Customer Reviews

SAMSUNG t619 T-MOBILE GSM BLUETOOTH CELL PHONE

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I bought this phone after dealing with the new SideKick 3 from Tmobile. As much as I enjoyed using the SK3, it was a huge brick to talk with and the camera was horrible and they did not improve the screen. Hence I got this new phone and can still take ten times better pictures with it. Same megapixels but the sensor in it is higher quality and the screen is very crisp and bright. Emailing pictures is as easy on the SK3 and the overall quality is amazing. Signal range is great too, no dropped calls. Charges very fast!

This phone has the features that any good phone should have. It weighs 2.8 ounces and even with the battery installed it feels extremely light. Though it is very small in size, the keys are not tiny. The keys are arranged and spaced fine. When closed, this phone has volume up and down key and a camera key accessible on the outside. It has a nice dark grey body with a shiny black background for its screen and camera on the outside. When closed, you can turn on the camera using the button outside and take a portrait picture of yourself. Following are the Good and Bad points about this phone.

The Goods
-Very light (2.8 ounces), slim and small (3.9 x 2.0 x0.6 inches). Not too small either. Has a sleek finish.
-Quad band (850 MHz;900 MHz;1800 MHz;1900 MHz) International Phone
-Bluetooth wireless
-Sound quality, clarity and reception is really good.
-MP3 player that supports MP3, WMA, and ACC formats.
-1.3 MP Zoom Camera with video recorder
You can use video recorder in two modes. Default mode records clips upto maximum of 10 sec so that you can e-mail them instantly. If you use second mode you can record clips longer than 10 sec but of course limited to the memory available in this phone (max 21MB). You can choose to record video in different formats. You can also choose to save picture in different resolutions. Camera and video quality is really decent.
-Zoom voice feature. I really liked this feature as in noisy environment or in a place where your phone is not so close to the actual speaker, you can turn on this feature and the phone's mic acts a lot more sensitive and you can hear the speaker very clearly even if speaker is situated farther.
-Picture messaging
-Voice Notes
-Voice activated SPEAKER INDEPENDENT dialing.
This phone has a voice recognition software that attempts to recognize the name of the person you want to call and then connects to that person. When the phone is closed you can use multi purpose button on the headset by keeping the button pressed for more than 2 sec the voice recognition software activates then you can give any phone command or calling command to call anyone from your contacts.
-Speakerphone on this phone is loud enough.
-Sends and receives instant messages with Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, or ICQ
-Software interface in this phone responds pretty quick. There is a grouping feature using which you can group your contacts and assign a particular ringtone to a group.
-Phone is High Speed EDGE data transfer capable. I did not use this feature so far.
-SAR (Radiation rating) is nice it is 1.07 when close to ear and 0.9 when you wear it on body
-Phone book on the phone can hold generous 1000 contacts with 5 numbers for each.
-T-Mobile MyFaves capable

The Bads
-After using this phone for a while I thought of adding this point: This phone has a camera button on the right hand side. There is no lock for this button. So it is very easy to accidently press this button. Sometimes you do not realize and the camera could be on for several minutes eating away the battery life.
-Just 21 MB of internal memory. Samsung could have been more generous for this quality of phone.
-No memory slot. Personally I don't need memory slot as I use my iPod for music and other data that I want to store. However considering the fact that most other hi-tech phones of this quality do come with memory slot, Samsung could have provided one for this phone.
-Phone displays date-time, signal and battery strength on the outside but only for few seconds and then the screen goes blank to save energy. If you are used to seeing the time on the front LCD this phone does not provide the time on the outside unless you press volume key for more than 2 sec. That is if you keep outside volume key pressed for 2 sec the outside LCD shows the time etc again for few sec and then goes blank.

Overall in my opinion this phone has really useful features that any good phone should have. I was not big on the points (Bads) this phone lacked in. If you are looking for affordable, small, very light, quad band, bluetooth phone with camera+video+mp3. This is just the right phone!

I upgraded from my Motorola V180 to this camera phone because I upgraded my plan to have the myfaves feature. My review is a little comparison to my old phone considering this is my first Samsung phone.

Appearance- Thin and lightweight. Keypad is big and easy to press. You won't be able to change menu screen.

Battery- It charges quickly, but it also drains quickly. Maybe it's because it's due to me playing around with the camera.

