Samsung Blast-SGH-T729 Review - Features

Features

Blast is a pretty standard mid-range handset with a few advanced messaging features. Multimedia fans may find Blast a bit behind the times, due both to its relatively small low-res display and T-Mobile's EDGE-only data network, which prohibits the kind of streaming audio and video services available on, say, Verizon Wireless' messaging-centric Samsung U740.

In an addition to integrated access to AOL and Yahoo! email, Blast is also compatible with IMAP and POP3 email accounts as well as AOL, ICQ, Yahoo!, and Windows Live instant messaging. Dedicated messaging apps mean that Email and IM access is pretty zippy, even over T-Mobile's EDGE network. One disappointment is that for all of Blast's messaging-centric features and design touches, there's no one-touch access to a message center screen. Instead you have to go through the T-Zones menu system, which is a mild annoyance.

A myFaves phone, Blast works with T-Mobile's popular group calling plan and features a graphical interface that lets you assign custom photos/icons and ringtones to your "five." Blast also features a pretty good suite of personal information management tools, including the standard calendar and contact apps, a to-do list and world clock with alarm, and so on. The handset is compatible with T-Mobile's wireless sync system for one-touch over the air backup of your contacts list.

There's also a basic mp3 player built-into Blast, with support for Stereo Bluetooth for wireless music playback. Music files may be played from the phone's internal memory or from removable microSD memory cards.

Blast's 1.3 megapixel camera was on the lower end of average for a mid-range camera phone. There's no flash or assist light to be found here, so you'll wanted to limit your picture taking to well-lit situations, but even photos captured under near-optimal conditions suffered from a lack of sharpness and color depth.

Photos may be taken in any of seven resolutions, and settings include night mode, white balance, ISO and metering exposure, and a plethora of color effects and cutesy graphic frames. The camera also supports video capture at two resolutions, maxing out at QCIF (176 x 144) resolution at 15 frames per second with sound. You can edit both still images and video clips in the camera and send them off as MMS messages - video for MMS is capped at 60 seconds maximum length.

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