Samsung S6700T mobile phone

Telstra isn't renowned for offering value for money, but with the Samsung S6700T, exclusive to the Next G network, the teclo has a capable 3G mobile phone for a low price. The Samsung S6700T includes a 3-megapixel camera with LED flash, a music player and a microSD card slot for extra storage.

A slider phone in the mould of the Ultra S, the Samsung S6700T is a reasonably well designed handset. It has a stylish silver finish on the front and rear and a glossy black bezel surrounding the display. The top rear of the case creaks slightly when pressed, but, this minor issue aside, the S6700T feels like a well-built phone and the spring-operated slider in particular feels sturdy and reassuring.

Controls are straightforward, consisting of a five-way navigational pad, answer and end call keys and two selection buttons. The Samsung S6700T's keypad is flat, though the keys are reasonably large and are well separated. Users with larger fingers may find the top row of keys (1, 2, 3) a little too close to the bottom of the slider when typing messages or dialling phone numbers.

Considering this is a budget, prepaid mobile phone, the Samsung S6700T's display is bright and clear and has good viewing angles. It’s a little hard to see in direct sunlight, but this is true of most mobile phones and is not an issue specific to the S6700T.

The S6700T runs Samsung's proprietary interface and that’s mostly good news. While it's obviously not a smartphone and lacks the ability to install third-party applications (aside from a range of Telstra services), the interface is easy to use, zippy and functional. A customisable shortcut menu is available by pressing the left selection key. Telstra has seen fit to include six of its own services in this menu (including shortcuts to Mobile Foxtel, Whereis, Sensis Search and BigPond apps), but users can assign six of their own shortcuts to the remaining icons.

The Samsung S6700T has a 3-megapixel camera with a dual LED flash and a self-portrait mirror. The camera also doubles as a video recorder. There is no built-in GPS, but it offers fast HSDPA connectivity over Telstra's Next G network. The browser is frustrating if you have to use it frequently, due to its slow page rendering and lack of a touch screen for navigation. For the odd tweet or Facebook status update — about the extent of intended Web browsing on a prepaid service — it does a reasonable job.

The Samsung S6700T has a music player and an FM radio. Unfortunately, the lack of a standard 3.5mm headphone jack limits the potential for music playback. Instead, the included headset plugs into the standard micro-USB port. The S6700T comes with 120MB of internal memory; the microSD card slot can hold cards of up to 32GB in size. Annoyingly, the slot is located behind the battery

The Samsung S6700T includes a music recognition feature, allowing you to record a 10-second clip of a song, send it to the music recognition server and get the title and artist information returned. This application is similar to Sony Ericsson's TrackID service and the iPhone Shazam.

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