Call Quality- Clear calls.

Camera/Video- My first camera phone, and I have to say that it's pretty decent. I still have to figure out all the camera settings. I added photos of my cats if you want to see picture quality. When I transferred them to my computer it came out a little dark. Not too sure if this happens to all camera phones. There is no flash, but you can use the nighttime mode. Video playback is decent too.

Games- There are four games. Forgotten Warrior, Freekick, Arch Angel, and Midnight Pool. I don't use them.

LCD- Very bright screen. Light will dim and turn off after a minute of idle time. Outer screen light will not be on when phone is closed. It's a drawback since I like to see the time displayed on phone at all times.

Music/Video player- I don't use it, but there is one downloaded video that came with it. It doesn't have a memory card slot so I don't think you'd be able to save a lot of files if you're into that kind of stuff.

Phonebook- Customized ringtones for callers must be saved to phone. A number that is saved to phone and SIM will have double entries. Lots of extra spaces to put email address, work #, picture ID, etc. under one name.

Sounds- Vibration and silence mode can be turned on by pressing just one button. My old phones used to ring and vibrate at the same time whereas this phone will only vibrate first and then ring. Speakerphone is soft though, and you have to click twice just to turn it on.

TXT/IM- I hate using T9 form, and unfortunately it's the default setting and you won't be able to change it. It's very tedious to make 3 clicks to put it in normal mode everytime I create a message. 200 messages can be saved to phone while only 30 is saved to SIM. I think it all depends from the settings you saved from your old phone. IM is great.

Voice Dial- I do not use it.

Other- Downloading files is very quick. Sometimes there is too many clicks just to do a task like deleting a file or message. Transferring personal made ringtones from computer to phone can only be saved as an alarm tone. It was also disappointing that I had to buy more ringtones and games for my phone as the SIM did not transfer my files from my old phone. It has a stopwatch, timer, unit conversion, and tip calculater that my other phones lacked. You can set the calendar on the front of the screen if you want to.

If you like a basic camera phone, then this is good for you. To me the pros outweighs the cons so I'll be sticking with it.

I held back from buying a Samsung T609, knowing that this phone would soon be released. The functions are almost identical, and the new form doesn't disappoint - sleek, thin, yet feels sturdy and works great. However, they took out the microSD memory expansion slot! Why the tradeoff, Samsung? Beware if you're looking to use its MP3 functionality or to make good use of its 1.3MP camera: with only its 21MB of internal memory at your disposal, it won't hold much.

I've had this phone for about a week. I've used Samsung phones before, but my last phone was my first Nokia.

When compared to the Nokia, this phone is...

...smaller, slimmer, lighter, prettier
...not as battery efficient

This is the first phone I've had with Bluetooth and I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to transfer contacts from Microsoft Outlook. One glich was that the phone didn't display the numbers correctly on all screens. I had to open each of the contacts on the phone and click "save" to get them in the right order.

As previously mentioned, the four way button isn't programmable so there's no way to change the right button from voice recording to anything else. I used the calendar on my Nokia often and was able to access it in one click. The Samsung requires five clicks.

The voice dialing is okay, but you've really got to enunciate. For instance, it has trouble with the difference between Sarah and Karen. Using last names helps.

The Samsung is a media player which is great, except that the memory is not expandable. You'll only be able to add a few songs to the phone.

One feature this phone supports that I've never seen before is the ability to use one of your voice recordings as a ring tone. That's fun because I had my girlfriend record her own ring tone.

First off, this phone is very thin and light. It is hardly noticeable in my pocket and has a cool design. I have tried the 1.3 megapixel camera and am pleased with how it functions in comparrison to my previous phone the Motorola V360. The calls seem clear, the signal is strong and it has been pretty reliable.

The drawbacks in my opinion are
1. The external screen is always off. It only stays on for 3 seconds after closing the phone. However, while charging the phone it stays lit up the entire time. I like to check the time and look for missed calls/messages on the external screen but this phone does not allow that. There is not even an external button you can press to light the external screen back up.

2. I have a hard time with the Samsung Text message software. Perhaps I am just used to Motorola's UI but I find it more difficult to text using this phone.

3. I agree with other reviewers who stated that it seems you must do several click throughs to accomplish certain tasks. To delete a message you have to click several times.

