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Wednesday July 15, 2009
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 Samsung and T-Mobile have launched the Samsung Highlight SGH-T749, a slim, full touch-screen phone that looks like a sexier, more vibrant, but less powerful Samsung Behold. It offers T-Mobile subscribers another handset option in the vein of the Samsung Instinct S30 on Sprint.
I had a chance to test out the Highlight ahead of the announcement. The phone measures 4.3 by 2.1 by 0.5 (HWD) inches and weighs 3.7 ounces; all dimensions are within a few ticks of the Behold. The Highlight was very comfortable to hold due to its rubberized housing, textured battery cover, and rounded edges. My test unit was furnished in bright orange and red, in a hue called "Fire"--a turquoise "Ice" variety is also available.
At 240-by-400 pixels, the Highlight matches the Samsung Instinct S30 in resolution, but doesn't quite make it to iPhone or HTC TouchFLO territory. Still, the screen and UI were responsive overall. A small jolt of haptic feedback answers each finger touch. There's a built-in accelerometer which was kind of quirky in my limited testing; often the handset didn't know which way was up.
As with the Behold, there's no hardware numeric or QWERTY keyboard. You can enter data in
fields using the touch screen, just like on an iPhone--although the
Highlight works slightly differently. When held vertically, the
on-screen keyboard is a big numeric keypad; you can text on it, but
each "number" contains several letters. Tilt it on its side and you get
a full QWERTY keyboard that seemed pretty good at picking up what I
intended to type. Often, as I typed, the handset would highlight two
letters and then (very quickly) make a guess on which one I meant.
The
home screen features a TouchWiz side bar--another Behold inheritance--and as before, it's fairly easy to get
around. You can populate the home screen with IM, news, weather, and other widgets. The main menu is a
four-by-three grid of icons, along with some additional shortcuts along
the bottom. In a limited amount of testing, voice calls sounded crisp, clear, and slightly hollow on my end, and clear but excessively robotic on the other side. But that may have been due to some poor reception, so we'll be sure to test that further.
Keeping in mind that the Highlight is a feature
phone and not a smartphone, it has plenty of data options. It's a full-blown 3G handset, for example, and also works with the excellent TeleNav GPS Navigator;
T-Mobile throws in a 14-day free trial for the latter service. The Web browser looks to be a winner, with accurate page rendering, responsive scrolling, and two clearly laid out toolbars across the top and right sides.
There's a 3-megapixel camera on
board with video capture--an unfortunate step down from the Behold's solid 5-megapixel camera--along with the now-standard music player and
microSD card slot that works with cards up to 16GB. T-Mobile is
claiming up to six and a half hours on its standard battery; we'll run
full tests soon.
The Samsung Highlight is now available for
$149.99 with a two-year service agreement and qualifying data plan, and
after a $50 mail-in rebate. That feels a bit high given the Behold's more powerful camera and lower price, but the Highlight looks pretty sharp otherwise. Stay tuned for a full review.
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July 16, 2009 8:23 PM
I have already seen this phone. It will come out in 2 colors: red/orange and turquoise/light blue. I am so used to windows mobile and andriod features that I didnt want to look a second time at it. Its much curvier than the Samsung behold and a little smaller. Its really nice, but they need to change the features. more at http://www.Samsung-Highlight.com take care