Until now, if you wanted the excellent e-mail capabilities that BlackBerry devices offer, you had to be willing to give up the sleek casing of a clamshell-style cell phone. Not anymore: The Samsung SGH-T719 offers the best of BlackBerry e-mail in a sleek package.
The SGH-T719, now available from T-Mobile for $250 (with a two-year contract), comes with the BlackBerry Connect software, which brings BlackBerry's push e-mail technology to devices not manufactured by Research In Motion. Using the BlackBerry e-mail technology on a Samsung device is just as simple as it is on RIM's own device. You can set up access to personal e-mail accounts yourself (via BlackBerry Internet Service) or to corporate e-mail accounts (via Black-Berry Enterprise Server, with a little help from your IT department).
Adding your personal account is a snap; within minutes, the messages will start flowing. The SGH-T719 alerts you when you receive a message, and the sender's name is displayed on the flip phone's external screen. Reading messages on the 2.2-inch internal screen is comfortable, though the handset lacks the handy jog wheel that most RIM devices offer for scrolling through the message text.
Alas, responding to messages is not as pleasant an experience. Like the BlackBerry Pearl, the SGH-T719 features a SureType keyboard: a QWERTY layout, but with two letters on most keys. The keyboard is supposed to predict which of the two letters you need as you're typing each word, but it doesn't always work well. And when the technology stumbles, typing becomes laborious. That feature alone isn't as bad as the keypad itself: It's slightly slippery, and the keys are set almost flush with the phone, which makes them more difficult to press.
While the SGH-T719 is thin (at 0.7 inches thick), it's not the smallest clamshell phone around: It measures 3.8 inches long by 2.1 inches thick when closed. When opened, the phone is almost 7 inches long. I actually found the added length a bonus: The phone is exceptionally comfortable to hold next to your ear, even during long conversations. Talk-time battery life also impressed me: The SGH-T719 last 9 hours, 21 minutes in our lab tests, earning a score of Superior. Voice quality was about average; unfortunately, even at the highest volume setting, I had difficulty hearing during conversations.
The SGH-T719 includes a passable 1.3-megapixel camera; its photos were about what you'd expect from a camera phone. It can also capture video clips, but the phone lacks a media player.
Overall, the SGH-T719 is a great device if you want constant access to your e-mail but you don't want a full PDA phone. If you plan on using your cell phone for composing long messages, though, the SGH-T719's SureType keyboard may give you fits.
Liane Cassavoy