Samsung Gravity T Review

Introduction:

Samsung has added three new phones to their Gravity lineup, and the Gravity T leads the way.  The T in this case stands for “Touch,” referring to the phone’s 2.8” QVGA touchscreen display.  Other features of this mid-range 3G featurephone include a 2 megapixel camera, microSD expansion and slide out QWERTY keyboard.



Design:

The Samsung Gravity T is a stylish phone; we prefer the red accented unit we reviewed but for the more conservative a silver trimmed Gravity T is available as well.  Both offer splashes of red on the QWERTY keyboard to designate alternate key functions.  Below the 2.8” display is a simple set of keys featuring Send, End and Menu.  The display is decent enough, pretty much exactly what you’d expect to find on a simple feature phone.  The QVGA resolution is positively low- to mid-range these days, but as is the norm for a Samsung panel, it looks very good with 262K colors. It does wash out easily, however, as you can see in our images.



You can compare the Samsung Gravity T with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

Along the right side of the Gravity T you’ll find the microUSB charging/data port, Lock and Camera keys.  To the left is simply the volume rocker and the back houses the 2 megapixel camera and single speaker.  Like we saw on the Samsung Restore, the battery cover is removed by prying from the bottom, a process we are not too fond of as it has a tendency to pop the battery out as well.  The microSD slot is on the right side of the phone, but the back cover must be removed to access it.



The QWERTY keyboard isn’t our favorite, but then again we didn’t have too many problems typing on it.  The keys are round and flat and offer decent feedback.  The combination of spacing and size led to a poor feel for us and we were never quite comfortable typing on it.  That said, we were pretty accurate and decently quick when using it.


Overall the Samsung Gravity T is an OK mid-range phone, though it definitely feels the part.  The plastics used are hard and slippery and the touchscreen has some drag to it.  The slide mechanism is very solid and reassuring.  The phone fits comfortably into your hands but isn’t quite as nice as the Seek, which also features better materials.

Interface, Phonebook and Messaging:

Samsung has employed TouchWiz to power the Gravity T and the normally usable UI is downright maddening on this phone.  It is painstakingly slow, often taking a second or more to respond to an input.  The device is obviously woefully underpowered, a surprise considering the relative quickness of the entry-level Seek.  Though there is an onscreen keyboard available it is virtually useless due to the lag, and even lack of input recognition altogether.  The same holds true for the dialpad.


The phonebook is a bright spot for the Gravity T, offering near-smartphone levels of contact information.  The Gravity T recognizes both first and last names- uncommon for a featurephone- and allows for multiple phone numbers, emails, IM names and even multiple address, plus a note if that’s not enough.  Directly from the phonebook you can choose to either call or message a contact.  Voice dialing is handled by Nuance, but must be activated via the TouchWiz bar (where it is not automatically listed) or via a widget; you cannot activate it using the send button.  Another annoyance is that the screen automatically locks once a call is connected, making it annoying if you want to activate the speakerphone or need to input numbers from the dialpad.


All of your standard messaging options are available on the Samsung Gravity T including SMS, MMS, IM (AIM, MSN and Yahoo!).  The Gravity T actually has Exchange support though we don’t see any business users picking up this youth-oriented device with speed issues.



Camera and Multimedia:

Samsung traditionally does well with low megapixel devices and the Gravity T is no exception.  Images were quite crisp and color reproduction was good, all things considered.  There was some graining in low-light situations, but that is to be expected and we’ve seen other phones perform much worse.   Options are decent as well, with mosaic and panorama modes, smile detection and brightness and white balance adjustment.  Videos can be shot at a max 320x240, which these days isn’t even YouTube quality anymore.



The music player is the same one we’ve seen with TouchWiz devices in the past and it performs just as well.  It’s quite adequate for a device of the Gravity T’s caliber and allows music to play in the background while the user does something else, or nothing at all.  It can be controlled via a homescreen widget thanks to the TouchWiz interface.  Lack of a 3.5mm jack means that you’re either going to be using the phone’s single speaker or a stereo Bluetooth headset.

Data and Connectivity:

The Samsung Gravity T is a global GSM device with 3G on the 2100 and 1700MHz bands.  It has Bluetooth 2.1+EDR and supports the HSP  1.1, HFP  1.5, OPP, FTP, A2DP, AVRC, BPP and SAP  1.1 profiles.  The web browser leaves much to be desired; while it loaded complex pages such as phonearena.com, it took literally minutes to do it over 3G to the point that it is unusable for all but the most basic mobile sites.  The Gravity T does offer GPS navigation with TeleNav pre-loaded, though the service runs $9.99/month after your 30-day trial period.

Performance and Conclusion:

Call quality was good on the Gravity T on both ends.  Callers said we were clear with no real problems, though they said we were a bit tinny.  They rated us 8/10 and we would say the same for our end.  Samsung claims the Gravity T is capable of 6 hours of talk time and 16 days of standby, both more than adequate for the average user.  Given its poor web performance we don’t expect many people will be draining the battery surfing the internet.

The concept behind the Samsung Gravity T is good enough, but the execution is poor.  The TouchWiz UI simply can’t keep up on the Gravity T, even while it works well on similar devices like AT&T’s Samsung Sunburst.  If the phone were an entry-level $30 unit, like Sprint’s Seek it would be one thing, but even the Seek runs smoother and the Gravity T is a hefty $80 on contract.  With phones like the MyTouch 3G and Samsung Behold II offering a plethora of more features for a mere $20 more we suggest skipping on the Gravity T in favor of a real smartphone.

Samsung Gravity T Video Review: