Samsung Messager Touch SCH-R630

Design, Call Quality, and Apps
The Samsung Messager Touch measures 4.1 by 2.1 by 0.6 inches (HWD) and weighs 3.8 ounces. On U.S. Cellular, it's available in blue or black. The robust slider mechanism and soft touch, sculpted back panel give this phone a solid feel. The 2.6-inch, plastic resistive, touch screen LCD sports 240-by-320-pixel resolution. Touch response was just okay; I had to press hard at times, which made dialing numbers a pain. The built-in accelerometer means you don't have to slide out the keyboard in order to switch between portrait and landscape views. Below the screen are five function keys. The slide-out QWERTY keyboard features four rows of rectangular keys. It's easy to type quickly on this phone.
The Samsung Messager Touch is a tri-band EV-DO Rev 0 (850/1700/1900 MHz) device with no Wi-Fi. Call quality was quite good overall, with a clear tone in the earpiece and natural-sounding transmissions through the microphone. Reception was average. Calls sounded clear through an Aliph Jawbone Icon Bluetooth headset ($99, 4 stars). The Nuance-powered voice dialing worked fine over Bluetooth. The speakerphone sounded loud and full enough to use outdoors. Battery life was quite good at 6 hours and 15 minutes of talk time.
The Messager Touch suffers from a syndrome too common on touch-screen feature phones. You approach it expecting smartphone ease of use, but then you're let down by the sluggish touch screen and poorly thought-out UI. HTC and Motorola are finding their way out of this trap with new feature phone OSes like the BREW MP on the HTC Freestyle ($99.99, 4 stars) and the Android-based OS on the Motorola i886 ($79.99, 3.5 stars), but the OS here tells the usual bad old story.

Specifications

Service Provider

US Cellular

Screen Size

2.6 inches

Screen Details

240-by-320-pixel, 262K color TFT LCD resistive touch screen

Camera

Yes

Network

CDMA

Bands

850

High-Speed Data

1xRTT, EVDO Rev 0

U.S. Cellular's software differs considerably from the Cricket version ($79.99, 3.5 stars) we tested late last year. For starters, the main menu consists of two tabs, each with nine icons. They're not sensibly arranged; icons are dedicated to minor tools like the calculator and ringtone configuration, while the Web browser, camcorder, and video player are buried in submenus. The Novarra-powered Web browser does fine with WAP sites, but it's slow to render desktop HTML pages. There are no shortcut links to Facebook or Twitter, though you can access them through the browser. Text messages are threaded. Skip the clunky e-mail program; it's easier to access Webmail accounts through the browser as well. There's a GPS chip but no voice-enabled navigation software, a disappointment considering the Cricket version offers it for free.
Multimedia, Camera, and Conclusions
Thankfully, the Messager Touch is set up nicely for listening to your tunes. The standard-size 3.5mm headphone jack, side-mounted microSD card slot, and easy-to-use music player app are all welcome. My 32GB SanDisk card worked fine, and the phone automatically prompted me to change the default location settings to the card. There's also 93MB of free internal memory. Music tracks sounded clear and full over Samsung Modus HM6450 ($99, 4 stars) Bluetooth headphones. The music player was easy to use and displayed album art where applicable. Samsung also throws in some wired stereo earbuds, which sound fine but have no perceptible bass response. The phone only played back recorded .3GP videos, though it played them smoothly enough.
The 2-megapixel camera has no flash or auto-focus. Test photos were decent, though I normally expect a little more detail from a 2-megapixel sensor. Shutter speeds were average, though, and the camera was generally usable both indoors and out. The camcorder is useless, with a maximum of 176-by-144-pixel resolution at 10 frames per second.
Anyone looking for a good, solid feature phone for texting and music playback will do well with the Messager Touch. The Motorola Grasp (Free, 3.5 stars) has a smaller keyboard and cheaper camera, but its mini-BlackBerry form factor and free up-front price make it worth a look. If you don't need a QWERTY keyboard or touch screen, the LG Wine II UN430 ($39, 3.5 stars) is worth a look for its smooth flip form factor and useful feature set, and its OS is more responsive.
Benchmarks
Continuous talk time: 6 hours 15 minutes