Samsung SGH T719 (T-Mobile)

The thing that impressed me the most about this phone is the blazing speed of the user interface. I'm used to waiting for things to happen on Finnish cells and Moto phones. Not on this one! From the time it starts up everything about this phone is fast. T-Zones loads immediately. I thought it might have been pre-loaded it came up so quickly.

Speed is good but only if it accomplishes something. Ever have to browse through a phone book? This one will speed you through it. Changing settings, going from menu to menu, turning on the Bluetooth, cruising the Internet, whatever it is you need to do you will do it faster on the Samsung SGH-T719.

At first glance the keyboard can be intimidating. It took about two minutes of playing with it to understand how it worked and why it is so superior to the usual, and pre World War Two, arrangement of letters and buttons. Maybe because I never learned to type and have always had to hunt for the letters that I did not see anything wrong with continuing as usual with this handset.

About the keyboard, aside from the novel arrangement of the letters, if the QWERTY arrangement may be seen as novel, there is the feel of it. I'm not a big fan of the how this one felt. Sure, there is plenty of tactile feedback so you can tell if you've actually activated the key. I don't like the plastic feel. It reminded me of the controller of the Intellivision video game console of the 80s. The feel of it screamed "cheap". Now I'm sure that five years from now that keyboard will still be going strong and probably will still look fairly new, just like the Intellivision controller is still working. This isn't about the durability - this is about how it made me feel. Yes, this is about me!

One part of the handset I really liked is probably the least frequently used feature by the general public. The SIM install and removal was a breeze. Most people put their SIM in the back of the phone and it sits there until the 23rd month of their contract when they upgrade. Easy in and easy out for the SIM is not a daily issue for them. To me cell phones are toys and I'm like an easily bored kid. I rarely go through a day having used just a single handset. I'm inserting and removing my SIM every day, several times a day. So this feature really caught my attention. I've had handsets where I had to use a tool to remove the SIM. The sloped entry is a wonderful way of arranging the SIM interface.

This unit has cool ringtones. There aren't a bucketful of them but they are fun to listen to. It's a nice break from some of the other companies' usual stock in trade. A guy can listen to la da da da- la- la da-da-da or Hellomoto just so many times and then its time to take off the gloves! These were different and varied.

The speakerphone on this thing is solid. Very clear, even at high volume. The speaker - amplifier match is good.

The camera is good. The lens swivels so you can take a self-portrait and use the large inner LCD as the viewfinder. Video playback is superior. No lag, nice picture, okay sound for a phone playing a video are the key traits you'll see here.

This one won't make my daily rotation because of the keypad but other than that, and that is a personal taste issue, this is a much better than average phone. That this also does BlackBerry is icing on the cake. Even if you never send nor read a single e-mail this a very functional handset. Did I mention it was FAST?