SlashGear Japan
T-Mobile has just sent us what we now believe to be one of the best phones that they have to offer. The T-Mobile Behold by Samsung has provoked plenty of discussion since its announcement, making us all the more eager to get our hands on this touchscreen handset. The biggest question in our mind is, will this phone attract more much-needed traffic to T-Mobile? Is this phone worth your time? And, more importantly, does it give the T-Mobile G1 a run for its money?
When you first open the box you see the Getting Started guide, followed by the Terms and Conditions and Warranty books, the last thing there is before you get to what you really want to see is the Samsung SGH-t919 Behold User Manual. Take all of that out and you finally get to the phone itself. Other than the Behold you’ll find the standard 5.0V charger, USB data cable, Samsung headset and a Samsung microSD card adapter.
The Behold is one of the most talked-about upcoming T-Mobile handsets. This device has a beautiful 240 x 400 megapixel 262k TFT touchscreen display for quickly and easily navigating through the user interface. Up against such phones as the Samsung Instinct and the Samsung Delve (ironically), together with the LG Dare, Samsung Eternity and LG VU. All of these phones have their advantages and disadvantages, and in fact many of the Samsung handsets will resemble the Behold in many ways, but just how do they stack up?
We were more than a little disappointed to find out that the screen is resistive rather than capacitive, meaning rather than the pressure-free touch of the iPhone, the screen has to be pressed more than merely stroked. We have since found that the touch-sensitivity is more responsive than most devices with resistive touch, such as the Samsung Instinct. Still, in comparison to the iPhone, the touch did not feel nearly as precise on the Behold. The one benefit is that the Behold will respond to both a stylus and your finger, rather than only the touch of a finger. We found this to be a great opportunity for the use of a stylus but, unlike Windows Mobile phones, the Behold does not actually come with a stylus.
The GUI of the Behold is surprisingly easy to navigate, and resembles Samsung’s TouchWiz interface as seen on the Omnia i900. The home screen has a “dock” along the bottom that displays basic phone functions including dialer, phone book, web and menu. There is a slide-out menu on the left that can be displayed by simply tapping an arrow. From this menu you can choose one of many options, or if you like, drag any of the options onto the home screen for quicker access. One feature that we found particularly useful is the ability to place icons wherever you like, even overlapping others if you wish. There is no grid layout such as the one you will find on the iPhone.
The icons, once on the home screen, are fit for your finger, so to speak. They are larger than in the menu so that it is easier to select the option you are looking for without accidentally selecting another. There is a date and time box that can be used for those who need the time to be larger in size. One icon that we fell in love with was the interactive photo album icon. This feature almost acts as a picture frame on your home screen just as on the T-Mobile G1. The advantage the Behold has over the G1 in this department is the ability to flip through the album with a single touch: no need to open the photo album to view a different picture. The slide-out menu is also customizable to a certain extent. You can elect to have icon removed from the list and order them in whichever order you prefer.
The onscreen keyboard fits the screen perfectly. In portrait orientation you get the traditional T9 mode for quick, single hand input. If you have the opportunity to use two hands, all you need do is flip it on its side and the accelerometer instantly detects the change and adapts accordingly. The QWERTY keyboard unfortunately is only available on one side of the screen. Still, it’s very well laid out for using your thumbs. Quick typing, though, is not easily achieved with the resistive touchscreen. You have to be a bit rough with the keyboard and type at a moderate speed in order for it to detect all of your key presses.
We are happy to see visual confirmation when pressing a letter to make sure you got the correct one, however the pop-up letter appears next to your finger rather than above making it very hard to see. The iPhone’s method is, by far, a lot more user-friendly in this department. When typing a text message, a suggestion box will pop up as the device shows suggested words, this box is utterly annoying because it reformats the message for a moment on the far left side to make room. The Behold is ahead of the iPhone with vibration feedback on every key pressed. This extra confirmation may seem trivial, but it sure does help out.
The preloaded instant messaging application comes ready with AIM, icq, Windows Live and Yahoo. Groups and contacts are displayed in a very simple, easy to read layout. Signing into the instant messaging client takes a little longer than we would like, this may be due to the fact that we were on the EDGE network. One neat visual touch is that the IM icon on the home screen changes to reflect which instant messenger you are signed into at the time. As that might suggest, though, the major drawback of the client is its inability to sign into multiple accounts at the same time.
