Samsung Gravity t459 Phone, Gray/Lime (T-Mobile) Review

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(More customer reviews)I wrote this review for the white and blue model, but it should apply equally well to the gray and lime model as well. The only thing I would like to add is: what was Samsung thinking when it came up with this color scheme? I thought the phone would look better in person than it does in the photos, but boy, am I wrong!
The Samsung Gravity is a candy bar style slider phone. Basically, if you use only the phone functions of the phone, you will probably never need the slider part of the phone. But if you are into texting and/or email, etc., you can access a full qwerty keyboard by sliding the phone side to side.
The phone was bought to replace an aging Nokia 5300. T-Mobile sent the phone with the usual assortment of user guides and quick-start guides, a wired mono-headset with microphone, and a home charger. No other accessories. I will have more to talk about that later.
The phone was easy to put together and power up. The back cover is much easier to get off than some other phones I have struggled with over the years. The SIM card goes into a slot in the battery compartment. The charger plugs into the phone through a multi-function port (more about this also later).
Once the battery was charged, it was time to transfer my contacts from my old phone to the new one. The easiest method I found was to use blue-tooth and transfer the contacts one by one. Others may be able to do this easier using some other method (such as using a PC in the middle), but with the accessories I had, it was either typing them in by hand or using blue-tooth to transfer them. I chose blue-tooth and there were no real problems in the transfer. All the contacts made it across without any issues. However, the Samsung Gravity will not allow you to do anything on the phone without a SIM card in it. Luckily, my old phone will function without a SIM card. Obviously you can't make phone calls without a SIM card, but since the manufacturers have chosen to cram so much functionality into these devices, I don't understand why they would cripple these devices by not allowing them to do any of this other functionality without a SIM card in the device. So, I had to take the SIM card out of my old phone, put it into this phone and then do the contacts transfer. If both the old and new phones had been crippled without a SIM card, it could have been a lot trickier.
The Gravity performs well as a phone. The sound is clear and there are no issues with call quality. It seems to be slightly less sensitive at grabbing a signal than the Nokia 5300, but this was only under marginal situations. Otherwise, they seem to be equivalent in being able to get and hold a signal. The setup of the phone itself is pretty easy with a well-laid-out menu and submenu structure that allows you to customize the phone's functions in many different ways.
The display is very bright and vibrant, and a pleasure to look at. The phone can be set up to dim the display after a set amount of idle time and then turn it off entirely after another interval of idle time. Note that when the display is off, it is completely off, not dimmed. This is a minor annoyance because you have to press some button to get the display turned on again to see if the phone is even on or not. There is absolutely no difference in appearance of the phone between when it has gone idle and when it is turned off entirely. I did not have much of a problem seeing the display outdoors, but in bright sunlight, you have to angle the screen the correct way to see things clearly.
The numeric keyboard on the top of the phone has raised keys and gives good tactile feedback on keypresses. The directional keys are also very easy to press without any problems.
The slider is very crisp to work with and once you have the slider open, the phone still feels solid. There is no wobble to the different parts of the phone and no feeling that the slider is going to fail after a few times of using it. The display automatically changes from portrait to landscape mode when the slider is opened and then back to normal when the slider is closed. The qwerty keys are also slightly raised and are easy to press individually without any problems. There is a shift key on the qwerty keyboard that allows you to enter capital letters and an Alt key that allows you to enter symbols like $ and %. You can also pull up a symbol screen that allows you to enter less commonly used symbols and emoticons.
The camera is only 1.3 MP, so don't expect professional quality results out of it. In any case, even if the camera were 7 MP, I doubt a lens the size of a grain of sand is going to produce exceptional results. So, if you want quality pictures, carry a regular camera with you. I found the pictures out of this phone decent and the shutter lag was acceptable.
The phone is capable of pulling email from various providers directly to your phone as text messages without any subscription to any data plan or any plan that gives you access to the web. You do have to subscribe to a plan that gives you some text messages unless you plan on just paying for email usage on a per-message basis. The email provider must provide POP access to the email. The phone lists a huge number of providers such as yahoo, GMail, Juno, AOL, etc. Setting up the user ID and password is easy and if the email provider has enabled POP access, you get access to your email right away. Note that many providers require you to subscribe to some paid premium version of the service to enable POP access to your email. GMail is a notable exception and I have had access to my GMail since the day I got the phone (you just have to turn on POP access to you GMail account from the settings).
But the email access is not without its flaws and/or idiosyncracies. First of all, by default, the phone only pulls up the headers of the emails (subject, sender, etc.) when you ask it to refresh the inbox. If you see a message you want to read, you highlight it and say "Read". The phone then downloads the message. Messages that are very large will have to be downloaded in parts. And don't expect to be zipping through them at speed. The downloads are slow, so you have to be patient.
The second issue I have faced could be more of a user-error issue than an actual phone issue: I have been able to send email only when the following two conditions are satisfied. 1. The email address is in the address book under some entry and 2. you have composed a message from scratch. I have not been able to reply to a received message so far and I have not been able to send email by just typing someone's email address in the to line of a message if that email address is not associated with a contact on the phone. When the conditions are not satisfied, the phone simply says "email sending failed" with no other explanation. I have to continue doing research into this. But so far, I find the ability to access my GMail very convenient and the fact that it costs me nothing extra is very good too.
Note that you can not do everything on the phone with your GMail email that you can do on a computer when you access the GMail website. You are basically not accessing the GMail website (the phone is pulling the emails out of GMail using POP and then presenting them to you in its own interface). So, you can not add labels to emails, check your spam folder, etc. When you delete the email on the phone, it deletes it on GMail also (even if the email has been archived already). You then have to go to the trash folder on GMail, pull the emails out and then re-archive them. I delete the emails on the phone because it makes it easier to go over 10 emails on the small screen than having to scroll over a few dozen of them if you never delete any of them (obviously, I don't know of any way to make them go away from the phone without deleting them, which may be another user issue rather than a phone issue).
Battery life on the phone has been excellent by my standards. I used to charge my Nokia 5300 at least every alternate day. The Gravity went without a recharge for 3 days while it was in new phone mode (that is, I was fiddling with it constantly, experimenting with features and settings, testing out various things, etc.). My wife, who got the identical phone, but in a different color, did not fiddle with her phone much and it is showing 4 bars out of 5 in the battery strength indicator after 3 days.
The phone does have its share of flaws. The first and foremost of these is the lack of accessories. This is probably a reflection on T-mobile than on Samsung. But the phone came with only a home charger and the wired mono-headset. No stereo headset even though it is a music player. No car charger. No SD card. NO USB cord to connect the phone to the computer. Not even a CD containing the software that you install on the PC to interface with the phone (I downloaded it from the Samsung website, but I have not installed it so far). Luckily, all these accessories are easy to locate online and they are inexpensive, but it would have been nice for at least some of them to be included with the phone. Also, the phone has no dedicated music player controls. You have to go through the menu to the music player and then various keys are remapped to music player controls.
Note that this phone only takes regular SD cards, not SDHC cards. I have found it easier to locate 2 GB SD cards rather than 4 GB ones even though the phone is capable of taking up to 4 GB (almost every 4 GB card I have seen is an SDHC card, not a regular SD card). Also, the phone has a single multi-function port (called a Samsung S20 port) that is used as a charging port, a headphone slot and a USB port on the phone. So, you can't listen to music when the phone is charging or connect it to the...Read more›

