Samsung T509 Review

The T509 came as a surprise to many people here in the US. Just after all the talk about the Motorola L7 subsided Samsung decided to strike back. And in combination with T-Mobile USA they brought the T509 to the masses. The T509 is advertised as the thinnest phone ever, and it might very well be, cause it's only 0.4 inches thick (the L7 and L6 by Motorola are a little thicker actually). It's not really a replacement for a specific phone either in T-Mobile's or Samsung's lineup. Rather it's their answer to Cingular hooking up with Motorola to introduce the L6 and the L7. Well, except for the “wow” factor, which certainly is there, what else can we expect of this little phone? It's Bluetooth enabled, it has a camera, it's triband GSM, ... and it's thin.

6600-T509-V360(left-to-right)

6600-V360-T509(top-to-bottom)

The T509 is another phone in a growing trend of making thinner phones, started by the granddaddy of them all - the Motorola V3, known as the RAZR. Unlike the RAZR though, the T509 is not a flip, rather it's a very thin candybar phone. Measuring at 0.39 inches it's the thinnest phone on the US market. However at just over 4.5 inches it's rather long and doesn't exactly feel compact. Still fits great in a shirt or a pants pocket. Being made mostly out of plastic, it's also light - 2.7 ounces. Very comfortable for a tight fit in light clothes.



Besides the eye-catching design the phone is equipped with a really nice and bright 65K color screen, with a resolution measuring at 176x220. The screen is a jewel, and is easily visible even in bright sunlight. Below the screen you have the 5-way navigational pad, the two softkeys, the Send and End keys, and further down there's the 12-button numeric keypad. These buttons are actual buttons, and are not just cut into the metal like the ones on the Motorolas. Whether you prefer these is a matter of personal opinion, but they definitely feel better for texting and a lot of dialing. The navigational keypad is also raised above the face of the phone and is not flush, feel is soft but accurate.



One thing that Samsung changed on their newer phones and that's including the T509 is that the central button on the navigational keypad is just an "OK" button, and is no longer used to start T-Zones, or whatever mobile internet service you have. You can still start T-Zone from the homescreen by pressing the right softkey. One thing that would have been desirable is having the central "OK" button start the menu while in the Home screen, and maybe asssign a shortcut ability to the left softkey, but the it is right now works fine, and this is really a very minor detail.

On the left side you have the volume keys, and on the right side is the charging/headset port. The camera and the speakerphone are located high up on the back, so your finger will not be in the way. A camera button is located on the right side, and that will activate the camera as well as capture the image. The side keys are a little harder to press than the front keys, which is a bit inconvinient.
Overall, the nice design is complemented by a very solid build quality, and better designer solutions (for example the battery is not the back cover as well, there's a separate piece for that).

Interface:

Samsungs have always had easy to use interface. The menu on the T509 is animated similar to the T809, but is a bit simplified due to it's lesser features. It's a 9 icon grid menu, with each icon being animated when highlighted. There is absolutely no lag when going through the menus, except when making a change having to wait for the little “Saved” pop-up to go away. With a nice screen and colorful graphic menu, the user interface really is joy to work with. That, of course, is something that Samsung have always been known for. One nice feature for a candybar phone like this one is the autolock feature, which locks the keys after about 30 seconds in standby. In addition, while the keys are locked pressing and holding the volume keys will bring up the time and date, without unlocking the keypad. Here is the place to mention that having the center key as an "OK" or a "Select" key is great, and now the right softkey is left to being just the "Back" key, although sometimes that function can be executed by the "C" key underneath the Navigational pad.

Messaging:

Messaging on the T509 is very down to earth. You've got text and picture messaging in a dedicated part of the menu, also there's an IM client which supports AIM, ICQ, Yahoo! and MSN Messenger. Using those will however bring your messaging charges up quite a bit, so getting something with unlimited messaging is a good idea.

Phonebook:

The phonebook on the phone is also pretty well organized. For every contact you can save four numbers, email, picture, and a dedicated ringtone. The phonebook can be organized in groups as well, which is quite handy. The phone has Picture ID, so that adds to the fun. You can also have your contacts organized in groups, so that you can bring even more organization in you phonebook. One thing we wished the T509 had is ability to synchronize with Outlook.

Getting in touch with people itself is not a problem. The phone is a domestic triband GSM phone, which will work with no problem in a lot of places around the world, but will have some trouble when in developing countries. For data transmission the phone relies on GPRS and EDGE, which is great, but since the phone itself only has WAP browsing, you'll be able to experience the EDGE fully if you use it as modem to a laptop or a PDA. You can do that via the Bluetooth, which actually supports Data Transfer, Object Transfer, Dial Up Networking, and Handsfree profiles.