Email is easy to setup and use, with Samsung loading the Behold with plenty of preset account types, including AIM, AOL, Yahoo, Comcast, Compuserve, Earthlink, Gmail, HotPOP, Juno Mac, NetZero, SBC Yahoo! and Verizon. Email is displayed with tabs reading Inbox, Drafts and Sent. Under each tab you can view the headers of the email and, from there, choose which one you would like to open.
In the Inbox you will also find SMS and MMS. In the text Inbox is a drop-down menu that helps you navigate to the Inbox, Outbox, Drafts, My Folders or Templates. Unfortunately text messages are not threaded with the Behold. Videos and picture messages are sent and received quickly with what appears to be no loss in quality.
The built-in browser is a little hard to deal with. The first thing that we noticed is how the web pages scroll. With the iPhone, all you have to do is “flick” a page for it to scroll, the Behold however will only move to your touch. You must manually move the page wherever you would like to look. The browser has a full header including address bar, zoom, home and back and forward buttons. On the right hand side (in landscape mode) you have a Go To button, favorites, page options and hide headers button. The zoom feature really does not work as well as rival devices, with pages displaying a lot of pixilation when zoomed in. The address bar shows a loading bar that, while ostensibly showing the loading progress of the page, is actually just for looks; when the bar reaches its full capacity it then resets and starts all over again. The browser takes forever to load pages on both Wi-Fi and the Edge network.
With the headers hidden you can see a scroll bar on the right hand side. The only purpose of this bar is to move you one frame up or down and one frame on the selected web page. The browser does not allow tabs or multiple pages like the iPhone’s Safari browser. Samsung states that you are able to browse in full HTML, but what we have generally found is a mobile adapted version of the HTML web page. Web pages took longer than we would expect to load, and were rendered in poor quality. Flash and video streaming are also not supported within this browser. After playing with the browser for a significant amount of time we haven’t noticed anything special or significant about it. The absence of true full HTML really is a deal breaker these days.
Unfortunately there is no maps application installed on the Behold, out of the box. We suspect that this is because they wish to push the Telenav turn-by-turn direction application on users. There are not many applications to choose from as this handset is not a smartphone, only the Telenav application in the T-Zones store. So, due to the lack of available options, we were not able to test out the internal GPS.
The Samsung Behold has 180MB of internal memory and comes with a 1GB microSD card for light users,; those who will be taking a lot of pictures and listening to music can upgrade to a 16GB microSD. The music player supports MP3, WMA, AAC, AAC+ and eAAC+ files. Tracks are sorted by Playlist, Songs and Artist, we really believe they could have added more sorting options for a better overall experience.
Sound quality from the internal speaker is not bad at all. The volume was loud enough without being so loud that it compromises clarity. The Samsung headset, however, emphasizes more sharp tones than it does bass or depth. As the Behold’s headphone jack is Samsung-specific were unable to try out any other headphones.
Video playback on the Bold was a pleasant surprise. This device is by no means a high definition video player, but it is acceptable for viewing videos that you have taken with the video camera or preloaded onto the memory card. Clips taken with the phone itself looked better than third-party footage, which tended to appear grainy. In comparison to the iPhone, the Behold just doesn’t match up as a media player.
One of the major selling points of the Behold is the 5-megapixel camera. Both camera and video recorder have access to a 4x digital zoom with autofocus and a power LED flash. We were very excited to find out that this handset takes panoramic photos. Unlike the HTC Touch Pro, which shoots 3 frames for a panoramic shot, the Behold shoots up to 6 frames. When you take a picture, pressing the designated camera button down lightly will make the camera focus, with a full press triggering the shot. There are multiple options familiar to anyone who has used a point & shoot camera recently, including Timer, Flash, Brightness, Default destination, Video camera, Photos, Mode and Setup.