Overall This is a good little phone and I think any samsung fan would be very happy with it.

ok, this is a sturdy phone, and I loved my e635 very much but didn't like how the slider phone screen gets scratched so I opted for this flip phone. I figured by now they would have the menu system flaws worked out, but it's only gotten worse (did Samsung even try using this phone!? They truly are the king of non-intuitive menus and their manual is next to useless):

One of the hot keys for the camera is on the side of the phone. Now, under normal circumstances when the phone is closed I would expect these external keys to be disabled, but that is not the case, so I end up with a bunch of pictures of the inside of my pocket!!! This is an AMAZINGLY stupid design flaw, and I can't find any way around it! A note for another reviewer, you can clear your default picture location (go to camera-left soft key-6 go to my photos-options-5 set default destination) so at least it won't upload them and charge you and will only save them to memory, I had to do this on my e635 as well.

There are two soft-keys on this phone at the top, the one on the left is for the menu which makes sense, now the one on the right should be for the phone book as it is on the e635, however instead it is used to access ... t-zones?! What the heck? I don't know about you, but I go to my phone book infinitely more often than t-zones. At the very least they could have at least made this key programmable. The phone book however is directly accessible via the down key when you first open the phone.

One cool thing about t-mobile is after 3 months you can call them and get your phone unlocked.

Is t-mobile so hard up for cash that they use phone TRICKS to nickel and dime you out of your money?

I liked the key pad, the t9 messaging functionality, and generally the layout of the keys and buttons (the navigation arrows are a little small so I have to use my thumbnail instead of thumb). The pictures are good, but a little softer than better (more expensive) cam phones. The customization is kind of weird--I'm stuck with a ping background in phonebook that I can't get rid of (not bad if I were a 13 year old girl, of course), and the "rainbow" option for text only works for direct dialing, which I virtually NEVER do. But the worst thing was that after having it for less than 10 days, it got a "burned out" section in the bottom left hand portion of the screen. It affects all the screens, covering roughly the bottom 1/9th of the screen, and is only about half as bright as the rest of the screen. I liked it, but have to return it. Bottom line is that if they're discounting it so deeply they're giving it away, there's always a reason (usually cheapness in the mix somewhere)--there's no such thing as a free lunch, so I'm returning it for a better phone. Probably the 6133, but we had problems with that also (supposedly because of an older, 32Kb SIM card, but I'm dubious) and had replaced.

I have to wonder if anyone actually TRIED using this phone before it went into production.
1. The maual leaves a lot out on how to use this non-intuitive phone.
2. In order to see address book you have to press menu, then scroll to phonebook and click,then scroll to contact list and click.
3. The voice recognition never lets you "teach" it your voice. It's less than useless. More often than not, the coversation goes like this.
me: Call Jane
it: Do you mean Jane Doe?
me: Yes
it: Do you want home or mobile?
me: Mobile.
it: Did you want home or mobile?
me: MOBILE
it: I'm sorry, that is not a valid listing.

The camera button is on the outside--clever if you WANT it on, but often I end up taking pictures of my chin or my pocket. Then, before you can go to the main screen, it asks if you want to send it to My Album (at an additional cost). On that screen, you have the choice of clicking on My Album or Yes or Option. When you click Option you are given a new menu, which you will have to scroll to the next page of to find Delete! Now you're ready to make a phone call--if you can find the number!

In many parts of my town there is little or no signal, even though T-Mo says there should be.

This phone is a nice looking piece of garbage. Too bad it took me more than two weeks to figure that out, with their lousey manual. It's mine now.

This phone was free with the "My Favs" plan. The phone is OK. Not great, not super duper, just OK. It is a tiny phone that weighs next to nothing and has a rather cheap feel to it. The camera button is pushed everytime I pick-up the phone because it is very flimsy and practically pushes itself.

You have to jump through way too many hoops to get this phone setup the way you want it. The ringtones provided with the phone really suck, as do the Fav icons. But not to worry, T-Mobile sells ringtones and Fav icons, which is why they give you the crappy ones. Thanks, T-Mobile!!!

I really like the My Favs plan, but if I had it to do over again, I would spend some money to get a decent phone along with the plan.

Can you figure out why the phone was free??? Gosh, Batman, you're so-oooo smart!