Straight Talk Full QWERTY Samsung S390g Full Review

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The Samsung S390g is a very attractive fully featured GSM devide with tons of features for your dollar. What we really like about this phone are all of the unexpected features it offers for such a low price. For starters, we really enjoy the Blackberry like touch pad just below the screen. Most phones at this price range don't ever offer this. We were expecting the regular bush button pad but that's not the case here. The keypad makes navigating the menus a real pleasure. It also makes things like backspacing on texts and emails very easy.

In the looks department, this phone reveals itself to be a real looker. For starters, there is a silver plastic bezzel that surrounds the entire phone. The back is nicely contrasting textured dark gray battery cover. The navigation, send and end buttons are quite flat to the phone giving it a quality look, not clunky at all like other phones at this price range. The touch trackpad is a shiny hard plastic surrounded with a chrome accent. Over all, this is a quality looking phone that you won't be ashamed to carry around and use.

Layout wise, it is very intutive with everything laid out very nicely. On the top, you have the standard ipod type headphone jack, on the left you have the volum buttons with the SD card port just below that. The right side has the charge/data port. Additionally, the keyboard features a camera quick launch button as well as an email quick launch button. Below the screen you find the touch trackpad flanked by two selector type buttons which are then flanked by send/end buttons.

Last but not least, is the phone interface. It's not a smartphone by any means but it does have a very attractive interface that's not clunky at all like some of the other entry level Straight Talk devices. The menu icons are high quality and not cheap looking like other inexpensive devices. What's cool is that the interface supports the track pad on all screens including the texting and email interfaces.

Features

This pone has tons of features you wouldn't expect on a phone like this. First, is the wifi connectivity which is unheard of on a $60 device. This lets you navigate the web quickly and easily when a wifi hotspot is available. Additionally, it lets you stay off your web minutes when using the $30 plan which is quite a money saver. Then, there is the built in email client that lets you program in any type of email including Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail and even Exchange server if one is available to you. Basically any SMTP email can be used provided you have the configuration settings. Unlike other Straight Talk phones, this phone does a great job of web browsing. It supports full HTML web with Javascript and Flash. It even plays Youtube videos which is quite shocking at this level of device. Overall, Straight Talk and Samsung did a great job feature wise. You get a great deal of functionality at a feature phone price. The ability to use the Straight Talk $30 plan makes this a real bang for your buck value phone.

Calling Area

The Samsung S390g will work in AT&T as well as Tmobile calling areas so you will have great coverage. Be aware that the phone is not 3g however so web browsing while not on WiFi will not be very fast. We don't think this is a big deal since most people will apt for the $30 plan on this phone and most probably won't do a ton of browsing. The built in WiFi however is quite fast and can be enjoyed for free where ever a hotspot is available..

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Wrapping it Up

We were very impressed by this phone. We realize that there are phones that are light years more advanced that the S390g but of course that comes at a cost, besides, that's not who this phone is intended for. This phone is for those of us who don't really care about Androids, iPhones, etc but rather save some cash and still be able to get things done. This phone does an excellent job at that to be sure. There are a few quirks that here and there like not being able to quickly launch the URL address bar from the browser and the outdated Straight Talk home browser page you can't change but other than that there is not much else we don't like. If those little things annoy you, you can always install Opera mini!