| Samsung SGH-T519 Trace Expert Reviews |
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Samsung SGH-T519 Trace -- by Joni Blecher Follow me on Twitter--October 23rd 2006 |
| Full Review |
| When Samsung’s T509 arrived on the cell phone scene in the summer of 2006 it was an instant hit. Slightly thinner than Motorola’s popular SLVR cell phone, the T509 definitely had appeal. So why launch the even more compact Samsung T519 Trace a few months later? Perhaps, as is the case with the music industry, the company wanted to follow up a hit with another. Or it could simply be the desire to add a few features to the Trace that were absent in the T509; namely, an MP3 player, a higher resolution camera (1.3-megapixels) and the ability to add more storage to the cell phone via a Micro SD storage card. Either way, now there are even more thin phones from which to choose. |
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| Call Quality |
Calls and speakerphone: We found call clarity using the Samsung T519 to be pretty clear with little, if any, call distortion. Unfortunately, we didn’t have as much luck using the speakerphone.  To improve the audio quality we had to place the cell phone screen down on a flat surface. While we could hear callers (albeit not as loud as we’d prefer), we often used the volume keys on the spine of the cell phone to turn up the sound a bit.
Audio Playback: Playback of MP3 files through the included headphones and through the cell phone’s speaker is decent, but the sound does get slightly tinny when the volume is set to the highest levels. The speaker is on the back of the cell phone, so place the Samsung T519 screen down on a table to get the best audio playback experience. Once we saved a MP3 as a ringtone , we never missed a call because we couldn’t hear the ring. |
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| Ease of Use |
Menu/Phonebook: The Samsung T519 has a direct and easy to use, picture-based menu system. Everything is exactly where you think it should be located, which is great because you can’t customize the menu interface too much. For example, the Trace’s own number is located in the Phonebook menu. We also particularly like that IM has its own dedicated menu and you can use the cell phone to connect with buddies on ICQ, Yahoo, MSN and AOL IM services. Staying in sync with the cell phone’s simple interface, entering, storing and accessing numbers is a cinch. Seriously, it takes just two steps to get started. You can store 1,000 contacts and include a picture, ringtone, e-mail address, 5 phone numbers, and a note for each.
Camera/Video: The 1.3-megapixel camera lens is placed on the back of the Samsung T519, but it lacks the tiny mirror for self portraits that’s found on it’s older sibling, the Samsung T509. Snapping, sending and storing pics are easy to do – all steps are extremely intuitive and as long as you’re sending it to another cell phone that can receive camera phone pics or an e-mail address you’ll be sharing photos in no time. While it’s easy to send pics, we should note it’s not always fast.
Picture and video quality, especially in good lighting, is decent. We particularly like that you can access the zoom and brightness features simply by pressing the four-way navi-keys while putting a picture in focus. There’s no need to access another menu, you can do everything in view finder mode.
Music: As mentioned earlier, the Samsung T519 Trace supports MP3 files only and playback quality is decent. The player supports playlists, shuffle and repeats modes. It’s also easy to access music from the player that’s stored on the cell phone or on an optional TransFlash card. If you plan on storing and playing back a lot of music on this cell phone we recommend getting a TransFlash card, the internal memory on this cell phone is dedicated to different apps. For example, music, photos, ringtones, games and videos all share approximately 17MBs of storage (if you stored only songs you could maybe save four MP3s – that’s not a lot, even if you do listen to the same few songs over and over again).
Connectivity/Bluetooth: We tested the Bluetooth feature on this Samsung cell phone using the Motorola H500 headset. As expected, making a connection was simple and call quality endured.
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| Design |
Look and Feel: Yes, the Samsung T519 is slightly thinner than the Samsung T509 and even thinner than the Motorola Slvr. There are a few other noticeable design differences among the Samsung T509 and T519. For example, the T519 has a TransFlash memory card slot, which you may find hard to open if you don’t have nails or if your nails are too long. Unfortunately, one of our favorite design features found on the T509 is absent on the T519 cell phone: the sliding charger cover. But we’re happy to report the Trace’s display is a brighter, images are crisper, and it has a more square shape, which is good for viewing videos.
Keypad: The Samsung T519 cell phone’s backlit keypad isn’t nearly as bright as the one found on its sibling, the T509. While the keys are slightly raised and well spaced out (read: minimal misdials), the T519 doesn’t have the step-like keypad found on the Samsung T509. Dialing numbers and typing text messages is fairly straightforward; however, when using the four-way navi-key, we found we had better luck pressing the keys firmly with fingernails instead of fingertips.
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| Battery Life |
| We’re happy to report that battery life on the T519 Trace is slightly better than that found on the Samsung T509. On average, we found that if we used the cell phone mainly to make calls intermittently throughout the day we needed to charge the battery about every three to four days. If we used the Samsung T519 more often and threw loads of text messaging into the mix, we charged it every other day. But when we weren’t using the cell phone that much, maybe to make two to three 10-minute calls a day and light texting, the Samsung T519 could last about six days before needing more juice.
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Samsung SGH-T519 Trace Expert Rating
