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"Slim, Sleek, and overall Smashing." on by cc.pyro
Pros: Thin, aesthetically pleasing, nearly fully featured, good construction.
Cons: Lacking some specific options, makes your siblings & girl/friend(s) jealous
Summary: Let me start by saying that I am a self-admitted flip-phone monger. Up until I discovered the T509 no "candy bar" style phone had ever appealed to me. Three weeks ago I had my heart set on either the V330 or the RAZR. After using my Dad's RAZR for a while, I realized that it's (realtively lacking)features, enourmous length, and extreme commonness made it undesirable and the V330 was too much like my old V220. Enough about that.
After reading several reviews and looking at dozens of glamour shots of the T509 online, I had decided that I would seriously consider it once I reached the T-Mobile store, and I'm glad I did. While my Dad attempted to work out his service agreement I took the T509 for a test run. It's small size and ease of use, along with the incredibly crisp screen and multitude of features had me hooked.
About a half an hour later I left the store a proud owner of the thinnest phone in America. When I arrived at my friends birthday party I instantly sat down and began to explore the phone. I found it to be relatively intuitive as well as being incredibly responsive and quick. The buttons are all easy to use and well placed. My main bother with the buttons is that unlike my V220 the center "OK" button is non-functional until you reach the menu. I would have liked that button to be a shortcut to the menu. Moving right along, I quickly updated my phone book and began setting ringtones, groups, and adding picture ID's. This was all relatively simple as long as you remeber that it doesn't always ask you if you want to save an entry. Using the camera was easy enough, however it used (counterintuitively) the left and right buttons for zoom rather than the up and down buttons (which were used to adjust brightness). The camera quality was good enough for me as I only use it to take snapshots, being the owner of a 4 Megapixel Fujifilm. The camera also has a ton of extra features and settings that make it fun to use. The video quality was expectedly moderate, but as my V220 did not have this feature it was very well welcomed. My only major concern with the camera is that it always asks you, with fault to TMobile, whether you want to send the photo to "My Album." They have it set so the "yes" option is placed on the soft key usually reserved for "back" or "cancel" which resulted in several accidental sends to "My Album." Also, there is no option to disable this, as far as I know, nor can you disable the shutter sound. Again, minor annoyances.
The phone is highly customizable and is enigmatically beautiful in all of it's color schemes. Everytime my girlfriend sees this phone she tells me how pretty it is, and after assuring her that she is much prettier, I agree. I love taking it out in public because it is just so eye-catching. The only time it is not on a table within eyeshot or in my hand is when someone else is admiring it. The pictures do not do it justice. If you are even considering this phone in the slightest amount I would suggest that you go to a TMobile store and put it in you hand. It is so small and lightweight that it makes the RAZR look like a Nokia Brick. Any complaints about the length of this phone are null and void once you flip a RAZR and discover that it is about 2 inches longer. Even my V220 when unfurled is an entire inch longer and about 3 times thicker for that matter. It weighs next to nothing, yet it feels incredibly sturdy. On the table next to 4 flip phones (as it is now...T309, V220, N400, A460) it is the only phone that grabs your eye and begs to be picked up.
Call quality is very good and volume is sufficient. Even with one bar of service I can hear other cell phone users clearly and loudly. It holds a charge very well and when it becomes low charges up without haste. The sound quality, as far as ringtones are concerned, is good and there is a decent selection of basic tones. I have not discovered a ringtone mixer, but this isn't an issue for me. The lack of an MP3 player, for me at least, is actually quite welcome. Aside from the SLVR being rather odd looking, the idea of having an MP3 player in my cell phone is rather strange to me. I have a 20GB iPod Photo for that.
In summary, the Samsung SGH-T509 is not perfect, but it's amazingly attractive styling, great features, and most importantly good reception bring it just short of tangent to the perfection curve. I would suggest that at a price of $49.99 with a 2 year service agreement you go snatch one of these up and ditch your clumsy, common clamshell. Then again, maybe you shouldn't, I like being one of the only people around with one of these beauties. -
"Great features for a basic phone, average call quality" on by mshl726
Pros: Beautiful display and quick, easy to use menus, super thin/light
Cons: non-programmable shortcut keys, low speaker volume, average call quality
Summary: The size of the phone is the obvious selling point, so I won't go into that. It's thin folks, really thin.
I've owned Samsung phones in the past (Sprint's a400, a460, a700) and they've typically performed well and have great features. This phone is no different as it provides an awesome display with fast & easy to navigate menus. It has all the options a typical phone user needs these days, such as alarm, calculator, calendar, a good camera (non flash though). The reception appears to be pretty good too (though I am using it on a Cingular network).
