Samsung Katalyst SGH-T739
Average Ratings
Works for me!
I had a hard time moving over to Samsung. The last one that I had was a piece of junk and chased me back to the snug little world of Nokia. That said, I had a very bad signal at my house and a very good wireless router (Cisco 871) the the Hotspot@Home idea was just grand for me...
Thus far I have been very pleased, but in order to save time, I will just write my pro's and cons...
Pro's:
- Good call quality
- Nice sized screen
- Hotspot@Home works great (I took it home and searched for my network. I then entered my net's passkey and it worked like a charm. I was a bit concerned about the MAC filter that I currently have on my net, but for some reason, it didn't even affect it... A bit disturbing...)
- Decent picture quality for a mobile phone
- Battery life has been excellent. I have been surfing for two and a half days now and will probably only now have to recharge it. I also use my phones a fair amount.
Con's:
- Power charge cover door seems flimsy. I am guessing it will break off in a few weeks (I tend to be rough on things...)
- I would prefer a USB type power charger
- SD card under battery. Of course, this doesn't really matter as when I am home, it connects to send text messages via my WiFi and sends the pictures to my home just fine. I have yet to play with trying to access the phone over the LAN... Could be interesting.
- Silver case (When are the cell companies going to figure out that black plastic + silver paint = crappy looking phone in short period of time.
I will update this after a few months of use and let you know what I think at that time...
-c
Nice Handset BUT with Important Flaws
Given how few UMA phones are offered by T-Mobile, I guess we shouldnt be TOO critical.
But...
I am just amazed that this phone currently has the following flaws:
1 - It is not possible to take a photo and save DIRECTLY to the SD card. You have to save to the phone (where only 5 or 6 photos fit) then MOVE them to the SD card. Oh, be sure to set up a bunch of subfolders on the SD card, because the picture file counter starts over at PHOTO_001. So, you will have to rename each photo you move or move to different folders. And yes, the camera is effectively out of commission while you take the time to do this. Cumbersome!
2 - THere is a music player on board and you can copy music files into the SD card. Super. BUT... There is no way to LISTEN to the music IN STEREO. Only a single Mono earpiece is furnished with the phone. FOr a small fortune you can buy a 3rd party set of stereo Bluetooth headphones, which will:
(a) Cost a lot of money
(b) Clobber your battery life.
I'm sure Samsung will rectify these problems by:
1 - Offering a firmware upgrade to the Katalyst which will allow saving pictures directly to the SD card
2 - Introducing a set of stereo headphones as an option.
Otherwise a pretty good phone. Not the BEST reception, but not the worst, either. The unit rather easily jumps to UMA mode when in range.
--Mark
Nice phone but...
It was a nice phone but sound quality wasn't any noticeably better or worse than the Nokia 6086 UMA phone. The Draw back of the phone and the reason why i returned it is because the carrier chose to disable certain functions of the blue-tooth. Namely not being able to tether it to my laptop or other phones to upload or back up the phone book and business cards.You'll have to spend extra money for the data cord for that. Why when blue-tooth is there? Shame on you Carrier. You spend $150 you expect it to do as much as a $49 Nokia.
Good IDea, needs revamping
I owned this phone and it had everything i wanted, or so i thought. First of all i bought this for the wi-fi. My home has little signal but a 10Mb cable connection.. my connection would fade in and out when running 2x wireless routes in a 1200 sq ft home. Had to disable alot of my security features to allow my phone to connect. wi fi runs off a slower and older technology. The phone had a buzzing when i first dialed the call. I like it but like the others the bluetooth block is annoying.
PRO's
-Shiny!!! love that chrome
-keys are easy to press no bumper at the bottom keeping big fingers from typing
-good signal, quad band phone
-comes with world adapters good phone for out of us travel.
con's
-wi fi difficult to setup for everyday user, and requires some features being disabled unless you buy the "hotspot" router
-chrome shows finger prints like mad
-bluetooth blocking, upset alot of customers
-My wife's Motorola Slide got a better signal both quad bands.
Traded this one in for the Sidekick ID, and don't regret it for a minute.
A Little Impressed?
We just purchased this phone on 12.11.2007, and so far it is just like the rest of the samsungs that T*Mobile has (t-629, trace). The menu setup and everything is pretty much the same. I don't recall there being a tip calculator in the others though. Basically the only thing that this phone has different is the hotspot @ home feature, which I don't use, so I can't say anything about it. Sorry!
Pros:
-Slider Phone
-Hotspot @ Home feature
-Music Player
-Tip Calculator (that's kinda cool)
-Stylish Chrome
-3.1MP Camera
Cons:
-Inconveniently placed SD slot (under battery?!)
-T*Mobile disabled bluetooth file sharing (no joke-they're tired of people not paying for ringtones and wallpapers)
-With this phone (and every other Samsung) you can not use your ringtones as ringtones directly from the SD card, for you must first transfer them to the phone's memory. Same with wallpapers
Nice Hardware, Software could use an upgrade
This phone seems like a nice phone. I've only had a few days. The first thing that I noticed is that it has a proprietary data/power connector. Would it have been that hard to use the standard miniUSB jack? It would have been an excellent feature. It is obvious that they didn't do it that way so you would have to buy all new data cables, chargers, headphone adapters, etc. The other main issue I have with the phone is that you cannot specify your own shortcuts. This is obviously a software issue. I am used to being able to specify my softkey features on my v3t; having to use multiple key clicks to get to your inbox is quite annoying. If this were to be fixed, then the rating would bump up to a 4. The handset feels sturdy. I'm not sure if I'll keep it or swap it for the Nokia 6086. My girlfriend has one and it works quite well.
Pros:
Hotspot@Home
Slider
Decent screen
Cons:
Cannot assign your own shortcuts
Proprietary Data Jack
Worst location for the microSD card slot (behind the battery).