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A great choice for heavy texters, the Samsung Gravity T459 features a slide-out QWERTY keyboard that makes it easy to send SMS text messages and email as well as keep up with your chat buddies on popular IM services. When coupled with web surfing capabilities, the Gravity allows users to stay up to date on the latest news, weather, sports scores and more. It will also keep you connected to your closest friends and family members with T-Mobiles myFaves. Other features include a 1.3-megapixel camera/camcorder, Bluetooth connectivity for both handsfree devices and stereo music streaming, MicroSD memory expansion up to 4 GB, digital audio player, and up to 6 hours of talk time.
T-Mobile Service The Samsung Gravity operates on GSM 850/900/1800/1900 networks and can handle high-speed data connectivity via T-Mobile's EDGE network (which stands for "Enhanced Data Rates for Global Evolution"). This high-speed, mobile data and Internet access technology is fast enough to support a wide range of advanced data services (with average data speeds between 75-135Kbps), including video and music clips, full picture and video messaging, high-speed color Internet access, and email on the go.
It's compatible with T-Mobile's myFaves service, which allows you to call up to five of your most common contacts--on any network, even landlines--without using any of your minutes. Learn more about myFaves from T-Mobile.
Download cool new games, HiFi Ringers (real songs by today's hottest artists), MegaTones (instrumental versions of songs), and wallpapers quickly, as well as stay connected via the Web, instant messaging, and email.
Phone Features The candybar-style Samsung Gravity holds a secret--turn it on its side and push the face up to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard, perfect for easy typing of longer messages and emails. The Gravity offers access to multiple IM clients including AOL, ICQ, Yahoo! Messenger and MSN, as well as text and picture/video messaging. It's also compatible with POP3 email accounts (such as Gmail), and it comes with presets for AOL and Yahoo! accounts.
When closed, you can use the standard alpha-numeric keypad on the face to send quick messages. It's complemented by a colorful five-way navigation pad, send/end and two soft navigation keys, and a dedicated email key. The Gravity has an internal 60 MB memory, which can be expanded via optional MicroSD memory cards (up to 4 GB in size). The phonebook can store up to 1000 contact entries, each with up to 3 phone numbers and support for caller groups and photo/ringer ID.
Handsfree communication is easy thanks to the integrated speakerphone. This phone also provides Bluetooth wireless connectivity (version 2.0), and includes profiles for communication headset, handsfree car kits, and file transfer. With the A2DP Bluetooth profile, you can stream your music to a pair of compatible Bluetooth stereo headphones. You can connect your laptop (either via Bluetooth or wired USB) and enjoy dial-up networking--surf the Internet, send email, and access files from a server.
Other features include:
1.3-megapixel camera with video capture
Digital audio player compatible with MP3 and AAC/AAC+ files
Video player compatible with MPEG4, H.263 formats
Organizer tools: Calendar, calculator, currency converter, notepad, to-do list
Web browser
Java (J2ME) support for downloadable games and applications
72-chord polyphonic and MP3 real-music ringers
Vibrating alert
USB connectivity
Speaker-independent voice dialing
Flight mode turns off cellular connectivity, enabling you to use media player
Hearing Aid Compatibility = M3
Bluetooth version 2.0 with the following profiles: A2DP (stereo music streaming), AVRC (remote control), HFP (hands-free car kits), HSP (communication headsets), BPP (basic printing profile for text, email), DUN (dial-up networking), FTP (file transfer), OPP (object push for business cards, calendar items, and pictures)

Vital Statistics The Samsung Gravity weighs 4.3 ounces and measures 4.5 x 2.1 x 0.7 inches. Its 1000 mAh lithium-ion battery is rated at up to 6 hours of talk time, and up to 288 hours (12 days) of standby time. It runs on the 850/900/1800/1900 MHz GSM/GPRS/EDGE frequencies.

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