You can snap pictures in different modes including Portrait, Landscape, Night, Sports, Sunset, Dawn and, the default, None. The camera also allows you to choose from one of six photo sizes, ranging from 5M (2650 x 1920) through 3M (2480 x 1536), 2M (1600 x 1200), 0.3M (640 x 480), W4M (2460 x 1536) and finally 480 x 240. It’s also possible to tweak the white balance, add effects such as Black & White, Sepia, Negative and Water Color, or change the ISO speed. The ISO setting allows you to choose from auto, 100, 200 or 400 for those faster shots. Other camera settings include Auto focus, Image quality, Exposure meter, Anti-Shake and WDR.
The video recorder offers many of the basic settings as the camera. One drawback is that you are only able to record in 320 x 240 or 176 x 144 resolution. Nonetheless, video quality is exceptionally good for a camera phone. The resolution is crisp without the blur of most phones. Night time footage, though, is still lacking; it just doesn’t seem possible with a phone. It’s worth noting that the autofocus is both quick and precise; many other phones we’ve played with have shown a lag in the auto focus when video recording.
The basic function of mobile phones, placing and receiving calls, thankfully hasn’t been forgotten. Sound quality, both on the sending and receiving end, was exceptional. The voice clarity was right on par with the Touch Pro and iPhone. We experienced no choppy voices or dropped calls the entire time we tested out the Behold. The speakerphone however was not the best. We have heard worse, certainly, but when speaking to someone on the Behold they often sounded more like a robot than a human being.
Pairing the Behold with a Bluetooth headset was not a problem. We tested the handset out with the BlueAnt V1 and the stereo Bluetooth headset iMuffs. When receiving calls, the headsets were very prompt in being notified of an incoming call. There were no noticeable changes in call quality in either of the headsets. The connection was always very strong and there was never a moment when we heard the devices breaking up, nor were the calls ever prematurely disconnected. After turning the headset off and back on again, the Behold picked up the signal and connected relatively quickly.
The Samsung Behold backs a Li – Ion 1000 mAh battery with the claim of 5 hours of talk time and 300 hours of standby time. Based on our experience, we would say that this estimate is relatively close. We have not had the need to charge this handset during the day with average use. The battery life is pretty good with almost constant use; we played with it for several hours before it actually died, something we wish we could do with the iPhone 3G.
Overall, the Samsung Behold is one of the most enjoyable touchscreen phones on the market. We recommend this phone to anyone who finds a smartphone daunting. With the addition of this handset, T-Mobile really has a nice phone lineup for the holiday season. The main drawback of this device lies in the web browser. The controls are hard to use and web pages are rendered poorly. We really would however like to have seen an alternative browser such as Opera Mini. In the end the Behold is a good non-smartphone alternative to the T-Mobile G1, but lacks the depth and possibilities that the Android platform posses. If having an open ended phone does not matter to you, the Behold is a great choice.
We believe that a larger screen would have made this handset more of a contender with the Samsung Instinct and LG Dare. The Behold takes amazing pictures and fantastic videos. Sending email and text messages are made painless with easy access and the use of the touchscreen. If you are looking to buy a phone for a loved one this holiday season, we recommend the Samsung Behold. You can purchase the Samsung Behold from select T-Mobile retail locations for $149.99 with a two-year agreement.
28 Responses to “Samsung Behold hands-on review”
Rina van Gund November 20, 2008
Like the phone. It is just a pitty we have to wait 2 months to get it for upgrades by order
+7Lisa MOrgan November 20, 2008
Nice phone, but this thing has some annoying bugs in the software.
If one uses the address fields in the phonebook, be prepared to be really annoyed anytime you look up an address.
The available fields are as follows: address 1, address 2, city, state, country, zip. It displays that information as follows: address 2, address 1, zip, city, state, country.
For example —- my old phone displayed address information like this:
Jane Smith
4186 N. Univ Parkway
#2205
Provo, CA 90010
This phone displays the address information as follows:
Address
#2205 4186 N. Univ Parkw
ay 90010 Provo CA USA
Since customer service is in India (I determined this from the strong accents, but they wouldn’t comfirm that fact), their standard response was “send the phone to us and we’ll see if we can fix it”. Apparently, the idea of software updates hasn’t hit that side of the world yet.
