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- My rating: 0 stars
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1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
3.0 stars
"Great for the price"
Pros: Decent 1.3MP camera, Music player, Internet access (T-Zones), MP3 ringtones, speakerphone, microSD slot
Cons: The part that flips up seems kind of flimsy, not the most colorful screen, doesn't like Internet-based Javascript apps, It prefers internal memory over your memory card
Summary: I got this phone for free for renewing my contract with T-Mobile. It says the MSRP is something like $179.00, but I wouldn't pay over $50 for this phone. It's nice if you're not too hardcore about taking a lot of pictures and videos, but if you're a media-nut and Internet user on the cell phone like I am, you should probably invest your money in something a little more high-end.
I was bummed out the phone only has 65,000 colors. That sounds like a lot, but if you're familiar with cell phones you know that that number can go into the millions on high-end midrange phones. The first time I opened it up and seen the menu, I was disappointed because the menu wasn't as colorful as I expected. The phone also won't let you edit the font face, size, or color (it will let you change the outline/shadow around the font though, which is best left at default).
The camera (for picture purposes) is great in my opinion. It's no 3MP camera by any means, but for a 1.3MP it does the job pretty darn nice. I am disappointed that you can only shoot video in a couple different sizes, the largest is 160 x 120. The music player on it is nice, but be prepared to buy at least a 1GB microSD card if you're going to listen to a few songs, I would recommend a 2GB however. Not that this is related to the phone, but if you decide to buy a microSD memory card for your phone, get an expensive one! I ended up learning the hard way that you get what you pay for when it comes to memory cards. SanDisk is the only brand I trust when it comes to a microSD card for my phone, I've had both 'Dane-Elec' and 'Lexar' brand cards before and I've had to return both after having them less than a day. Also, be weary about buying memory cards on eBay for too-good-to-be-true prices, remember: you get what you pay for when it comes to memory cards!
I had a few minor beefs with the phone that I should mention to anyone thinking about getting one. If you want to have a certain ringtone come on when a certain friend calls you, you have to store the ringtone on the phone's internal memory. This doesn't sound like a big issue at first, but remember the phone only has 7MB of internal memory and even if you have a 2GB microSD card for your phone, if you want a certain ringtone to come on when a certain person calls you have to have that ringtone on the phone's internal memory. This is also the same for picture caller ID, if you want someone's picture to show up on both the external and the normal screen when they call, their picture has to be on the phone's internal memory.
Another thing I didn't like was that when you're recording video, it goes straight to the phone's internal memory (yes, even if you have a memory card). So the length of your videos will depend on how much available internal memory you have, although after you're done shooting the video you can certainly move the video from the internal memory over to your memory card if you have one (it would certainly be nice if Samsung would 'wise up' and at least give you the option to save videos straight to your memory card and not the phone's small amount of internal memory).
I'll also say that the Bluetooth on the phone doesn't seem to be very strong or sensitive. My friend and I were at the local fair and we both decided to scan the crowd to see if anyone had Bluetooth; his phone (an LG) picked up twice the amount of Bluetooth-enabled devices within range than my Samsung did.
The last thing I'll gripe about is that you can't zoom on pictures once they're moved onto the memory card. If you take a picture of something and keep it on your phone's internal memory, you can zoom in close to see the picture better. But if you move the picture onto your memory card, you can no longer zoom in on the pictures. Even if you move a picture from the memory card straight onto the phone's internal memory from the memory card, you can't zoom in on it. The only photos you can zoom in on are the ones you take with your camera and keep on your internal memory, once they're moved off the phone's internal memory for the first time you'll no longer be able to zoom in. This was a major disappointment for me, because I've got hundreds of pictures of myself, my friends, and other things of importance that I like to share with people.
If this is going to be your first time having a camera phone, or a phone that can play videos, or a phone that is capable of checking your web-based e-mail, then the Samsung T439 might be a good candidate for you. But if you're really into media and you want to be able to zoom in on pictures, take decent cameraphone videos, and browse sites like YouTube, then this phone probably isn't for you. I ended up not liking the phone very much because I'm so obsessed with being able to carry any type of media on me wherever I go, and this phone just seemed to limit me on a lot of that. I ended up giving the phone to my mother (who's in her 50's and has never had a cameraphone), and on the other hand she thinks it's the best thing around.
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