Ah cellphones, I love them, they come in all shapes and sizes, most with too many features to count. I personally think it’s great for the consumer with all of these companies trying to one up their competition as we get the most features for our cash, and it seems they just keep adding more and more of them.

So, it’s time for yet another cellphone review, this time I’ve got another from our friends over at Samsung called the Propel. It’s a slider phone of a different sort as when you slide it you reveal a full QWERTY keyboard to make sending text messages and overall text input much easier. The Propel is a fairly lightweight phone even though it is rather large, it’s got excellent call quality, great battery life and it even takes good pictures. It’s an all around great little phone that anyone who types a lot will appreciate and even if you don’t I think you’ll like having a full keyboard only a slide away.

So continue on for a few videos and a bunch of pictures as well…

First up we’ve got the video unboxing for you:

Specifications:

Samsung Propel SGH-a767

get the word out
The SAMSUNG Propel is the slider that makes communication easy. Just slide open up this stylish phone and slide open the possibilities, from texting to email to Instant Messaging – all simplified thanks to a full QWERTY keyboard. The Propel is also packed with fun features like high-speed multimedia access, full Web browsing, AT&T Mobile Music, AT&T Navigator and much more. So slide open the SAMSUNG Propel™ and get the word out like never before. <

Band Quad-Band: GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz
Weight     3.79 ounces
Dimension (HXWXD) 3.85” x 2.33” x .58”

Display 65k Color TFT Screen
Size     220 x 176

Talk time Up to 5 hours
Standby Up to 250 hours

That’s the basic specs, you can go over HERE and read the full specs on the Sasmung website if you wish.

Here’s a video of the Samsung Propel interface:

Of course as with any ATT cellphone you’ll find the garbage on there with ATT trying to sell you something, someday, I can only hope, that they’ll actually listen to consumers and reviewers that we don’t like that junk in our faces, but until then I’ll just keep complaining I guess…

Despite the bloat the interface works well and the shortcut keys and directional pad on the top half of the phone allow for quick and easy navigation once you get accustomed to them and their use.

So I’m on the AT&T Network, the main reason of course is that reception in my area is excellent compared to the other carriers, so I did not have any problems with signal strength or quality of the signal.

Call quality was perfect for me when making calls and everyone I spoke to said I sounded very clear. I used the Propel with my Jawabone2 and it worked flawlessly after it was paired once, the Propel recognized as soon as I turned it on every time. People I spoke to while using the Jawbone could not tell the difference from when I was not using it. The Bluetooth range seems very good as I can easily walk into the other room and talk with no dropouts.

Using the keyboard is fine, the letters seem to be spaced a bit farther apart than on other keyboards I’ve used, which is a good thing. The main reason for the farther apart spacing is of course that Samsung didn’t cram all kinds of functions onto the keyboard and numerous other keys, it’s simple and it works great for texting and general text input.

Another small complaint I could have is that the doors for the charging jack and microSD slot on the sides seem a bit fragile, they seem like they’ll break fairly easily if you’re not careful with them, they’re very tiny and are a bit hard to access without fingernails.

The battery life with the Propel seems fine, a little better than the rated actually, I got the rated talk time out of it even with Bluetooth on most of the time.

The Propel doesn’t have GPS, but you can use ATT Navigator with it if you wish to pay for it.

Overall it’s a very usable phone and even if you don’t text a lot you’ll appreciate the full keyboard to make any kinds of test input that much easier. The Propel is a plastic phone making it lightweight, it’s fairly thin actually, but still quite large compared to others. Personally I don’t mind the size, I much prefer larger styles of phones as it’s nice to feel the heft of it in your hands. My main phone, as I’ve mentioned before, is the ATT Tilt, it’s a large heavy phone and the Propel is smaller and lighter by comparison.
Here’s a quick demo of the video camera in action:

Video camera does have zoom but that doesn’t make up for the badly pixellated images..

Here’s a bunch of sample pics I took with the Propel, including one of myself and my workspace:

 

The still pics are actually pretty good, unless of course you get very close, even in low light they’re not too bad.

Image Gallery:

You can find more Samsung Propel and other cellphone reviews over at our main site HERE

Conclusion:
I wasn’t expecting much from this phone really, I just thought it was just another wanna be PDA style phone, but I was pleasantly surprised by it.

It looks great, it’s easy to use, call quality is excellent, the battery life is very good and it even takes good pictures.

So if you’re looking for a basic phone that’s got some great qualities and features I can easily recommend you take a look at the Propel from Samsung.

Pros:
Excellent call quality
Easy to type on keyboard
Good battery life
Overall a very good and useful phone
Decent still pictures

Cons:
Video camera is low quality
Fairly large phone

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance