TMOBILE SAMSUNG T809 SPRUCE PHONE

by Samsung

Product Details

• Item Weight: 1 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• ASIN: B000E84CQQ
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (115 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #90,511 in Cell Phones & Accessories (See Top 100 in Cell Phones & Accessories)

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

This flagship quad-band phone from Samsung combines a super-slim slider design with the latest technologies, making it a must-have tool for those who demand the best. Goodies include Bluetooth, support for EDGE high-speed data, a swiveling megapixel camera, a music player, and a microSD memory card slot. The Samsung SGH-t809 is the perfect way to take advantage of all that T-Mobile service has to offer.

Take a closer look at the t809's functions.

Design
The t809's sliding design hides the phone's number pad under the display until you need to make a call. The massive, 240 x 320 display supports up to 262,000 colors -- plenty of resolution and color depth for your videos and photos. A five-way center control button is positioned below the display, as are shortcut and selection keys. The phone's 1.3 megapixel camera is housed on the top of the phone and it swivels to face in or out. USB data and charging ports are located on the phone's bottom edge. There's also a connector for a stereo 2.5 mm headset on the left side, while the microSD slot resides on the right.

Calling Features
With 70 MB of internal memory, the t809 is designed to hold all the contacts, phone numbers and addresses you can throw at it. A call list remembers your most recent missed, received and dialed calls, and in addition to a vibrating alert, the t809 supports polyphonic ringtones and MP3-based music ringtones. You can also download additional MP3 music ringtones from T-Mobile's t-zones service. A speakerphone lets you talk hands-free while you're doing other things, and picture caller ID lets you assign a photo to specific callers. Similarly, a ringer ID lets you assign ringtones to callers. Like all T-Mobile phones, the t809 also supports voicemail, caller ID, conference calling, call forwarding, call waiting, call hold, built-in paging, and access to T-Mobile's 411 service. Lastly, the phone's Bluetooth connectivity means that your favorite Bluetooth headset is fully compatible.

Messaging, Internet, and Tools
The t809 has all the bases covered when it comes to messaging. Support is built in for sending and receiving text, video, graphics and sound via messages. When used in combination with the phone's built-in camera, MMS opens up a whole new world of messaging fun. Messaging clients for AOL, Yahoo!, and ICQ are included.

Getting on the Internet is easy with the t809, too. It supports the GPRS protocol, as well as the new, high speed EDGE data protocol. When used with a T-Mobile data plan and the phone's USB or Bluetooth data capability, the phone can be used as a wireless modem for laptops and PDAs. There's also a built-in browser for t-zones downloads and mobile Web browsing. T-Mobile's t-zones service lets you receive and send emails, read news headlines, get weather updates, download games and ringtones, and more. T9 text entry, which is a technology that makes it easier for people to enter words and text on handsets, is built into the unit-- a plus for mobile text messaging users.

A number of handy productivity tools are bundled with the t809 including a voice memo recorder, an alarm clock, a calculator with currency converter, a calendar, and a to-do list.

Imaging and Entertainment
The t809's built-in 1.3 megapixel camera captures stills and video to the phone's internal memory, or to an optional microSD memory card. The camera captures video at 352 x 288 resolution, and it features white balance and brightness controls. Meanwhile, the phone's powerful still camera sports a self-timer, a multi-shot mode, a night mode, brightness and white balance controls, ISO controls, and spot metering.

Into music? You're in luck with the t809. Store your favorite MP3-based music on the t809 and listen whenever the feeling strikes you on the built-in stereo speakers. Simply upload the songs from your PC via the phone's USB interface (the phone supports USB mass storage mode), then organize and play your songs with the t809's music management software. And when you want to jam out in private you can hook up a stereo headset. Lastly, if you want to dress up the t809, picture effects, custom screensavers, backgrounds, and themes can be set to fit your personality.

Java support is built into the t809, making it a powerful gaming companion. Games are downloadable via the t-zones service or you can use the handset's USB data connection to load more games and files onto the phone.

Vital Statistics
The Samsung SGH-t809 weighs 3.35 ounces and measures 3.9 x 2.0 x 0.58 inches. Its lithium-ion battery is rated at up to 4.3 hours of digital talk time, and up to 130 hours of digital standby time. It runs on the GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 frequencies. The phone comes with a one year limited warranty.

