Samsung Eternity Review

Messaging:

Thanks to the Messaging menu, you can write and send text/multimedia messages and emails. There are no factory preloaded templates, but you can save such for both, text and multimedia messages. The T9 system is present here and it will assist you type text faster. Inputting text is done via the screen numeric keypad or turning the phone counterclockwise to display the full QWERTY keyboard. If neither option is to your liking, you can even use the handwriting recognition as an alternative to input text. Although the feature is welcomed, it does take longer using your finger to write out the character you wish to use.


You can use the Mobile Email application to set up to 5 email accounts with the phone. Unfortunately, it allows you to set up specific accounts supported by the software such as Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail and does not allow other email accounts, such as GMail. We have found that HTML emails will not display correctly on the phone and displayed random HTML tags.



Connectivity:

Samsung Eternity is a quad-band GSM, which will allow you to use it overseas. High speed internet access is supported with the dual-band UMTS. However, the device does not support 3G access overseas in Europe.

We expected the presence of a good browser seeing that it is a high class device with a large touch screen. After seeing web pages run on phones such as the iPhone and the Samsung Omnia, we would hope to get a nearly flawless experience.

At first, when loading PhoneArena.com everything looks fine (correct visualization), but it is zoomed in at 100% and only a small part of the page can be seen. The browser does not provide you an option to see an overview of the page which would come handy for larger sites. The text doesn’t automatically rearrange and you’ll have to constantly scroll or zoom out, using the volume buttons. The browser is good and useful, but still the superiority of the champions is noticeable. One major item we are disappointed to point out is the long load time we witnessed while loading a page.


To connect locally, the model is equipped with Bluetooth 2.0, as well as with a USB port. The wireless method has an interesting visualization; the Eternity is visualized in the middle of a circle and all the other devices available are around it. When you want to pair the phone with another Bluetooth capable system, you have to drag and drop its icon on the one in the center.