arigold

When I first picked up the Samsung Trace from T-mobile I was a little worried about its size. We all know thin is in, but how thin is too thin? I worried maybe it would be a little uncomfortable to hold during lengthy conversations or that it might snap easily. I was wrong on all counts; this phone has turned out to be one of the most stellar devices I have ever used.

With regards to the most important aspect of a phone: RF this phone is awesome. T-mobile’s coverage check says I should have 3 bars in my house and while I find their coverage check to be conservative the Trace affords me perfect reception everywhere in my house. I cannot say enough good things about the reception on this phone. I know Samsung in the past with T-mobile has not been what would be considered tops in the RF department but the Trace wipes away previous experience and sets a new bar.

Battery life has been a mixed bag. Samsung claims battery life of six hours and while its certainly a longer battery life than most phones I have not achieved that talk time. I’m not a huge Bluetooth user but I can do a few hundred texts a day and perhaps 100-200 minutes daily and I usually lose a bar before the day is over.

The multi-media capabilities are nothing to write home about and certainly don’t perform anywhere near the walkman phones of Sony Ericsson. The camera is a little above average and takes decent shots for a 1.3 mega pixel camera. Its not going to replace your digi-cam but its good enough for those need to moments. The mp3 player is in my opinion pretty rough, adding songs and creating a play list while not difficult its just rough to use. I can’t imagine using this phone as a replacement mp3 player. It accepts microsd up to 1gig and as I am using that size I can report no slowdown of the phone is experienced.

Web-browsing is fairly standard and anyone who has used a t-zones capable device before will expect the same results. One thing I did like was being able to use the volume keys to scroll up/down on a web page.

Volume on this phone is average. Speakerphone isn’t going to be useful when outside of a quiet room. Earpiece volume is good and its easy enough to hear in a car without music but I wouldn’t recommend using in a crowded bar.

Customization isn’t really available here. You can’t reshape the shortcuts or pick your own. You can change the color scheme of the background and the color of the dialing font. Nothing really spectacular here, there is a walled garden with regards to customization on the new Samsung line up available from T-mobile. Typical Samsung allows for vibrate then ring but not at the same time. Something Nokia and Motorola allow and I really wish Samsung follows suit one day.

While the phone has a keypad that appears to be flush with the face of the phone they do pop out a little. However they are surprisingly and I’m happy to report this easy to use. I find texting to be extremely fast and dialing/texting with one hand is easily achieved. Its one of the best keypads I have ever used and one that surprised me with that result. The screen is clear and easy to read indoors and outdoors. This is certainly a stylish phone and one to show off to your friends. Its thin form is certainly a conversation piece. The Samsung Trace is a quad band gsm device currently on sale from T-mobile at $99.99 after a mail in rebate.

archer6

Thanks for the comprehensive report, I had always wondered what this phone was like. Now I know.

Cheers...

Sombeech

Thanks for the info. I just purchased this phone.

I have a 1 GB Micro SD card, and I want to transfer some video files to my phone. I understand they must be in .3GP format, 176 X 144.

I have converted my videos to this size and format, but they still won't play on my phone. The phone recognizes the files, names and sizes, but will not play the media.

Is there a way to convert a .wmv file to .3GP so it will play on this phone, or is this an issue with all phones?

Thanks.