Samsung Behold II Review

Samsung has created a number of mobile phones over the years that have been highly competitive. By focusing on innovation and user-friendly features, this manufacturer has been able to stay competitive in a highly contentious industry where users are willing to pay hundreds of dollars more for brand name recognition and specific quality features. The Samsung Behold II is one of the phones that is the epitome of what this brand has attempted to do over the years with their extensive line of phones.

Packed with features that many users are going to enjoy and a number of key advantages that only the Behold II can provide, this mobile device is definitely one to consider today.

What Gives the Samsung Behold II So Much Potential?

The Behold II isn’t actually an update of the original Behold model that Samsung initially introduced. It’s an update of the Instinct, which was Samsung’s first true competing model for an iPhone. Don’t let the first impression will you: this is more than a phone that looks like a giant slab. The AMOLED 3.2 inch capacitive touchscreen looks beautiful, the control buttons are extremely useful, and the user experience with the navigation menus is reasonably easy.

It’s got all the peripheral inputs that you’d expect to see with the modern smart device, but the arrangement is a little awkward in certain ways. The 3.5 mm headphone jack, for example, is right next to the micro USB jack. Normally this doesn’t present any issues unless you have the phone connected to a mUSB port and a set of headphones connected at the same time. You basically have to remove both of them and then plug the one you need back in.

If there was one feature of this phone that could truly be called great it’s the locking button that is used just above the shutter key. Instead of having to hit the end button and then the menu button, you have a single key solution that can be depressed. This is standard now on many phones, of course, but this was a breakthrough in 2009 when the Behold II was initially introduced.

The Samsung UI On Top of Android Has Some Quirks

Samsung utilizes a Android operating system for the Behold II, but they’ve also incorporated their TouchWiz UI on top of this operating system. This gives the phone rather user experience that has number of advantages, but some key disadvantages that some users might find to be detrimental overall.

The most common issue encountered with the Samsung phone is when a user tries to swipe from left to right to access one of their three home screens. During the swiping process, it’s very easy to open up the horizontal app menus instead. Even the three homescreens is a unique experience in itself. Each one has its own background panel and the screens have animated transitions instead of a seamless scrolling option as you find on most other smartphones.

What everyone will like, however, is that the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi apps have been kept separate from each other in the settings menus so that you don’t have to access bowls in order to have just one of them work. On the other hand, the GPS navigation software is very easy to use and it integrates effectively with Google Maps. The one place of improvement, however, would be to include UMA support so that phone calls could be made over a wireless network.

How Good Is the Phone’s Operation?

The primary use for this phone is going to be data consumption. Most pages are going to load in about five seconds on a 3G network and even 2G speeds are generally faster than in other comparable models. There isn’t a multitouch function, so accessing the controls to zoom into small text on a non-optimized website isn’t always easy to do. The lack of a period on the primary QWERTY keyboard is interesting, but something that can be worked around.

What many users are not gonna want to have is a prolonged conversation on the loudspeaker with the Samsung Behold II. The vocals come through pretty clearly, but there is some ambient noise that tends to get picked up on both sides of the conversation and this creates some feedback that can get to be quite annoying at times. Some of this feedback even comes through when the phone is pressed against your ear.

The five megapixel camera has a pretty sharp resolution and there are some nice features about camera software, like being able to take panoramic shots, that a lot of users are quite to enjoy. This is especially true when you see the images on the AMOLED screen.

What Is the Verdict on the Samsung Behold II?

From an overall perspective, the Samsung Behold II is a pretty solid phone. It has access to the apps that you want, has a decent camera to use, and will allow you to access whatever data you need, wherever you happen to be. The only issues that tend to come up with this particular smart device are how that information and data is accessed.

For those who have a primary need to communicate with their phone, this Samsung device may not be the best option. Texting can be a little awkward in conversations inevitably have one of those “Can you hear me now” moments that are so dreaded. If there is any ambient noise that is in the area of the phone, the microphone is going to pick it up.

For those who have a need to consume heavy amounts of data and don’t want to spend a fortune on a premium smartphone to do it, then the Behold II is a viable option to consider. With good surfing speeds, a weight that comes in at 4.3 ounces, and at just 4 1/2 inches tall, it’s a slim smartphone companion that has a reasonable amount of strength when it comes to use. For that alone, it should be part of any new phone conversation.

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