| Samsung SGH-T509 Expert Reviews |
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Samsung SGH-T509 -- by Joni Blecher Follow me on Twitter--June 23rd 2006 |
| Full Review |
| We couldn’t wait to get our hands on the Samsung T509 cell phone – the mobile that’s thinner than the Motorola Slvr. We’re happy to report that this world-roaming Samsung isn’t just another slick handset. Many of its features are well implemented and this cell phone is far from fragile. While we feel this Samsung skews more masculine than feminine, it’ll be most appealing to people who want a stylish cell phone with the right balance of high-end features and intuitive design. |
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| Call Quality |
Calls and speakerphone: If the Samsung T509 excels at anything, it’s call clarity. We found calls to be extremely clear with little, if any, call distortion – even when using the speakerphone.  Unfortunately, we can’t say the same for audio level. For the most part we could hear callers (albeit not as loud as we’d prefer), but found we often used the volume keys on the spine of the cell phone to turn the sound up a bit.
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| Ease of Use |
Menu/Phonebook: The Samsung T509 has a direct and easy to use, picture-based menu system. Staying in sync with the cell phone’s simple interface, entering, storing and accessing numbers is a cinch. Seriously, it takes just two steps to get started. You can include a picture, ringtone, email address, mobile, fax, and home numbers, but that’s it (no address slots).
After spending a few weeks with the cell phone, we did manage to find a few quirks that are more odd than irritating. For example, the alarm clock doesn’t have its own volume setting. This means if the ringer is set to vibrate on the Samsung T509 and the alarm clock is set for 5 pm, when the alarm signals at 5pm the cell phone will only vibrate because that’s the ringer setting.
Camera/Video: The VGA camera lens is placed on the back of the cell phone with a tiny mirror slightly below it that can be used to take self-portraits. Snapping, sending and storing pics are easy to do – all steps are extremely intuitive and as long as you’re sending it to another cell phone that can receive camera phone pics you’ll be sharing photos in no time. Picture and video quality, especially in good lighting, is pretty good considering this camera phone sports a VGA lens. We particularly like the zoom feature because it doesn’t distort the image when zooming in on it. Plus there’s plenty of room to store images on this Samsung cell phone.
Connectivity/Bluetooth: We tested the Bluetooth feature on this Samsung cell phone using the Motorola H500 headset. As expected, making a connection was simple and call quality endured.
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| Design |
Look and Feel: Yes, the Samsung T509 is thinner than the Motorola Slvr. The beauty of owning a thin cell phone is that you can’t always tell if it’s still snuggled safely in your pant pocket. No worries, pulling that slick cell phone out of a pocket will only get you noticed. We found this Samsung to be an instant conversation starter and attention getter. Don’t worry if everyone wants to touch it, the Samsung T509 is surprisingly durable. We have dropped it quite a few times and it still looks good as new. We particularly like the cell phone’s display – it’s bright and easy to read in most lighting conditions.
Keypad: The Samsung cell phone’s backlit keypad brightens up any dark room. Unlike the Motorola Slvr’s flat keypad, the Samsung T509 keys are slightly elevated almost forming ledges between each row. Dialing numbers and typing text messages is fairly straightforward, but when we type too fast we the keys get a tad slippery.
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| Battery Life |
| On average, we found that if we used the cell phone mainly to make calls intermittently throughout the day we needed to charge the battery about every three to four days. If we used the Samsung T509 more often and threw loads of text messaging into the mix, we charged it every other day. But when we weren’t using the cell phone that much, maybe to make two to three 10 minute calls a day and light texting, the Samsung T509 could last about five days before needing more juice.
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Samsung SGH-T509 Expert Rating
