Samsung Katalyst Titanium Phone

5 Responses to “Samsung Katalyst Titanium Phone”

1. C. Miller says:

   July 2, 2010 at 10:33 pm

   Even with my memory card the phone can only hold about 100 texts and about 4 pictures. There is no options to save my texts to the memory card and no option to save pics directly to the memory card either. (you can do that after the pic is stored on your phone)
   
   You have to go through 5 steps to send a simple text if you don’t know how to use that predictive text nonsense.
   
   I can’t do simple things like assign a ring tone from my memory card to a name in my contact list because the phone constantly says “memory full”. I thought the point of a phone with external memory was so I could do stuff like this.
   
   When I went to t mobile they suggested an upgrade that would cost me another $130, which was another SAMSUNG! Never again!
   
   Rating: 2 / 5
2. J1000 says:

   July 2, 2010 at 11:16 pm

   Update: Dropping the review from 4 stars down to 3, because there’s no way to disable the outer buttons from answering a call. Doh! It’s no fun accidentally answering a call while trying to get the phone out of your pocket. In addition, I couldn’t get my wife’s Bluetooth headset working with it (popular Plantronics model, I believe).

   I recently upgraded from Samsung t619 to the Katalyst after my previous phone’s external screen cracked. The Katalyst has exceeded my expectations and has turned out to be an all-around excellent phone.

   My previous t619 was a tiny phone. The Katalyst is a tad bigger and heftier, but it also feels far more solid. I like the look of the chrome trim, and everything has a nice glossy feel to it. Although functionally they are similar phones, the Katalyst is by far the better built of the two. The sliding mechanism is smooth and secure. It feels like a top-tier phone.

   One of the primary reasons I chose the Katalyst was the feel of the directional pad. I was only comparing it to other free/cheap phones, but this had the best d-pad and OK button of all of them. All of the upper buttons are subtly larger than most phones, and the difference is very noticeable. It makes everything easier to use. The t619 is tiny and clumsy in comparison. The number buttons are a marginal step up from the t619 (both have smooth numbers that aren’t very well distinguished), but they are more than adequate for texting and dialing.

   The speaker is loud and clear, and so far I have no sound quality complaints on the other end. One of the knocks the t619 had was a quiet speakerphone. I was happy to discover that the Katalyst is far louder and more usable, and it only requires one button press to activate (the t619 requires two).

   The t-zones web interface has been upgraded from previous Samsung phones. Now your home page can be customized with any RSS feed. This isn’t quite as quick to use as the number-driven home page of previous phones, but it’s far more powerful and flexible. Also, for some reason T-Mobile has enabled full http access, which allows you to view almost any web page (forget about javascript or Flash though, of course). This isn’t a perfect feature; many websites will not load at all and will post an error. This is OK for me since I prefer to view phone-optimized WAP pages anyway, for the most part. The default Yahoo! search box does a nice job of miniaturizing any full-sized web page accessed through it to be easier to view on your phone. The overall experience, while not quite up to par with an iPhone, is relatively quick and convenient. Most of the waiting done is due to T-Mobile’s slow servers for the home page; once I navigate to a page like Reuter’s things move much more quickly. The phone’s volume up/down buttons function as page up/page down, which greatly speeds up scrolling (if the t619 had this feature somehow I missed it). For reading basic websites (glorified RSS feeds) I actually prefer using this little Katalyst to the iPhone! (Everything remotely complex works far better on an iPhone of course.)

   Like I said, I chose this phone primarily based on feel, so I was surprised to learn that it has a WiFi feature. Contrary to my assumptions, you don’t need to subscribe to a service to use this feature. You can use WiFi without restriction; the only caveat is that it pulls from your regular minutes, so the only benefit is an improved signal. This is a fantastic feature if you live in an area with poor coverage, because you can utilize your broadband connection to make calls. It also speeds up the web browsing, which is a nice plus. Just be careful when leaving the house mid-call, because leaving the WiFi signal area will cause the call to drop. If you dislike this, you can just disable WiFi calling altogether.

   I am not a power user. I use my phone for calls, and to pull up t-zones to check the news or find movies. Other reviews have complained about the bluetooth functionality being limited in this phone. Apparently it works with headsets, but not with communicating to your PC, which is fine for me because I would probably never do that anyway. I also don’t use the built-in MP3 player, so I can’t really comment on its quality, other than to say there’s no standard headphone jack (you need a proprietary adapter).

