speaker was pretty loud quality for the music, but headset will always provide the best experience. Call quality was fine, although did sound like some of the callers were a little breathy at times almost they were whispering. I mean, the volume was fine but just their voice just maybe the tiniest bit distorted. So on all the design is interesting. It combines a few features. It's kind of unique and the phone feels very steady in the hand. Features are pretty standard. Performance wasn't quite up to par though. I'm Kent German and this is the Samsung Flight. ^M00:02:57 [ Music ] ^M00:03:04