Product Description

Cutting-edge design: the sleek and thin Samsung t809 slider phone comes packed with features including a 1.3-megapixel camera, video capture and playback on the color screen, Bluetooth® wireless technology, and an MP3 player with removable memory so you can keep your music with you. Stay in touch using AIM, ICQ®, and Yahoo!® instant messaging, or send text, picture, or video messages. You can even use t-zones to customize your t809 with HiFi Ringers® and MegaTones®.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

243 of 272 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Looks great - but doesn't quite deliver, April 14, 2006

By 

F. Rabi (Iowa City, IA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: TMOBILE SAMSUNG T809 SPRUCE PHONE (Wireless Phone)

I've had Nokia, Sony-Ericsson, and Motorola phones - and each has had features that I found to be incredibly useful. I've heard a lot about Samsung phones in the international community and I was excited when I saw that T-Mobile began offering this phone. I was hoping it would be a combination of all that I ever wanted in a phone - but I was disappointed.

To begin with, this phone looks great. Well-built, sturdy, and with a high-gloss finish that screams class it received many compliments every time I brought it out. The screen is bright and delivers detailed images and video. By far, this is the nicest screen I've seen on any portable product - including the iPod Video. It slides open and closes smoothly, and the keypad it reveals is backlit and easy to see in the dark. As an MP3 player, it delivers crisper sound than I heard from my Nokia 6600. The Bluetooth worked flawlessly and instanly hooked up with my other phones and my laptop. The camera is as good as any other cell phone camera that promises 1.3MP. In short, what this phone promised ... it delivered.

However, I was disappointed mainly because it appeared that the user interface was not as cleverly designed as the physical package. The phonebook only allows three phone entries per name. Looking up names, you can only search by typing the first letters of the last name. For example, suppose you have an entry for "John Smith" - if you use the search feature and type in "Jo" it will NOT list all the Johns. You have to search for "Sm..". Why? Sure you can sort the phone by either the first or last name, but you can only search using one or the other. Not both. My Nokia and Ericsson could do both. Another phonebook problem - suppose you've just called someone's home and now you want to call their cell. You have to start the search over. It doesn't remember your last search.

Headset works fine. But if you have the headset on and the phone rings, you don't hear the ring through the earpiece. The phone rings normally and you activate the call by pressing the button on the headset. That sort of negates the purpose. You can listen to MP3s using the headset, but since the headset uses a proprietary connector, you can't use your "good" headphones. Maybe when the phone becomes more popular, adapters to standard headphones will be made.

The keys under the screen aren't soft - meaning they cannot be reassigned. The left button opens the menu and the right buttom opens the phonebook. My Nokia let me reassign these keys - so, because I use SMS a lot, I could assign one key to open up the message center.

Speaking of keys - the entire keypad is nearly flat. This makes it hard to "feel" for a key (while driving for example). I don't have particularly large fingers, but I found myself making a lot of mistakes.

Another irritating problem - each menu option has a submenu but the submenus have no relation to one another. (This is a hard one to explain). For example, you are going through your list of audio files. You want to delete one. You click "Options" and you get a submenu of seven items. #6 is "Delete". You can scroll down, but it is faster to just type in the number 6 as a shortcut. So far so good. Now, you are going through your text messages. You want to delete one. The submenu shows the delete as #7. You want to delete a phonebook entry, the delete is #4 in the submenu. No consistency makes it very hard to use shortcuts. All my prior phones had a dedicated "Clear" button that can be used anywhere - but if the people at Samsung don't want to "waste" a button, they should've at least made the submenus more consistent.

By the way, everytime you delete something it asks you if you want to delete "All or Selected" - this is an unnecessary step.

You can listen to MP3s, but you can't use them as ringtones unless they are converted to 3gp. This is as easy as changing the extention from .mp3 to .3gp on your computer before uploading the song (via bluetooth or USB). Why the extra step?

Battery life is terrible. As expected, using the MP3/video player causes a serious drain on your power. One thing I found weird - after listening to MP3s on the phone during a 1-hour flight, the phone became quite warm. I'm not sure if this will affect the phone's general life-span.

The beautiful case looks shiny and great - but it smudges really easily. If you aren't using a headset and you have to press this phone to your ear, be prepared for major smudgeness - especially after a long phone call.

Another weird thing - you can only use the supplied charger to charge this phone. Even if you have another Samsung phone, you can't use another phone's charger. All my Nokia phones used the same charger.

I ended up returning the phone on the last day of my 14-day trial period. It just didn't deliver what I needed, and the annoyances were just too much for me. I am still waiting for the perfect phone - one that combines the best features of all the other phones. I want the appearance of this Samsung (I love the way it looks and feels), but I want the features in all the other phones. I also want it to use standard plugs.