-1Ileana December 1, 2008
I have this phone and I am really pleased with it. It convenient and a good size. It is like a sidekick and a blueberry put together.
-4lore December 5, 2008
i really love this phone but there is a few things that i dont like.
The battery power doesn’t hold as long as the blackberry does. Usually the battery on my blackberry lasted at least 2 days, but the samsung doesn’t even last a full day. Also it doesn’t hold many text messeges in the inbox. My blackberry held at least 3-4 months of texts, while the samsung holds maybe 2 weeks..:\ and it requires you to delete all the texts before you can get the next text. SO it can be a little annoying.
other than that, i love the phone :)
+2berto December 7, 2008
The camera blows. Its ok outside but indoors it is useless. Even outside, the light level needs to be just right for the pics to come out nice like the ones people post online.
NeutralAisha December 19, 2008
i have this phone, and im loving it..But I hate the instant messaging feature. I hate the fact, you cant view your whole buddy list, you can only have 30, you cant put no away message besides “im away”. you have send IM to a person to view their away message. and you can only sign on one account at a time. like you cant be on aim and yahoo at the same time..i hate it ..i hate it..and im paying $34.99 a month for this crap..I should be getting the whole 9..It is so not like the sidekick. I actually missed my sidekick for that. They need to have an upgrade A.S.A.P!! uugh!!
+1tish December 21, 2008
i love this phone but it does drop phonecalls sometimes i had it for about two weeks now and its great. another thing i dont like about it though is when typing messages your fingers seem too big for the keyboard and it ends up putting in the wrong letters sometimes but i love it other than that. i think they should sell it with a stylus.
+6ReduceGadgetEnvy December 22, 2008
This review has been linked from http://www.reducegadgetenvy.com/Item.aspx?i=3
NeutralJason December 25, 2008
I had orderd that phone and i am with tmobile is that the best phone on tmobile or should i get the G1.
+3xo , r e d December 26, 2008
[quote comment="56098"]The camera blows. Its ok outside but indoors it is useless. Even outside, the light level needs to be just right for the pics to come out nice like the ones people post online.[/quote]
idk how ur using the camera but to me my camera is nice clear and gr8 indoors and outdoors and i didnt even touch setting yet and i had my phone for like 5 days already
+3xo , r e d December 26, 2008
[quote comment="57111"]i have this phone, and im loving it..But I hate the instant messaging feature. I hate the fact, you cant view your whole buddy list, you can only have 30, you cant put no away message besides “im away”. you have send IM to a person to view their away message. and you can only sign on one account at a time. like you cant be on aim and yahoo at the same time..i hate it ..i hate it..and im paying $34.99 a month for this crap..I should be getting the whole 9..It is so not like the sidekick. I actually missed my sidekick for that. They need to have an upgrade A.S.A.P!! uugh!![/quote]
yea we really need to get a update cuz if the g1 haves a marketplace and there able to download a new aim that supports custom aways and everything else the behold should cuz we have to same data plan cuz there aim that came wit the phone is the same as ours on the behold but hopefully they get the memo soon…cuz i miss my sklx too and i never receive any of my aims on this phone = [
+1Robin December 26, 2008
Can anyone HELP ME….???? I just received the behold and i love it..however..when i receive a TEXT message….you can’t hear the tone …..i have tried and tried looking it up on the phone, the book and now here…but can’t seem to find where i raise the volume on the incoming text tone…can anyone….write me and let me know if ya’ll know how to raise the volume on the incoming text HELP…thanks……
+8slimmepie@hotmail.com
someone new December 28, 2008
I just got a behold. I love it. I didn’t get a data plan because I didn’t plan on using the internet with it. It came with a trial for the telenav and I really love that so I’m assuming if I want to keep it I have to buy a data plan for it. :-(
+5As I said I don’t have a data plan but it lets me check and send emails? A message comes up saying “DID YOU KNOW? TEXT MESSAGE RATES FOR SENDING AND READING E-MAILS APPLY PER YOUR RATE PLAN.” since I have an unlimited text plan does that mean I won’t be charged extra to check mail?
Tami December 28, 2008
I bought this phone for my son on 12-12-08.