   Overall this phone just feels right. Everything is solid and natural. There may be some fringe features that this phone lacks or doesn’t do quite as well as other phones, but the people who use these features know who they are and know to do their research before diving in and expecting the world. For everyone else who are just looking for a great phone, I highly recommend this one.
   Rating: 3 / 5
3. James Rupp says:

   July 3, 2010 at 1:05 am

   Seems to be well built but the menu is hard to navigate thru. The ringtone is very weak and there is no ringer/vibrate combination. It’s either one or the other. Forget carrying this phone in your pocket… when a call comes in the front keypad is activated so instead of sliding the phone to answer it, there are 4 buttons to either accept or decline the call. So pretty much your either gonna decline or answer the call before you can dig it out of your pocket… and that’s if you hear the ringer at all. Next time I’ll pass on slider phones.
   Rating: 1 / 5
4. F. Comiskey says:

   July 3, 2010 at 3:39 am

   First of all I dont demand much in a phone, so you may want to take that into consideration with my review. The only things I really care about are signal strength, size, and the capacity to take pictures.
   
   The thing I love about this phone is that I have had three or four other phones that get bad reception. They were all good phones, but I live in a hilly area with strange buildings that block antenna signals. This phone has the capacity to transfer to Wifi, but even before I had that set up I was getting and making calls in buildings that previously had NO reception whatsoever. I can’t figure why and I’m not one of those people that really knows about these things.. perhaps it’s because its a quad band? Any way, I was SO irritated not getting calls or having them cut out all the time with ALL my other phones and this one is great in that respect. The only thing is it echoes sometimes where I can hear my own voice bounce back… not sure why.
   
   Other than that it’s a little on the large side for me but not *huge* by any means. Its not much thicker than any of my other phones so at least thats the same. The easiest way to open it is to push on the screen with your thumb so its smudgy a lot which is very apparent with the chrome finish as well but… eh. that doesnt bother me too much, would make my boyfriend nuts though so I thought I’d mention it for you folks that freak over that stuff.
   
   It seems to have lots of features, most of which I dont care about, but one thing I’ve noticed thats neat is you can record a voice note (or sound, etc.) and set it as the ring for people… so you can have your phone make a farty sound when your ex is calling if you like. hehehe
   
   I wish it had the capacity to move things around and prioritize them like my last phone, that was really nice since I dont use all the features ever, but it doesn’t that I can find. Pictures seem good and clear enough.. it’s irritating to not be able to use the headphones and the charger at the same time as they share a port. Bad design.
   
   Only had it a week or two so thats all at the moment but man does the thing get good reception in all my trouble zones. That alone makes it worth it to me.
   Rating: 4 / 5
5. Nancy says:

   July 3, 2010 at 4:01 am

   keep in mind i’m a 20 year old that just needs a simple phone to make simple phone calls and be able to text efficiently and i am not that picky.

   this is my first slider phone and i do love it! it’s a good upgrade from the motorola razor flip phone.

   the only negatives i can think of from this phone is
   
   -i can’t personalize all the shortcuts and the soft keys and menu layouts
   
   -default ringtones and wallpapers aren’t that great (oh well!)
   
   -it does feel a bit thicker than what i’m used to from my razor, but i can get a better grip on my phone and doesn’t feel as flimsy
   
   -the outside gets easily smudged
   
   -looks like it could scratch easily
   
   -sometimes it can lag when going through menus really fast, but i think that’s with all phones…?
   
   -doesn’t show off a red light or anything like that to show an unread text or a missed call. but you can have a reminder tone of an unread message go off every minute or two

   other than that everything is great!
   
   -wifi is an interesting feature, but i’m sure it’s not for heavy internet users (like a computer!)
   
   -i haven’t tried the music player, but that’s what my ipod is for
   
   -texting is easy since the buttons are somewhat big (but i do have small fingers)
   
   -the texting response is really good
   
   -sliding feature is smooth
   
   -i can connect my bluetooth headset easily
   
   -calls are much clearer!
   
   -the camera takes pretty decent photos (for a 1.3 megapixel…keep in mind…it’s not a real camera!)and has quite a few fun features for messing around with it
   
   -my razor didn’t have this: if you have multiple numbers for one person, you can save it all under one name

   overall, even though i’ve only had this phone for one day and this is my third phone i went through with t-mobile in the past two weeks…i can see that this is the phone for me! it’ not a very high-techy phone, but it is enough for a simple user with simple needs!
   Rating: 4 / 5