Phones.com » Cell Phones » Review of the Samsung SGH-T919 Behold

The Behold is another competitor to iPhone, from Samsung's arsenal. The Samsung Behold definitely has an eye-catching design. The phone tries to maintain a slim profile at 11.4 mm, smaller than the Samsung Omnia. Weighing at an exact 100 grams, it is neithger heavy nor too light, feeling just right in one's hands or pocket. The 3" touchscreen is definitely a plus for a device like the Samsung T919, and below it are three tactile hardware buttons: "Call", "End", and "Back" keys. The Samsung T919 was easy to operate single-handed; except where menu buttons and widgets are present on the extreme left. This makes it difficult for people who operate their phones right-handed. The TouchWiz interface improves usability and makes the Behold's widgets customisable in easy steps. Overall we liked the high-tech feel the Samsung T919 Behold offers.

The interface of the Samsung Behold is unique in terms of user experience. The TouchWiz interface, in conjunction with the vibration feedback of the touchscreen make navigating through menus and accessing applications really fast. The 3" landscape display is made full use of, with a resolution of 240x400 pixels at 262K colors. There's also the usual auto-rotate feature present on most modern smartphones. What bothered us mostis that the Behold, unlike the Omnia, was not a smartphone; it had a proprietary Samsung OS and offers limited flexibility for power users. The Behold nevertheless offers all the advanced functionality one expects from a high-end phone. It features a Document Viewer, with support for Word, Excel, PPT and PDF files. There was also good Multimedia support and a full featured Organiser. The Behold has a 5 megapixel camera and an LED Flash on its back. The maximum resolution this camera supports is 2592x1944 pixels. Video recording capability was poor at just QVGA 30 fps. There's also no seccondary camera, using the rear camera for video calls is awkward if not impossible. Samsung generously added RDS support for FM Radio lovers.

The Behold has Quad-band GSM support on the 850/900/1800/1900 MHz bands. Further it has support for the newer 3G band, 1700 MHz and HSDPA. Local connectivity was through means of Bluetooth 2.0 A2DP and USB 2.0. There was no Wi-Fi or Infrared. HTML Browsing was a bit flawed, there was support for Email abd IM. The TeleNav Navigator software was usable with the inbuilt GPS.

The Samsung Behold is powered by a 1000 mAh Li-ion battery, which provides for up to 3 hours of talk time. The standby of the device was rated at 250 hours, or about 11 days. For heavy users of multimedia, the Behold can withstand its capacity less than a day before needing another charge. For normal users who are used to texting and Calls, the Behold might provide a reasonable two days of backup.

The Samsung Behold is not usable on most 3G carriers, owing to its unconventional 1700 MHz capability. T-Mobile does have considerate contract plans, but this option is risky as the Behold is not a future-proof phone. In our opinion, Samsung could have improved up on the T919 Behold.