Features
Battery life has always been an issue with Samsung's slim phones, and I'm happy to report that the t629 performs better in this regard than the t809. You're not going to get best-in-class talk time numbers if you make heavy use of the t629's features - Bluetooth and camera, in particular - but I had to go out of my way to get a low battery warning by the end of one day of use, and that's a marked improvement over the t809.
Like the recently released Trace, the t629 has a solid feature set highlighted by compatibility with T-Mobile's new "myFaves" service plan. myFaves allows for unlimited calling between you and your choice of any five numbers on any mobile networks, and is available as an optional add-on to standard T-Mobile rate plans. Only very recently released T-Mobile handsets are compatible with the service.
Samsung's standard digital audio player is also included on the t629, and it performed well with mp3, AAC, and WMA files. Audio files may be played back from internal memory and/or microSD cards. As a Mac user, I like the fact that transferring music from my computer to the phone (or memory card) is a drag-and-drop operation that doesn't require any special software.
The phone has the common set of organizer applications, including a calendar with appointment alarms and to-do lists, and alarm clock, and a 1,000 entry contacts application with support for five phone numbers, email addresses, and other information for each entry. Contacts may also be organized into groups, and caller ID pictures and ringtones are supported. A voice memo application is also present, though voice commands are not. The handset also supports conference calls with up to five lines at a time.
The t629 supports J2ME Java games, and came with five games pre-installed. Bobby Carrot, Arch Angel, Airship Racing, Freekick, and Midnight Pool all have their charms, if none of them are anything to write home about (as mentioned in my review of the Trace, I did find Bobby Carrot rather addictive). Additional games, ringtones, and wallpapers are available for download through T-Mobile's optional T-Zones service.
The t629 features a 1.3 megapixel camera (without flash). For some reason I've had varying results with 1.3MP cameras on different Samsung phones: The t809 was very good, and the t519 Trace not so good. Happily, the t629's camera performed quite well, yielding crisp, clear, colorful images under most conditions. A wide range of user-controllable features control resolution and quality settings, shooting modes, viewfinder size, and "fun frames." Several shutter sounds are available to choose from, and the shutter may be silenced altogether.
The camera yielded less pleasing results in camcorder mode. Movies tended to be shaky and blurry unless shot under the best lighting conditions and with the steadiest of hands. Two resolutions and a number of options are available, and movies are recorded with sound. The t629 has only 21 MB of internal memory to which images and movies may be stored, but optional microSD memory cards allow for further storage space.
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4.3
