SAMSUNG: Samsung SGH-E335

Sunday 15 July 2012

Samsung SGH-E335

Increasingly, cell phone manufacturers and carriers are recognizing that a growing percentage of their customers are tweens who use their phones far differently than mobile professionals. Satisfying this younger market is the Samsung SGH-E335 for T-Mobile, a glossy, dark metallic blue clam shell phone in the shape of a rounded oval, only slightly larger than a bar of travel soap. Along with a VGA camera and a Web browser, the E335 includes AOL and Yahoo instant messaging--key communications technologies for tech-savvy kids. With no sharply protruding antenna and a petite keypad obviously designed for still-developing fingers, this is the perfect phone to hang from the belt loop of baggy cargo pants or to tuck into tight front jeans pockets. It's also fairly priced at $179 or cheaper with service. At just 3.3 by 1.8 by 0.9 inches and an egglike 3 ounces, the largely unadorned Samsung SGH-E335 flip phone feels like a water-smoothed rock. That said, we did like the blue and silver colors. On the mobile's front flap is a 1-inch-diagonal blue-tinted monochrome display. It shows the date, the time, battery life, signal strength, and caller ID (where available), and the reflective off-white text is easy to see. You can't change the back lighting time, but the blue text was readable even with it off. Since the display is monochrome, it's fairly useless as a viewfinder for self-portraits when the camera is on. Speaking of which, the camera lens is just above the display, while below it is a white LED that flashes blue when a message is pending--it's not a camera flash. You can turn the light off if you wish.