Today, the phone won’t stop resetting itself and he cannot use it. We did not get the protection coverage thru our service because of the cost to replace is same as what we paid for new!
We called our service and we are 2 days out of the 14 day return policy! SO, they checked it and said the phone is fine, the battery is not.
So now we wait 7 days for a new battery to be shipped! JUST to see if it works. If it doesn’t than they said they will replace the phone at no charge.
Anyone else have this problem with their phone?
NeutralChetan December 28, 2008
I dunno bout the phone yet, i’m not the type to carry around a camera which is why I got it..
NeutralI still kinda like the instinct, and sprint’s service compared to t-mobile’s.
Soo I have some time more to return it
Sara December 30, 2008
I have to say this phone SUCKS. I worked for T-Mobile for over 5 years and thought this was the Touch phone that we would all rave about. NOT. I bought mine off of Ebay from a light user and they were not happy with it. Now I know why. I do have the I-Phone, however I only use it for internet and playing Mp3’s vids and other. I am seriously thinking about unlocking the I-Phone and putting this BEHOLD back on Ebay. Maybe I should try the G1. I am deeply disappointed.
-7It doesnt appear to work any better even with a stylus. I would hate to be in a emergency situation and not have the phone’s keypad pull up in time to dial out. :( THUMBS DOWN.
Tim January 2, 2009
Om waiting on my fone to be shipped pretty nice fone I thought I hope its worh my 400$
-1Christina January 7, 2009
I’m thinking about buying this phone but before I d I had a question that has not been answered. On this phone, can you send ringtones and pictures etc. via bluetooth like you are able to on other phones?
+2Jennifer January 7, 2009
I recieved the behold as a christmas present this year, and over all i love the phone. Great features for the camera. Textings great, besides the fact that i type the wrong words form time to time, but i think all that takes is just some getting used too.
From time to time the phone will reset itself, but i figure it’s normal i have only had it for a few weeks now.
+7im guessing as time progresses it will stop,
or am i wrong?
teefa January 8, 2009
i got this phone for three weeks now, i think it has a lot of good features , but the only 2 things that i hate about it , is the phone book ,as there is no way u can type part of the name and it look for it , u have to drag through the letters , and that is kind of annoying when u are driving , and the Camera is Ok , but i dont feel that is the quality of 5 mPx,
+3Melinda January 8, 2009
I just ordered the phone, I’m excited. Hopefully everything will work out. I talk to a rep and he said you’re able to bluetooth and text message ringtones to other people and use it as your own ringtone. I’m curious about the AIM feature though. Because I aim all the time and I would like to be able to see my whole buddy list. I’m just waiting for my new phone!
+2Yolanda Rivera January 10, 2009
[quote comment="57487"]I bought this phone for my son on 12-12-08.
Today, the phone won’t stop resetting itself and he cannot use it. We did not get the protection coverage thru our service because of the cost to replace is same as what we paid for new!
We called our service and we are 2 days out of the 14 day return policy! SO, they checked it and said the phone is fine, the battery is not.
So now we wait 7 days for a new battery to be shipped! JUST to see if it works. If it doesn’t than they said they will replace the phone at no charge.
Anyone else have this problem with their phone?[/quote]
[quote comment="57488"]I dunno bout the phone yet, i’m not the type to carry around a camera which is why I got it..
I still kinda like the instinct, and sprint’s service compared to t-mobile’s.
Soo I have some time more to return it[/quote]
The Same thinq Happen to me .. i got my phone on 12-12-08 .. and dee next day after havinq iit .. it kept resetinq it self .. soo i called tmobile and dey send meh a new battery .. when ii put dee new battery in .. it still kept resetinq it self AGAIN… Soo ii called tmobile again .. and dey just send mehh a WHOLE new Phone with a new charger …… i havent gotten it yet .. but ii hope it works
+2lisha January 11, 2009
When I first saw the phone I fell in love wit it. I love the look but I would like to know can you use the songs from the mp3 player and use then as ringtones
+2edwin January 11, 2009
does aim work as good as it does in a sklx???
