The Samsung Memoir, officially known as the SGH-T929, is the company's latest high-end camera phone for T-Mobile USA. Sporting an 8 megapixel shooter with features like a real xenon flash and smile detection mode, the Memoir has all the right specs for the budding mobile photographer. A full sized touchscreen and Samsung's TouchWiz user interface give the Memoir user some eye candy to enjoy at the same time.
Physical Design
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Physically, the Memoir is based on a fairly simple touchscreen slab design. Its 400x240 pixel resistive touchscreen(INFO) dominates the front of the phone, which is bare but for the face sensor that sits above it and the call send, call end, and back keys that sit beneath it. The back of the phone, however, shows much more personality, looking for all the world like a dedicated point and shoot camera.
The Memoir is made from sturdy feeling materials and seems to be very solidly made. The Memoir weights a solid 126.9g (4.5oz), and measures 110mm x 53.5mm x 14.5mm (4.3in x 2.1in x .6in) in size. The entire device has a reassuring feel to it, and the metal work is particularly nice. The attached metal covers for the power/USB/headset (not 3.5mm) and microSD(INFO) ports are a luxurious touch, and the camera's shutter button is among the best we've seen recently. The nicest design element, however, is likely the lens cover that opens and closes automatically as needed. It helps give the Memoir a very real camera feel.
Core Functions
Reception on the Memoir, which supports T-Mobile's GSM and UMTS networks, is not as good as one might hope for, coming in a bit below average based on our impressions. Audio quality seems good, though, and the speakerphone is more than adequate. Battery life is rated at 5.5 hours of talk time or 12.5 days of standby time, but in our experience users will be recharging the phone sooner rather than later, probably due to the large display and bright backlight.
The contacts system in the Memoir is fully featured, and the quick access buttons for messaging and calling in the contact list are very handy. Profile support is rather limited, but at least the active profile can be quickly changed by using the volume control. Speed dialing is supported, and the Memoir also offers Nuance's speaker independent voice dialing application. Due to a bug involving Samsung's PC Studio 3, which I used for contact synchronization, and how I have my contacts in Microsoft Outlook displayed, I originally had much trouble getting the voice dialing to work. Most users, though, should find that the voice dialing function on the Memoir works perfectly.
The T929 Memoir supports text, MMS, IM, and email messaging right out of the box. Email support is limited to offerings from the major players, like Hotmail and Gmail, and was a bit slow to use. Text and MMS messaging, including audio postcards, worked quite well, though. The phone offers a virtual 12 key T9 predictive keypad for text input when held normally, and a full QWERTY layout when held in landscape mode. The T9 keypad works quite well, but the QWERTY version seemed difficult to use quickly and accurately, in spite of the haptic feedback felt when keys are pressed.
The Memoir works on T-Mobile's 3G network, where available, and was capable of download speeds in the 400 to 450kbps range, which is decent. In spite of the available bandwidth, the Memoir never felt particularly speedy during web tasks or when picking up email. A USB cable is included with the phone, which is handy for using the Memoir as a mass storage drive. Bluetooth is completely supported, but WiFi is not.
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Multimedia / Applications
In terms of multimedia, the Memoir does quite well. The camera is very capable, offering features like a xenon flash and smile detection modes that actually work. With an 8 megapixel sensor, resolution is never an issue, and the photos overall are quite good. White balance is sometimes a bit warm in mixed lighting, but other than that there seems to be nothing at all to complain about. An on-board GPS can be used for geotagging photos (and navigation), and the 720 x 480 pixel video recording mode was also pretty impressive.
We tested the music player on the T929 Memoir by loading up the included 1GB microSD card with a couple of albums worth of music by connecting the phone to Windows Media Player on a PC. The transfer worked painlessly, and the music player did its job. Background music play is supported, and the music was all properly organized. Playlists can be created directly on the device, as well. An included pair of wired stereo headphones can be used with the Memoir, or the user can opt to go sans wires with a pair of Bluetooth A2DP stereo headphones.
The Memoir uses NetFront as its web browser of choice. NetFront is capable of handling complex, full HTML sites. It is not particularly fast at rendering pages, though, and lacks the intuitive zooming controls of other browsers. But compared to many other feature phones, the Memoir still does quite well.
User Interface
The user interface on the SGH-T929 Memoir is Samsung's TouchWiz. That means that the phone supports desktop widgets and other eye candy, such as finger scrollable lists and animated menus. The system is reasonably capable, in general, but lacks the polish we have seen on some other Samsung phones. In particular, the scrolling is a bit lacking, tracking poorly with the user's finger as he or she moves it up or down the page.
There are no deal breakers in the UI, though, and any quirks that are present will likely be adapted to by users quickly.
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