Today for review I’ve got another Samsung phone called the Smiley and it’s meant to be a very user friendly and social centric phone. It’s a slider phone that does have a qwerty keyboard, along with a 1.3mp camera. The Smiley is meant to be a messaging device above all and that’s where it shines, the keyboard is rather small and cramped but with time you’ll become accustomed to it and you’ll be typing like a pro in no time flat. It is a  basic phone though, so don’t except too much from it and you won’t be disappointed, but it’s very inexpensive so that a good thing.

Video unboing:

So the Samsung Smiley is for T-Mobile, inside the box you’ll find the battery and charger along with documentation.

The Smiley is a slider, but it’s not a touch screen.

On the front there is a directional pad along with buttons for choice son the screen, answer/end and messaging and back.

The keyboard is rather small but it works well. It did take some time to get accustomed to.

The camera appears when you slide the phone up, it’s a 1.3mp camera.

Removing the back cover you’ll find the space for battery and sim card and you can see the spot for the microSD card as well.

There’s not many buttons on the sides of the phone but you’ll find the camera and volume along with microSD port and USB port.

Specifications:

Smiley : ) SGH-t359

Smile. You just found the ultimate messaging device. The sophisticated yet affordable Samsung : ) is a vertical-slider with a full QWERTY keyboard and easy-to-use interface. Gleefully send off text, picture and video messages, IMs and emails with the utmost of ease. It also features a full HTML browser, MP3 player and a camera that will put a smile on everybody else’s face.

Multiple Messaging Options
Includes just about every possible way to message except smoke signals. There’s text, picture and video messaging. Instant Messaging too. You have easy access to your corporate email accounts with ActiveSync Exchange support. And if you want to make someone’s day, send them a personalized Audio PostcardSM.

Multimedia Package
What makes you happy? Music? The : ) features an MP3 music player. Is it taking pictures? There’s a built-in 1.3MP camera with night shot. Both? Expandable memory (up to 16GB) lets you carry thousands of songs and pictures in the palm of your hand.

Web-enabled Via Web2go
You’re good to go with Web2goSM. Watch YouTube videos on the fly, while Social Networking Service (SNS) grants you fast access to your favorite online communities. Pre-loaded Assisted GPS apps such as TeleNav and Google Maps ensure you’re exactly where you want to be.

Size:
Weight: 3.98 ounces
Dimension (HXWXD): 3.92″ X 2.34″ X .59″

Display: 262k color TFT
Resolution 240 x 320 pixels
Battery     Standard     Talk time
Talk time: up to 5.5 hours
Standby: up to 300 hours

Camera:
Camera Resolution: 1.3 megapixel camera
Digital / Optical Zoom: 2x zoom

WIFI: Yes
AGPS: Yes

Memory:
User Memory: 50 MB
External Memory: Up to 16GB

Pricing:
Suggested retail: $149.99
Instant discount: -$110.00
Web-only discount: -$20.00
Price: $19.99

Sadly the Smiley is not a touch screen phone, but the navigational pad works well to get around. The two buttons on the main screen are for menu and internet or web2go as they call it.

When you press menu you’re greeted with a revolving, animated menu with six choices.

Let’s take a closer look at each one expanded starting with People:

Next would be messaging:

Then we have Media:

Under that you’ll find Web2Go, YouTube and your Games and Apps are there as well. There’s a small zoom bar that appears when you’re web browsing.

Using the Smiley for browsing the web works well. It gave me an error about the page being too big but it looked good to me. The internet connection seemed a bit slow to me, especially with large pages, but you can browse and enjoy your favorite websites.

Settings is next, basic stuff here that you’d expect to see.

The next choice would be Organizer where you’ll find several useful things.

So the Smiley is phone for making calls after all and it does that very well. I had no problems with calls, people sounded clear and I was told I sounded fine.

As far as signal strength, the network seems very good here in Pittsburgh, PA, where you are it may vary of course.

No matter how I held the phone I didn’t have an issue with signal strength either.

Battery life is great, I easily got the rated times.

Overall I like this phone, it’s simple to use and the interface is user friendly.

Let’s take a look at the camera, on the screen you’ll see a few icons around the edges:

When you press the menu button a menu appears at the top of the screen with drop down selections.

Under settings is only a few choices:

Ok, so here’s some samples:

The pictures aren’t that good really, even with good lighting they look fuzzy. I tried holding it very still, and they still come out fuzzy looking. I also found that after I took a few pictures they seemed to get very bright for no apparent reason, very washed out.

Here’s the special effects:

The price of the Samsung Smiley is decent, it’s only $19.99 on contract and $149.99 suggest retail price.

Conclusion:

The Samsung Smiley is meant to be a basic and user friendly phone that is messaging and media centric, and that’s where it excels really.

It’s a decent little low cost phone for those that want to make calls and stay in touch via social networks and messaging.

The keyboard is just a bit cramped, but after using it for a while I found I actually like it really. if you’re looking for a messaging phone then you can’t go wrong with the Smiley really.

Pros:
+Simple to use
+Good call quality
+Well made little phone

Cons:
-Poor camera picture quality
-Very small and cramped keyboard
-Web can be very slow to load large pages

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

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