Unboxing Samsung SGH-T519 Trace Super-Thin Cellphone & Initial Impression
Wow! Who would have thought that a phone merely .3-inch thick and weighing only 2.5oz was capable of packing so many features. Samsung has raised the bar for thinnest, most awesome cellphone on the market. TheTraceis exclusively offered through T-Mobile for $199.99, or $99.99 after instant and mail-in rebates with a two-year contract.
It features Quad-band GSM and Edge, Stereo Bluetooth, 1.3-megapixel camera, microSD card slot, hands free speakerphone, picture caller-id, and MP3 music player. The Trace has a uniquely larger, landscape oriented 262K color TFT display. This type of screen orientation is not too common to this form factor. Samsung claims a long talk time of 6-hours and up to 8 days of standby time; I’m still extremely skeptical. You can rest assured that I’ll be keeping a close eye on the battery usage.
Ok, so what does Vincent really think of the Trace? I love it. Will I use it? Probably not, because it lacks a QWERTY keyboard, full blown OS, and more onboard memory for browsing the web. Then again, that’s what theSGH-i600 smartphoneis for, right? So for a day-to-day cellphone, the Trace is perfect. You’ve got everything from an integrated chat client that supports AIM, ICQ, MSN Messenger and Yahoo to a great alarm clock; Samsung added a nifty feature that lets the phone calls you at a set time, as well as two additional alarm settings. I like the integration of the NetFront browser by Access (the folks that bought Palm Source), which does a fantastic job of rendering full-page sites for a small screen.
Folks with larger fingers might have some discomfort using the D-Pad. It’s pretty narrow, so there’ll be times when you need to press it more than once. Other than that, the buttons feel great.
All in all, the Trace is a winner in my book.
Oh, one last thing. Samsung and T-Mobile definitely knows how to throw alaunch party! Thanks for the invite!
Check out the Samsung SGH-T519 photo gallery for the rest of the images!
