Mobiles Review

With support for multimedia messaging and mobile instant messaging, this sleek companion will keep you in touch with the latest cell phone technologies. It’s also got a vibrant color screen and a VGA camera (with a flash and video capture), which is great for getting and sharing shots on the go.

Design
The T309 sports a slim, sleek clamshell design with a large 128 x 160 color display with 65,000 colors. A supplementary, 96 x 96 monochrome screen on the front of the cover keeps you up to speed on time, date, call information, battery and signal strength, and more. Up and down buttons for volume control are placed on the left side, and there’s also a button for quick access to camera functions. Most of the phone’s features and on-screen menus are controlled by a five-way center button on the handset’s control pad. There’s also a standard jack to accept universal hands-free headsets, while the phone’s charging and data ports are placed on the bottom of the unit. And because the T309’s antenna is housed inside the phone, there’s nothing to snag or break off.

Calling Features
With 10 MB of internal memory, and an expansive, 1000-contact address book, the T309 is designed to hold all of your important calling information. The phone also features 40-chord polyphonic ringtones, and in addition to the built-in ringers you can download additional ones from T-Mobile’s t-zones service. A vibrate alert silently notifies you of incoming calls when you want to be discreet, and a handy speakerphone lets you talk handsfree or hold conference calls. Meanwhile, ringer and picture ID lets you assign photos and ringtones to callers. Like all T-Mobile phones, the T309 also supports voicemail, caller ID, conference calling, call forwarding, call waiting, call hold, built-in paging, and access to T-Mobile’s 411 service.

Messaging, Internet and Tools
Powerful messaging and Internet capabilities are built into the T309. Support is provided for sending and receiving pictures, text, graphics, sound and video via MMS messages. When used in combination with the phone’s camera, MMS opens up a whole new world of messaging fun. Instant messaging is also supported via the AIM, Yahoo!, and ICQ messaging clients (T-Mobile messaging charges apply), and there’s also a built-in web browser for t-zones downloads and mobile web browsing. T-Mobile’s t-zones service lets you receive and send emails, read news headlines, get weather updates, download games and ringtones, and more. T9 text entry, which is a technology that makes it easier for people to enter words and text on handsets, is built into the unit??“ a plus for mobile text messaging users.

A number of handy software tools are bundled with the T309 including a calculator with a unit converter, an alarm, a voice memo recorder, and a calendar.

Imaging and Entertainment
Kick the fun up a notch with the T309’s integrated VGA (640?—480) camera, which includes a video capture capabilites and an LED flash for getting good shots in low-light situations. The phone also allows you to set screensavers, themes and wallpapers to suit your tastes. The phone is Java enabled, meaning it supports games written on the Java platform. The unit ships with several games and more are available via the t-zones service.

Vital Statistics
The Samsung SGH-T309 weighs 3 ounces and measures 3.7 x 1.9 x 1 inches. Its lithium-ion battery is rated at up to 4.5 hours of digital talk time, and up to 216 hours of digital standby time. It runs on the 850/1800/1900 MHz GSM/GPRS frequencies. The phone comes with a one year limited warranty.

What’s in the Box
T309 handset, hands free headset, AC battery charger, lithium-ion battery, SIM card, and user’s manual.