When we first heard about the Samsung t719, the first clamshell to feature BlackBerry push e-mail,
we were intrigued. But that was last spring. Since then, the BlackBerry Pearl was introduced, and it packs more features into an even more compact design for the same price. We took this quasi-smart phone for a test drive to find out if it was worth the wait.
Weighing a very light 3.5 ounces, the t719 feels solid, unlike Samsung’s Nicole Richie-esque Trace. The silver-and-gray exterior isn’t the most eye-catching, but the contoured corners and 3.7 x 2.0 x 0.7-inch clamshell body give the handset a certain level of sleekness.
A small external screen displays the standard time, power, and signal strength readouts, but it has a pea-soup-green background until you open the clamshell and a multicolored background appears. On the inside, the t719 sports a bright, 2.2-inch internal display with 262,000 colors. The resolution is only 176 x 220 pixels, however, compared with the BlackBerry Pearl’s 240 x 260 pixels.
A large D-pad and soft menu keys made navigating menus and our Inbox a cinch. Beneath those buttons is the SureType keyboard, which squeezes two letters on most of the keys and uses software to predict the words you are typing. SureType isn’t as good as a full QWERTY layout, but it beats the multitap method. :: LAPTOP Magazine • Samsung t719 ::