Samsung SGH-T629 calling and messaging phone: Part 2

Messaging - Very good

The T629 boasts some strong messaging features, but typing was surprisingly difficult. The messaging menus are simple and colorful, but typing was surprisingly difficult. The clear key is extremely close to the down arrow, making it all too easy to accidentally jump back a screen when we just wanted to scroll down. We were also annoyed by the keypad's poorly designed backlighting, which only became visible under very dark conditions. Once we got used to being very precise while navigating through menus, we appreciated how easy it was to include pictures, emoticons, voice memos, text, and phonebook entries with our SMS messages. We also managed to fit about 150 characters onto the T629's screen, just 10 characters shy of a full 160-character capacity of a text message. Finally, the phone earned some bonus points with its instant messaging abilities, supporting AIM, ICQ, MSN, and Yahoo services.

Odds and ends

The handset does pack a 1.3-megapixel camera and a camcorder, but the photos and video aren't exactly stellar (typical for a phone in the T629's class) and there's no built-in flash. That said, image quality is perfectly adequate for sending photos to your mobile buddies via MMS (or Bluetooth, for that matter), and the camera app does include its share of fun, with frames and the ability to adjust the colors on your pictures. The T629 also boasts an MP3 player with decent sound quality, but there are no dedicated music buttons, and downloading full music tracks over T-Mobile's 2.5G EDGE connection is, of course, out of the question.
10/17/2006 5:46:45 PM
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