Samsung SGH-T519 Trace slim phone

Calling - Good

While we were relatively pleased with the Trace's overall calling features, we found voice quality on the quad-band handset to be surprisingly mediocre. Digital artifacting is audible on both ends of the call, leaving a muddy impression of the sound. The speakerphone is a little too soft at top volume to be usable except in a quiet room or car, and there are no voice dialing options. Conference calling is easy: you can search your contact list during a phone call, and joining the two calls is a top-level menu function. We also liked the Trace's live-searching capabilities in the phone's address book. That said, muting a call involves digging through a settings menu, which is a bit of a hassle. Finally, while the ultra-slim design of the phone lends itself well to, say, a jeans pocket, holding the phone to your ear for a long period of time may cramp your hand.

Messaging - Very good

While the Trace's screen is slightly larger and brighter than its predecessor, the SGH-T509, we wish more screen real estate had been devoted to the threaded conversations in the phone's instant messaging apps. The T519 (like the T509) supports MSN, Yahoo!, AIM, and ICQ, but only three lines of text are visible at a time, with just 20 characters per line. SMS fares better, at 115 characters total, but still falls short of a full 160, and you can't change the font size to fit more text on screen at once. MMS messages are easy to create, but Samsung has made sending messages somewhat confusing by hiding the ''send'' function beneath a menu instead of dedicating a soft key, an odd choice that we've seen repeated on other Samsung phones.


Odds and ends

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