Just another regular dumbphone. Emphasis on dumb.

First off I just want to say, I do NOT like this phone, nor do i recommend it. I mean seriously, it uses a proprietary connection for charging and connecting headphones. ‘Nuff said.  I mean what kind of music phone doesn’t have a 3.5″ plug? How can you advertise it as a music phone if you can’t even use a decent headphone. And come on people, no mini USB or micro USB for connectivity? My old Motorola PEBL from 2+ years ago had that. But don’t stop there, there’s still more crappiness leaking from the phone, even as a regular phone and NOT as a music phone which the phone is advertised to be.

Samsung Beat's external Clock

You know how most people, especially those who don’t wear watches, uses their phone to check the time? Well, this phone can’t do that. Technologically it can, but usability wise, it can not. Why? Because it  uses an OLED (I think, it’s one of those screens that blurs when you shake it, like old CRT monitors). Although that made be great in itself, allowing the screen to have vibrant colors, the usability design of the phone ruins it. To make the screen turn on to check the time or the current playing song, you have to hold a button. Holding a button not only takes longer but can cause you to launch a program or do some unwanted action. This makes it almost impossible to check the time without either flipping the phone open or launching something.

The only good thing that comes out of the colored OLED screen is that you can use it as a mirror for self portrait because it can display what the camera is seeing. But the fact that its FRICKING hard to do something so simple like check time on the outside is a huge turn off. It almost made me wished that it had a regular old monochrome screen that doesn’t turn off.

The inside software is actually OK. it’s like any dumbphone so there isn’t much to say. The phone is great in that it starts up fast. Like less than 3 second probably. The graphics and icons are fine and understandable. I do have to say that the number graphic when typing in a number is terrible. It’s very pixelated and not anti-aliased. But it is clear in that it’s big and black and white, literally.

The back of the Samsung Beat

On the hardware side, the phone has a pretty nice design. It’s very small and pocketable. It is to note that the outside IS glossy so it’s a fingerprint magnet. I kinda like the green accents around as it makes it look more playful in a way. You have a music controller which is ok. It’s pretty cool how they added a shuffle button in there, just in case you want to spice things up.

On the inside, is your regular buttons pad. I do like the fact that it gives you a hard customizable shortcut key, the square icon thing on the keyboard, that you can set to launch anything you want. But what I didn’t like is the “i” on the opposite side of it. I think it’s quite useless and would be better off used as a messaging key. The buttons feel pretty tactile and presses down nicely. Although, the first phone I checked out had a bad buttons pad that doesn’t press down, so you might want to check on that.

The inside of the Samsung Beat

Now I guess its great and all that the phone has an micro SD card slot; on the outside too so you can get easy access. But that’s probably the only good thing about having the slot. Do note that it ONLY accepts regular micro SD and not SDHC. Now if you put an SD micro in there you would think everything would be fine and dandy, but no, you have to restart the phone for it to redetect. Furthermore, to access the card is quite hard. In fact I still don’t know how to save pictures to the SD micro directly.

Speaking of pictures, the camera on the phone is your usual phone camera. Usable, but don’t expect to create masterpieces with it. Though it does take quite a big picture, even though it may not be pretty.

Big, but not pretty. *click*

Now for all you hackers out there, don’t even bother to try hacking the Samsung Beat. It’s pretty… well lets just say there’s no hack other than basic java app loading. After all remember, there is no usb port,  so even if you want to try hacking the beat, you’re going to need to find some proprietary cable. Maybe telnet via bt, though I don’t know if that’s possible on this phone.

The proprietary port on the Samsung Beat. Really Samsung??

Overall, I do NOT like this phone. I’d rather stay with my old old motorola PEBL with its hackable motorola firmware and simple external screen. Although it maybe great to have an SD card for your music, do keep in mind it has to be regular micro SD which means only 2gb of storage. And if you’re going to use this as a music player, which you probably shouldn’t unless you’re desperate, remember, there is no regular 3.5″ port to plug in some good headphones. You’ll be stuck with their proprietary one.

I give this a 3/10.