Camera:

With all these connectivity options you can easily share pictures that you take with the built-in camera. It is only VGA though, so pictures will look decent on cell phone displays, but won't be so great on a desktop monitor. Outdoor shots leave a lot to be desired, but indoor shots are not all that bad – a little dim, but colors are all right and lightning is ok. 

The camera interface is well set up and easy to use. You can change a lot of the options by going into the camera menu.  This is done by pressing the right soft key. There you can select the Shooting Mode (normal, multi shot, or a night shot), add effects (like Black and White, Sepia, Negative, Sketch), add frames, set the self timer (3, 5, or 10 seconds), and you can go to the gallery as well.  That is also the way to start the video recording. Videos are done in 176x144 resolution and are recorded in .3gp format. The length is only about 15 seconds.  Right from there you can also send the video or picture in an MMS to an email address, or another mobile phone.

Music:

The onboard memory of the phone is too limited for the music fans (only 10 MB) but you'll still be able to get MP3 sound clips on there as ringtones. Keep in mind that to get only MP3 ringtones downloaded from T-Mobile can be used on the phone. There's a software limitation preventing you from using ones that are transferred via Bluetooth. You do have enough space for a coupe of games. The phone already comes with 4 built in - Forgotten Warrior, Freekick, Arch Angel and Midnight Pool. All of them are JAVA based.

As far as the ringtones go, you have a pretty good selection, and yes, Samsung did include a ringtone that sounds like a normal phone . . . along with the regular spectrum of melodies ranging from annoying to funny.

Organizer:

The Organizer is also pretty well thought out and simple. I'm sure many of us would wish that phone would be able to synchronize with some sort of PIM software, but at this point nothing is available. A nice idea is having two separate alarms. You do have the ability to set up appointments and tasks. You can also select  different views - day, week, month. World Time lets you check what's the time in different time zones, very handy if you travel a lot or need to keep up with international contacts.

One nice addition to this phone would have been voice dialing. Maybe not everybody will need it, but the lack of it gives an incomplete feeling to the phone. Also customizable shortcuts would have been nice. Just  about every other manufacturer has it. Samsung however is not too keen on that.

Recording of Voice Notes is also available

Performance:

The T509 performed rather well on T-Mobile around Southern California. Everyone that lives in the area knows that signal strength is an issue, but the little Samsung was doing quite well. Experienced very few dropped calls, and only in areas where it could be expected that other phones would drop service as well. Actually reception-wise it fared better than other Samsung phones in T-Mobile's lineup and above average in general. So definitely two thumbs up here.

WAP however was a disappointment. It was slow (even though we were in an area where we had EDGE) and the navigation through it was not quite clear. Adding websites as bookmarks was tedious. In addition, ability to run Opera Mini would have been nice, but looks like T-Mobile has disabled internet access for Java, so no HTML browsing here. You are stuck with WAP. Good news is that WAP content is improving every day.

The screen was bright enough, so in direct sunlight there was no problem going around the menu. Viewing pictures however required a little bit of squinting. It is amazing that the phone managed to keep a decent battery life even with a screen like that set at the maximum brightness.

One thing that can always can be expected of Samsung is loud, clear and crisp sound. The T509 is not an exception. For it's thin size it was giving more than an earful to it's user, and the sound was always clear. On speakerphone the situation was very similar - crisp and clear sound, loud but not badly distorted. One nice change that Samsung kept from the T809 is the one button activated speakerphone. Some of their entry level phones have a speakerphone that requires pressing 2 buttons to activate. Luckily they changed that. Also the speakerphone now has a separate speaker, and does not use the earpiece.

The battery was holding up pretty well, talk time averaged at 3 hours, with standby going into a week. With average use the phone was holding up pretty well for two or three days. Charging from a completely dead battery to a complete charge took almost 2 hours though. Text messaging and gaming does bring down the battery life considerably, largely because of the screen brightness. It is a good idea to turn down the brightness down one-step.

Conclusion:

Overall, Samsung's answer to Motorola's thin line of phones proved to be quite capable. The T509 is indeed a very good phone. Considering the features and the price this phone is sure to get some deserved attention. One thing that might be a turn off is the plastic casing, however that's pretty solid and doesn't feel cheap at all. Samsung managed to put some very nice things into this phone - good speakerphone, camera , Bluetooth, excellent screen. The user interface is also pleasure to use. Definitely very stylish, the phone fits both men and women that want to communicate in style.

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As always, if you are interested in becoming part of our review team, drop me an email at: kidoborg@phonearena.com

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