T-Mobile’s Samsung Memoir arrives, snaps photos, reviews itself

By on Feb 25, 2009 at 12:02 AM
Review February 25, 2009

The Samsung Memoir has been rumored to make its way to the nation’s newest 3G network for a very, very long time. Starting today, however, it’s available in all of T-Mobile’s retail stores, online, and over the phone. Samsung’s high-end optics on handsets are nothing new, but an 8 megapixel sensor certainly trumps anything available in the U.S. market (sold by a carrier). In terms of raw specs, you’re looking at T-Mobile 3G support, touch screen with Samsung’s TouchWiz interface (we’ll get into that in a bit), Xenon flash, HTML web browser, A-GPS and nifty photo functions such as smile and face detection along with geo-tagging capabilities.

The feel of the handset is actually great. It’s a combination of metal, soft-touch-finished paint and plastic which all blend together marvelously. The physical design works extremely well as far as not cramping your style no matter how you’re using the phone — web browsing, taking photos, texting — plus, there’s not too much you can do to hide an 8 megapixel sensor.

TouchWiz is a decent attempt at jazzing up a rather poor, old, and horrible operating system that Samsung has made us deal with. You’re given a list of widgets that can be dropped on the home screen for your enjoyment, but we really found this to be a pain in the ass. The home screen offers basically no functionality besides showing the clock and the weather. Everything else is a just a shortcut to another application. If Samsung had copied a little bit of HTC’s TouchFLO 3D, they would have made this at least a little bit more interesting.

Diving into the handset’s OS, you sort of get a dull feeling. Nothing pops out at you and nothing is really interesting. In a world of smartphone operating system battles, even featurephones nowadays need to start stepping it up. Text-based menus really aren’t going to cut it, you know? Like, at least try a little bit for us, ok? The photo section of the phone is probably the most manicured part of the handset, but even that really isn’t saying much. Sure you can swipe to peruse your photos from last night’s drunken stupor, and yes, you can automagically (credit: Gizmodo) upload your pictures to Flickr and T-Mobile MyAlbum service, but we just don’t see the connection here. You know, between a phone and a camera. Especially with an OS so bad and so 1999, it just doesn’t work in our minds. If you really want a decent cameraphone on T-Mobile, we’d completely recommend picking up the Motorola ZN5 over this bad boy, it at least has a decent phone OS that you can work with. The resistive touch screen tech mixed with a pretty bad excuse for an operating system boiled with an 8 megapixel sensor baked with text menus aren’t exactly our cup of tea.

Then there’s also the price-point. For $249.99 on a 2-year agreement, we’d have trouble not slapping you if you didn’t pick up the BlackBerry Curve 8900 over this. Didn’t you hear? T-Mobile can’t keep them on the shelves. We highly doubt stockrooms won’t be cozying up the Samsung Memoir, though. It’s not horrible, it just isn’t worth the hassle or the price. At least in our photo scrapbook.

Click on over to our T-Mobile Samsung Memoir gallery!

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  • rj04

    “I honestly didn’t think it was that important seeing as if someone wanted a digital camera, they’d buy a digital camera.”
    WOW! How could you possibly give a fair review if that is how you truly feel? So anybody who doesn’t feel the same as you should take your review with a grain of salt. I for one am not a big fan of the fanny pack, or the man purse, so a phone that doubles as a legit camera(see N82) is definitely something I’d be interested in.

  • http://www.bgr.com The Boy Genius

    @rj04

    Lol. You’re funny.

    I’ll break it down for you… My point was that the main purpose of this review, was to judge the phone as a phone, not as an 8 megapixel camera. Who cares if the phone had a 20 megapixel camera? If it’s not something I liked using as a handset (voice calling, texting, web) who gives a crap what bells and whistles it has? It’s a gimmick. End of story. If you love the handset, then please buy it and send us in some photos you took with it. Though since you seem to have some phone sense about you, I can say you’ll be pretty disappointed if you have used/purchased an N82 previously.

  • rj04

    @ Boy Genius,
    thanks for the explanation but I think your logic is flawed. Consider the Iphone. When initially launched it had call quality and reception issues and no mms support but people still loved it because of how easy using the internet is on it. I think it’s been proven that what you may consider gimmicks are what actually make or break a phone. I have not even seen the phone in person but I was hoping to see a review on the camera abilites of the phone, that’s all. Anyway, to each his own.

  • Joe the Plumber

    speaking of internet..
    does this phone have full-html is it or lie?

  • http://www.bgr.com The Boy Genius

    @rj04

    Yeah, you’re not wrong. I just think that a camera is such a standalone thing that there are very few people out there who will sacrifice an awesome phone for a couple more megapixels and an incredibly bad handset.

    Let me know how you like it when you try it out, maybe you’ll change your mind, or who knows, you might love it.

  • colin

    Justin, did you have to do anything special to make Pandora work with this phone and it was the free version right? Thanks!