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best slider phone out there, January 26, 2006

By 

IKL (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: TMOBILE SAMSUNG T809 SPRUCE PHONE (Wireless Phone)

I just got this phone a few days ago. It is absolutely amazing. I wasn't planning on getting this phone until I actually saw one in person. I wasn't too impressed with the pictures of this phone on the internet but when I saw one in person, I couldn't close my mouth. I just had to get it.

The LCD screen is very big and bright (you can change the brightness level of course). You'll be amazed by the rotating camera/camcoder feature of this phone. You can zoom in/out in camera mode and it has the best video recording mode out of any cell phone out there. You can download mp3s and set them as your ringtones or play full mp3s. You can even download video clips and watch TV shows. The phone came with a music video and the video quality was exceptional. The phone has 70MB built in memory but it comes with a 32MB transflash card which is one half the size of your fingernail. You can buy a bigger transflash card if you need more storage space. The fact that this phone is quad band means it will work almost anywhere in the world, which is a big plus. The phone is roughly the same size as Motorolla Razr but it is lighter and has superior features not to mention it's a SLIDER PHONE!

However, no phone is perfect.
-I wish the phone had a small hole for cell phone straps or keychain.
-Camera does not have a flash.
-You cannot set MP3's that aren't DRM (Digital Rights Movement) protected as ringtones. You will need to change the MP3 file extention to .3GP to be able to set them as ringtones, which is a little annoying. You can still play all the MP3's on the phone, but only the ones with DRM protection can be set as ringtones (unless you change the file extention to .3GP).

I suggest you go to one of the Tmobile stores and actually see the phone for yourself.

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome in every respect!, February 13, 2006

By 

sreenathm - See all my reviews

This review is from: TMOBILE SAMSUNG T809 SPRUCE PHONE (Wireless Phone)

Samsung got this phone right. I have had this phone for about 2 weeks and I can't put this down. By far the best phone I have owned. It is very light weight and packed with features. Voice quality when using bluetooth and speakerphone is excellent. Sound volume while not using bluetooth/speakerphone is sufficient but not very high. Nothing to take away a star though. The most distingishing thing about the phone is a crisp 240x320 screen and awesome multi-media features. Add the removable trans flash memory to this and you have expansion!

Pros:

* Looks great. It's a black beauty.

* Large 240x320 screen. Want to watch videos in fullscreen? Just press 1 while playing a video to go in full landscape mode at 320x240.

* Camcorder quality is great outdoors and even indoors with sufficient light. 1 minute of good quality video (320x240 resolution) translates to about 3MB per minute with sound. Duration is only limited by memory so with 512MB trans flash you can get over two hours of decent video.

* Video player: This is super. Just watch the sample "Ai No Corrida" song that came with the phone and you will agree. I could easily convert other video formats to 3GP using Xilisoft 3GP Converter. Just play with the bitrate and sound settings and you can get a full movie in good resolution with stereo sound on a 512MB trans flash card.

* MP3 player: Sounds great. Phone comes with stereo speakers that are loud enough. Supplied headphones make it sound much better. Just drag and drop songs to your trans flash with the supplied USB cable and arrange into playlists.

* 1.3 Megapixel camera. I could take good quality 1280x1024 images outdoors. Indoor images are okay under good light. Photo feature comes with several frames for various occasions.

* Removable trans flash (MicroSD) memory. I bought 512MB for $35 shipped and it's definitely worth it. You don't need a separate flash thumb drive if you can carry the USB cable around.

Cons:

* No voice activated dialing.

* You have to take extra care of screen. It easily gets exposed to dirt and oils so you had better purchase a leather case or screen. I bought the Samsung t809 case so I can receive and make calls and even charge the phone without taking it off the case.

NOTE: This phone is not for someone who drops it frequently.

Now some TIPS on using the phone:

* Put the phone in silent mode by pressing and holding #.
* Watch video in full screen landscape mode by pressing 1. The toggle feature is cool.
* Use USB setting of "Mass Storage" to drag and drop files on to phone. This option is much faster since it uses full USB capability. Change USB setting to "Modem" to use Samsung PC suite. Don't use this option to copy large files on to the phone. Use Mass Storage instead.
* You can easily set MP3 ringtones by changing the extension of the file to .3GP and then copying to the phone.

Find some tips for t809 power users at http://t809.blogspot.com/2005/12/samsung-t809-faq.html