There are a few flaws though compared to my last Samsung (A700). First, you cannot program the short cut keys (which are set to: Tzone, Text Message, Camera, Phone book, and Voice Recorder). Second, the speaker is on the bottom of the phone so it's really hard to hear the ringer and message alerts when your phone is set down. Volume is only adjustable to 5 levels and you cannot set the phone to vibrate and ring together. The call volume on the speaker (including speaker phone) is also very low. Call quality on the ear piece is average; you can hear the other person clear and well but it's fairly soft even at max volume. The other person commented that call quality was audible but they could tell I'm on a cell phone.
Overall, I think it's a great phone for the price and its menus are easier and faster to use than a Motorola L6/L7 ( had a L6 too). I couldn't test the EDGE b/c Cingular users can't seem to access the internet (another downside). The L6/L7 has louder call volume (though it's a bit metallic) much louder speakerphone and ringer/message alerts also, but its menu is much slower than the T509. The L6/L7 keypad is much more difficult to use also. -
"Great little phone - not so great for mac users" on by aaron berger
Pros: super slim, great user interface, decent call quality
Cons: no isync even though T-mobile advertises: "connects to your computer without wires"
Summary: I'm a sucker for well designed gadgets and this one is no exception. I also use and love mac osx. After my Razr was stolen, this little t509 seemed to dampen my post razor blues. However, I've had a hellish time importing my contacts to my phone (forget about iCal). I have about 200 so manually typing all of them was out of the question.
It turns out, Samsung doesn't offer any mac support, so I had to turn to 3party app: Onsync. It kind of works but nowhere near as easy as the Razr. -
"Below avg. voice quality/volume, low vibration" on by crescent22
Pros: Thin, display brightness
Cons: Voice quality/volume, vibration intensity, menu laborious
Summary: I really wanted this phone to work given I desired a cool candy bar phone. I was disappointed with the Samsung T-509 on T-Mobile.
BAD
* At the highest volume (5), it was maybe 70% of what you would expect in terms of hearing the other side; consequently you speak louder and annoy others in the room.
* It is more obvious you are talking on a cell phone to the other side.
* Quite obviously worse volume inside a building. Stand on the street and volume is fine; step inside a building and it dips 20%+.
* You will not hear it vibrate sitting flat; you can hear it if you leave it standing upright
* It is so thin you may not feel it vibrate sitting in your pocket if the pocket is not right on your skin.
* Given this, it should be easy to change between vibrate and melody ring, but it takes eight keys- Menu-9[Settings]-4[Sound Settings]-1[Incoming Call]-Up[Ring]-Right[Change to Melody]-Save-Exit/Clear
* T-Zones (T-Mobile wireless web browser)did not come up about 30% of the time, and had a much worse hit rate inside buildings.
GOOD
* Camera worked well and had good intuitive change setting options (light,zoom) right there for you in camera mode
* Brightness is super; almost too bright at the highest setting
* Tiny, but this is well documented -
"Pleasantly surprised by this phone!" on by dizzylena
Pros: Slimness, great screen and keypad
Cons: menu navigation is not the easiest
Summary: Let me start by saying that I have been using the same Nokia 3650 for the last 3 yrs. I loved this phone and could not find anything that worked as well. Unfortunately after 3 yrs my phone finally reached it's end. TMobile has not had anything I liked that was comparable to the 3650; features such as bluetooth and tmobile internet (different from their tmobile web). The menu navigation is ok, you cannot program the two soft keys and as the review said, the scroll button access to functions cannot be programed. I can live with this. I like the slimness and it really is a nice looking phone. the camera has fun features even if it is just vga. the audio quality has been good. I have not had any dropped calls or audio fade out which always happened with motorola phone I tried out. I have had this phone 4 days and counting. I think I will keep it.
Updated
I felt that I wanted to update my initial review. After 2 weeks with this phone, the problems I began experiencing with reception and sound quality were a shock to my system. The audio was so bad that I began to sound like the commercial "CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?" I took back the phone to a tmobile store and was told this was the only complaint they received. So I agreed to let them replace the phone with a new one. I hoped this would take care of the problem but alas, it is not. I am still having the same problems with new ones creeping in. I have been getting these cryptic "sim card crash" with this phone. I have gone back to an old nokia model and have had no problems. 2 days ago another crptic message kept popping up - it said "bearer not available". Tmobile is going to replace it with yet another phone. in two months this will be my 3rd phone. I am not happy with this at all.
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