The aboriginal Samsung Behold was a aboveboard messaging buzz from T-Mobile. But the newer Samsung Behold II is an advanced, Android-based smartphone — so altered from its antecedent that you adeptness never apperceive these two buzz were accompanying at all. And that’s a actual acceptable thing.

Price and Availability

T-Mobile originally offered the Samsung Behold II for $230 if it debuted in the abatement of 2009. As of this writing, in May 2010, the Behold is attainable for decidedly less: T-Mobile is now alms the buzz for $149.99 afterwards a $50 mail-in rebate. That’s a abundant added acceptable amount for the phone.

Design

The Behold II
is attractive, admitting it doesn’t angle out from a lot of of today’s Android phones. It’s an all touch-screen phone, so you don’t get a hardware-based QWERTY keyboard. But you do get an in fact beauteous 3.2-inch AMOLED screen. AMOLED screens are bluff and brighter than LCDs, and the aberration is apparent if you’re application the Behold II. The colors are active and aggregate just seems to pop on the screen.

The affectation is a capacitive blow awning which was simple to use in my tests: it responded promptly to all of my taps, and scrolling through lists and Web pages was easy. At times, the 3.2-inches of absolute acreage acquainted a bit cramped, though, abnormally afterwards application some of today’s phones that action 3.7-inch — or even bigger — screens.

Below the screen, you get a array of buttons: send, end, back, home, and menu, additional a button for accessing the multimedia cube appearance (which I’ll explain in a bit). You aswell get a annular abyssal keypad with a centermost button, which makes abyssal through the phone’s appearance actual easy.

Making Calls

The Behold II is a quad-band apple phone, so you can use it to accomplish calls overseas. In my tests, alarm above ranged from appropriate to actual good. A lot of callers heard me loud and clear, and carnality versa. I noticed casual changeless during some calls, however.

Software

The Behold II runs Google’s Android operating system, which is hardly aberrant at times, but it’s a able OS that gives you affluence of options and is fun to use. Ypu’ll acquisition a array of apps installed on the phone, and you get admission to the Android Market for abacus more.

But Android can be ambagious at times, in ample allotment because altered phones address with altered versions of Android. And the Behold II is no exception: this buzz still ships with adaptation 1.5 of the Android OS, which is now attainable in adaptation 2.1 on added phones. For added information, apprehend my abounding analysis of the Android OS.

The Behold II aswell appearance Samsung’s TouchWiz interface, on top of the Android software. TouchWiz is advised to accomplish abyssal the buzz easier, by accouterment a row of widgets–icons that are shortcuts to apps–on the larboard ancillary of the screen. You aswell get a barrage bar on the basal of the awning that lets you admission assertive buzz features, like the punch pad or the Web browser. While I was afflicted with TouchWiz on other, non-smartphone accessories like the Samsung Memoir, I begin its use a bit alloyed on an Android device. So abundant of its functionality is already congenital into the Android OS, authoritative TouchWiz feel superfluous.

In accession to the TouchWiz interface, the Behold II aswell offers a 3D cube appearance for accessing the phone’s multimedia features. The cube is air-conditioned to attending at, but is absolutely just a novelty; it doesn’t in fact action abundant functionality that you can’t get elsewhere. If you columnist the cube button on the phone, you’ll see the cube appear, with abandon alms admission to the Behold II’s multimedia apps, like the Amazone MP3 store, the Web browser, or your photo library. You can agitate the buzz to move the cube, or can use the blow awning to circle it. It’s entertaining, but not awfully useful.

Messaging

Like all Android phones, the Behold II appearance bound affiliation with Gmail, but will plan with any IMAP or POP3 e-mail account. The Nexus One will accompany with Microsoft Exchange e-mail, calendars, and contacts.

The Behold II offers argument and multimedia messaging, and appearance a threaded appearance of messages. It aswell appearance IM audience for AOL’s AIM, Google Talk, Windows Live, and Yahoo Messenger.

Browsing the Web

The acceptable account about browsing the Web is that the Behold II supports both Wi-Fi and 3G cellular networks. T-Mobile was the endure of the four above civic carriers to barrage a 3G network, but its adeptness is growing. In my tests of the Behold II in and about the Boston area, T-Mobile’s arrangement delivered accelerated page endless and downloads.

The bad account is that the Android browser can’t attempt with today’s best adaptable browsers, such as the iPhone’s Safari. Too abounding of the options are attainable alone through menus, and because the Behold II’s awning doesn’t abutment multi-touch, you can’t compression and advance the awning to zoom in and out.

Camera

The Behold II appearance a five-megapixel camera that captured some actual acceptable snapshots. Images were ablaze and clear, with aciculate details. The camera offers a flash, 8x agenda zoom, autofocus, as able-bodied as some avant-garde settings. It aswell captures video clips, which looked actual good.

Music and More

Like all Android phones, the Behold II includes one-touch admission to Amazon’s MP3 abundance for DRM-free music downloads. As a nice bonus, you get Samsung’s own media player, which is above to the banal music amateur begin on a lot of Android phones. Samsung’s amateur is added visually appealing, and has added avant-garde features, such as a congenital blaster and the adeptness to actualize playlists on the fly.

You aswell get a committed YouTube app, and videos looked abundant on the Behold II’s AMOLED display.