I'm Jessica Dolcourt with CNET.com bringing you a first look at the Samsung Freeform II from MetroPCS.
This is an update to their original Freeform and the newer model brings a much more polished design.
There's a glossy black face and matte black on the sides and the body including a soft touch finish on the back cover that we like so much.
The Freeform II has a 2.2-inch QVGA screen that looks pretty crisp and bright.
Below the screen you'll find the navigation array with its concentric controls.
On the outside ring are the soft keys, the Speakerphone button and the Back button.
These surround a four-directional toggle that's nice and wide so it's easy to press.
And at the very center is the Select button.
There are also Talk and End buttons.
This is a candy bar design with a full QWERTY keyboard and, although we liked the looks of this keyboard much more than we did the previous model, the keyboard is a bit cramped and the buttons aren't as easy to push as we'd like.
On the side, you'll find a camera trigger, a micro USB charging port, and the 3.5-mm headset jack.
The volume rocker is on the other side and there's a 1.3-megapixel camera on the back.
There is a 16-gigabyte micro SD card slot but it's hidden away under the back cover.
As far as the contents go, the Freeform II is a pretty good messaging phone.
There's e-mail, instant messaging, and photo texting.
There's also internet access that's faster than you'd expect for a phone that operates on 2.5G speeds.
In addition, there's a music player you can use so long as you've inserted a micro SD card with music loaded on to it.
Call quality was good overall in San Francisco and the Freeform II costs an affordable $49.99 with an instant $50 rebate.
This is Jessica Dolcourt looking at the Samsung Freeform II for MetroPCS.