NeutralDJ January 12, 2009
Im about 2 get this fone in about a week, but im starting 2 have second thots, al I want 2 know is if the internet browser is good, and if u can watch quality videos on youtube
+3Shuld I get the behold or the G1
Can any1 help me
OverTones February 9, 2009
I’m the type of person who loves having an all-in-one type phone and I will sacrifice certain things, or accept mediocre performance in some areas to have something that does a lot of “stuff”. However, the 4 main reasons I bought this phone were: GPS, 5mp camera, music/video player (and expandable storage for these purposes) and internet browsing capabilities. Unfortunately, the Behold has failed me on 2 of the main 4, and only slightly impressed me with the other 2, leaving me feeling sort of “meh” about what I paid so much for.
First of all, the GPS just doesn’t seem to work! I’ve had it work one time and it took forever to locate me. I had to stop and let it “find me”. However, my cousin has the same GPS service on his phone (telenav) and his works quickly and efficiently? Most of the time on the Behold it gets stuck at 96% and then says GPS signal is too weak. When I called customer service about this, they basically told me to hold it directly toward the sky (silly!) and that it would probably only work in major cities. Okay, fine… but I live in BOSTON and like I said, it’s only worked once for me. Unacceptable.
The 5mp camera so far is my favorite feature, however, it’s slow to take photos. There is like a 5 second delay before it actually shoots the shots. You get used to the timing, but at first it was pretty annoying. The pictures do come out really nice though, especially if you can take time to set up shots well. There are quite a few options on the camera as well. I mostly have only dealt with the flash settings.
I have a 4gb micro SD card (for now) in my phone and the Behold recognized it right away, unlike many other phones I’ve tried that sometimes never recognize cards or you have to format them and install software on your computer. The Behold just comes up like a flash drive on the computer. It shows up on Rhapsody Music Player (which I prefer to iTunes, so I have never tried it with iTunes) and putting music on this phone is easy as pie. The video though… I had to do some research to find the right size/resolution and file type that would finally play and I had to find a program that would convert files to that. Once I did all that, the video player worked and it plays nicely.
The internet browser is NOT full HTML. I don’t know why Samsung is portraying it as such. It just simply is not. It does alright, but a lot of pages don’t even work no matter if you view the full version or the mobile version. I can go to Facebook, gmail, eBay and my bank site, and MOST other sites, so it’s not a huge deal to me, but it’s frustrating that I didn’t get what I was expecting when they said full HTML.
The keyboard I like for the most part. It works well for me, although sometimes when people with larger hands use it (I’m petite), they complain about it. Also, it drives me nuts that I have to enter passwords on a numeric pad, like on a regular phone. It switches to this mode automatically when you click on a password box and it’s really silly to me. I can’t figure out how to change it, so I don’t think there is a way.
Setting songs as ringtones is the easier on this phone than on ANY phone I’ve ever had and I’ve had a lot. (Blackberry Pearl, T-Mobile Shadow, Samsung Blast, samsung t819, Motorola RAZR to name just a few). Also, people seem to complain that this phone doesn’t have a 3.5mm jack. I got one on eBay for 2.99 free shipping, so.. that doesn’t really bother me. Also, the hands free headset it comes with isn’t all that bad, if you can fit earbuds in your ears, which I can’t. ;)
The interface has been fine to me. Sometimes it can lag and then it will do the last 2 or 3 things you asked it to all at once, but I would expect this from any phone like this and it hardly ever happens. I never had these resetting problems that others have talked about here… The phone works really well as a phone and I like the simplicity of the interface for such a small little complex machine, I just wish they would have spent more time on the features they boasted about.
I’ve had the phone since it first came out, so if anyone has any questions I might be able to help. And if anyone knows a fix for the telenav situation I would love hear it! Thanks!
+6FaraJMS June 7, 2009
ok well i want my mom to buy me this phone soo badly. but the thing that concerns me are..
1) does the behold get scratches really easily?
2) is it hard to text
3) how often does it freezes?
4) how long does the battery last? like, does it last 6-9 hrs??
+1FaraJMS June 11, 2009
ok i just got the phone and i LOVE it. i like txting cuz theres only a 1 out of 10 chance i type the wrong letter wrong. (only cuz im a 13 yr old w/ small fingers) and i luv the music player and i luv everythng about it
+2