  • http://www.bgr.com The Boy Genius

    @Joe

    I’d rather surf the web on my Verizon Motorola V8160.

    In all seriousness, it’s an “HTML browser” but everything is routed through T-Mobile’s proxy and it is just a horrid experience.

  • Agent

    The browser can be fixed in 60 seconds. Honestly, it really sucks that you have to use the hack in the first place, but at least it’s easy. Also, it’s easy to get internet for only $10 a month.

  • http://tnkgrl.wordpress.com tnkgrl
  • bshin1

    How do you get internet for $10?

  • Chickdey

    I got the phone yesterday and I LOVE it! I think it takes great pictures and it has many camera features that make it a blast to play with.

  • Agent

    bshin1, all you have to do is log on at t-mobile.com and indicate that you have any old regular phone. At the top-right corner it shows a picture of your phone and you click “Not Your Phone?” to pick another. Then tmobile thinks you have an old crappy phone and you order the internet for $10 but it works fine on the Memoir. There is a limit of 100 megs, but the total cost is capped at $24.99 so it can’t hurt.

  • mo

    I liked the review, but it didn’t talk much about the phone or its features. All I got from the review was that you didn’t like it and so don’t buy it. 8mega pixel is very good for aphone, and its easier to carry around instead of carrying both a phone and a camera. Plus its a touchscreen 250 don’t sound that bad. But maybe that’s just my opinion. But iam not going for this one anyway. I love lx and going to stick to it. I have had lx for the longest time I believe this is my 7th one ＬＬ.

  • Jenny

    This is the worst review ever. All you did was bitch and moan about the OS. We get that you don’t like the OS, but you don’t have to spend 2/3rds of the review on it. Why are you comparing a feature phone to a smart phone? This might sound odd to you, but not everyone wants a smartphone *gasp* yes I said it. I’m a college student, I have NO interest in a Blackberry or any other smart phone. You see, different people have different needs. Just because YOU don’t like the fact that this phone is geared towards a different demographic doesn’t make it a bad phone. And why get a phone with an 8.0 megapixel camera when there’s cameras for that? For me, I don’t have a camera, I have been wanting to get one. But when I’m out every weekend, I don’t want to be carrying a camera, my phone, my wallet, and my keys. Do you see why this phone would be attractive to me? Everyone take this review with a grain of salt. Head over to CNET to see a more rounded review.

  • Brad

    I personally hate Blackberry’s OS, but TouchWiz isn’t a whole lot better. That said, though I love the feel of the Memoir in my hand, I can’t figure out what makes it significantly better than the Behold. I’m looking forward to the LG Arena, myself; hopefully it’s in the US soon.

  • peterrabbit

    These things are selling for $99.99 on LetsTalk.com with a $50.00 mail in rebate makes the cost $49.99. Sounds like a good deal to me. I just got a Blackberry curve 8320 for free with a $100.00 mail in rebate. So I am making $100.00

  • bshin1

    @agent
    Thanks for the info. Do you get 3G speeds with the $10 internet plan?

  • Jennifer Harden

    I was told since this has been out it has not been availible much in the state of NM it has been going like crazy. the mall is sold out and most of the stores are as well. Im getting one sent to me monday and anxious to see it at work.

  • TEXASMADE1978

    I must say that I have a G1,iPhone,Wing (ughh),BB8900 and the Memoir. And they all have different things that they do better than the others.
    But the Memoir is not as bad as the review makes it sound. First of all the camera is GREAT, and you also get full HTML browsing if you know what you are doing (dial *#6984125*# and u will get to admin settings, then select 3 Network& Call Settings, then select 7 Connections, now select Browser, on the access portion of the settings change it to internet2.voicestream.com from wap.voicestream.com and you will have full HTML Browsing). Admittedly you should not have to hack the browser at all but that is T-Mobile for you.
    I will admit the OS is not a BB OS or the Android OS but for what it is it works. As far as the resistive touchscreen it has worked very good for me, but if you are expecting the same responsiveness that you get from the G1 or the iPhone you just are not going to get it. Call quality is great as well, as is the speakerphone.
    Video recording is as good as u are going to get on a phone.
    Overall a damn good phone and great camera.
    Just an unbiased review of a phone that I have been putting through its paces for 2 weeks.
    If you want a smartphone buy a smartphone, but if you want a feature phone as the Memoir is, it is definitely a good buy.

  • Carlee

    Very good review, but as a heads up, the Memoir actually DID do very well at T-Mobile. It was on backorder for a few weeks.

  • Vincent

    I don’t like blackberry phones at all, I think the Memoir is ten times better than the Curve. I have had the pearl and the curve and both are really bad (although the storm is amazing). I enjoyed my sidekick better than that ugly Curve. The Memoir is simply innovative, the camera is a milestone for phones (since the Memoir is not considered a “smartphone”)

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