Samsung SGH-T139 – an elementary cell phone
For:
Samsung SGH-T139 has flip design and offers good call quality, Bluetooth, GPS and VGA camera.
Against:
The external display is small as compared to phone’s size. There is no video recording feature.
The Whiz Kid Speaks:
Samsung SGH-T139 is based on dual-band CDMA 800/1900 MHz. 1-inch external display is black & white with 96×96 pixels resolution. Moreover, 1.7-inch internal display has 128×160 pixels resolution that supports 16-bit (65K) colors.
Samsung SGH-T139 has VGA camera of 640×480 pixels resolution with 4x digital zoom. It can capture images in four resolutions from 120×96 to 640×480. The SGH-T139 supports Java platform. The supported wireless interface is Bluetooth 2.0 and the phone has inbuilt XHTML based WAP 2.0 browser.
The feature set of Samsung SGH-T139 includes video messaging, video streaming, video wallpaper, 40 polyphonic ring-tones, embedded wallpaper, voice memo and voice mail, predictive text input T9, instant messaging feature, GPS, Bluetooth, HTML browser, stop watch, calculator, converter, alarm, world-time, clock, to-do list, scheduler and calendar. The SGH-T139 stores logs for dialed, received and missed calls. The other features are speakerphone, multiparty, video caller ID and voice recognition.
Samsung SGH-T139 has inbuilt standard lithium ion battery. The accessories in the package are USB cable, AC adapter and car charger, mobile cover and headset.
Razzle Dazzle:
Samsung SGH-T139 is a flip phone that measures 3.7 inches tall, 1.9 inches wide and 0.7 inch thick. The phone weighs around 2.98 ounces. The test model had a blue-gray color. The SGH-T139 has plastic skin and bears compact shape with smooth lines. There is a diamond pattern on rear cover.
Inside Dope:
The new Samsung SGH-T139 for T-Mobile offers VGA camera and basic features. This Samsung SGH-T139 phone has standard flip design with a bit style. The SGH-T139 has better appeal with comfortable controls and good call quality. The advanced feature set of the phone includes voice-recording, facility to send audio post-cards with photos, inbuilt WAP 2.0 browser, instant messaging and Bluetooth. The Samsung SGH-T139 has two displays – black & white external display and color internal display. You cannot use the external display as camera’s viewfinder, which is negative point for the Samsung. Moreover, there is no integrated email application in the phone. The SGH-T139 has digital SAR of 0.59 watt per kilogram according to FCC. The phone is pretty basic; you can use it just for sending text messages and calling your friends. The design of the handset is easy to use, the call quality is decent and it comes with Bluetooth. Let us have a look what Samsung has offered in its new phone.
Design
The external display is located on the phone lid. The volume rocker is on the left spine, whereas lock control/camera shutter and combined charger port/headset jack are on right spine. It is quite annoying that the Samsung continues to include its proprietary combined jack in the SGH-T139 for both headset and charger.
Display
1-inch external display of 96×96 pixels resolution displays date/time, numeric caller ID, signal strength and battery life. You cannot use this external display as self-portrait viewfinder for the camera. 1.75-inch internal display supports 65,000 colors and it is small as compared to the size of Samsung SGH-T139. You can change the display options such as backlight time, standby text color and style, and dialing font size.
Navigation Array and Keyboard
The navigation array is located beneath the internal display. It has diamond-shaped and silver-colored four-way toggle button with central OK key. It also has a Clear Control, a Talk Key, an End Key and two soft keys. The array buttons and keys are comfortable. We were able to dial and text accurately without any problem.
Phonebook and PIM features
Samsung SGH-T139 has a phone book of 300 contacts. Each contact entry can save notes, e-mail address and five phone-numbers. You can create groups of these contacts and pair them with photo and one of 40-polyphonic ring-tones.
The basic features of Samsung SGH-T139 are stopwatch, unit and currency converter, timer, world clock, tip calculator, task list, multimedia and text messaging, calculator, calendar and alarm clock.
Camera
Samsung SGH-T139 has VGA camera that takes photos in four resolutions from 120×96 to 640×480. The camera has features of digital zoom, exposure metering, brightness settings, four-color effects, white balance and self-timer. You can customize the phone by selecting different sounds for shutter, brightness and zoom. The phone does not record video. The photo quality is good for VGA shooter. We captured some photographs through it. The colors were looking natural, but they had little image noise.
Games and Personalization
Samsung SGH-T139 has demos/trials of four-games: Family Guy Uncensored, Midnight Pool 2, Fifth Grader and Tetris. You can also purchase the full versions. For personalization, you can change the alert tones, greetings, background colors and wallpaper. You can find more options on T-Zones service of T-Mobile.
Call Quality
We made some calls through Samsung SGH-T139 via T-Mobile service. The call quality was satisfactory good. The signal strength was clear and we received sound with little metallic distortion at our end. We could hear our friends clearly even in high noise environments. The callers received good sound at their end with same metallic tinge. They could tell that we were using cell phone.
Battery life
Samsung SGH-T139 has lithium ion battery of life up to 7 hours of talk time and 6 days of idle stand by time.
Verdict:
Samsung SGH-T139 does not have many features because Samsung has designed it only for simple communication. We recommend this phone if you are looking for an entry-level basic handset.
