Samsung - Behold Cell Phone Review

What does the Samsung Behold...Behold.  First I will start with the good news about this phone.  Compared to other touch screens the buttons are easier to push.  If you don't like to touch and drag there is a side button you can use to scroll up and down.  The widget is handy.  I wish you could customize it more but it is a great feature.  You can open it when you need it and close it when you don't which is way better than a bunch of icons in the middle of your screen covering your background.  It comes with a 1gb mini sd which for most people is more than enough.  It has a special button to see upcoming birthdays if you put that information in your phonebook.  You can email from the phone and im.  It has a 5 mexapixil camera with flash.  The behold comes with a usb data cable and you can download Samsung PC Suite for free which allows you to sync your phone with your computer, upload and download photos, videos, and music. This phone is the perfect size.  It feels really good in your hand. 

Now its time to talk about this phones flaws.  First of all I talked about the widget and how useful it can be, but now let me tell you about the down side.  You can't really personalize the widget it has about 15 different parts of the phone you can access with the widget ie  create a text message, open text messages, birthday reminder, calendar, mp3 player, photos, apps and games, im.  But there is no short cut for email you have to go to menu, messages, and then email.    Not to mention that everytime I turn off my phone my widget resets itself and I have to redrag the most important apps to the top.

Now lets dicussed price to value.  I would never purchase this phone again.  I paid over $330 and that was with a partial upgrade, but the phone is not worth such a price.  The Behold does what any other $150 phone does, but with a touch screen.  It does not do anything special.  It does not come with any free apps which is probably because T-Mobile released the phone before it had any games or apps for a touch screen.  To date there is only GPS, a weather app, nba to go, astrology zone, and spanish anywhere.  You must purchase all these apps.  There are numerous games now that can also be downloaded for around $6. 

Lets behold text messages.  I only have a fewproblems with texting.  First you cannot permanetly assign a language.  Everytime I type a message it defaults to english and I have to change it to spanish just for that message, I have yeat to find a way to turn on spanish permanetly.  Also I have not found a way to permanelty turn off t9.  I have to turn off this also everytime I type a message.  It's not that bad because you can turn the phone side ways and get the full keyboard or use can click the pen and draw one letter at a time.   

The battery is neither here nor there.  It you lower the lcd and them backlight time you may get 2 days out of the battery but if you talk or text message or check your email more than a few times a day you will have to charge your phone everyday. 

There is one more big problem and its with the ringtones.  I have my phone set to vibrate and play music at the same time.  However, the music starts off low and then gets louder.  Which is an option on this phone, but not one that I picked, so I don't know why it does that, but I have missed many of calls because I couldn't hear my phone ring. 

Now don't get me wrong I do like my phone, but giving the opportunity I would exchange it in a heartbeat.  I feel like it should of come with more for the price.   Its more of a T-Mobile problem than a samsung problem.  T-Mobile phones almost never come with free apps or free games, but I was just expecting more for the price.  It is basically what you would get with any cheap phone , but cost twice as much because its a touch screen. My dad has a Nokia flip phone from T-Mobile that cost $40 and does everything my phone does for the most part.  Let me warn you that once you go touch screen you will never want to go back no matter what issues the phone has. I am touch screen for life.

So if you like your normal phone but would like a touch screen the Samsung Behold is for you, but if you want apps and stuff  i suggest you change companies because T-Mobile doesn't have much to offer.  But if you want a normal phone with decent service for a great price stick with T-Mobile.  Not a lot of bells and whistles but good service for a great price is better than great apps.