Samsung Behold 2 and TouchWiz interface Hands on first impression, price and US release date

Yesterday I got my hands on a Samsung Behold 2 the American version of the Galaxy (i7500).
After being an iPhone user for the past 2 years it finally died, so now I'm on the market for a new phone. I was walking by the t-mobile kiosk in the Westfield mall in Downtown San Francisco when I thought to ask about the Behold 2 right then a Samsung rep came up and had that specific phone with him. I asked him as many questions as I could think.

1. Which version of Android will it be released with : Android 1.6 but will they plan on pushing an OTA (over the air) update to 2.0 in a couple of months.
   
2. When will it be released in stores for sale : November 18th, 2009
3. How much will it cost : $250 with a contract

He showed me the "improvements" they made to the Android OS. Samsung added four fixed buttons to the bottom of the screen, reminiscent of the iPhone's dock. And there is a secondary widget menu that has messaging, email, phone, contacts, media, YouTube etc icons in it accessible from a launcher in the top of the screen. They also moved the widget panel's pullout dealie from the bottom of the screen to the left-side. If you are used to using any of the LiveAndroid builds you should be used to it by now.
I also got to play with the Touch Wiz interface (the cube in all the promotional photos). It's not bad, but it seems useless. The idea is that there is a cube with the six most frequently used items in it. You can flick the cube, shake the cube and shake the phone to spin the cube. There's even a dedicated button to bring it up (the button on the middle-right side with a diamond icon drawn on it). On the demo model I played with, the cube didn't seem to render correctly through some of the more extreme angles during spins. Like running Quake 1 on a 100Mhz Pentium, it works, but it'll be missing some walls.

The Samsung representative was the most stoked about the camera.
It comes with a 5-Megapixel camera with flash, that's actually quite bright and appeared to work quite well. It also has an automatic panorama feature, where it will guide you through framing an 8 image panorama, then automagically stitch them together. That worked very well, the only issue he had while showing me, was that you couldn't interrupt it half-way through; it demanded all 8 images before it would start stitching them together.

It seemed like a great phone, but at $250 it's more expensive than the Droid and it comes with Android OS 1.6 (Doughnut) not 2.0 (Eclair), so it won't have the same augmented reality turn-by-turn GPS app that comes with the Droid. I really liked the feel of it in my hand and it felt snappy, but the TouchWiz UI seems like a looser that, according to the rep, you cannot remove.

I'm in the market for a new phone right now, so I will wait the two weeks and try playing with it again, hopefully by then I will have been able to get my hands on a Droid to compare it to.
Already I'm leaning more towards this phone than the droid, because of the ergonomics and the lack of keyboard (I don't like the little qwerty keyboards they put on devices), but the device seems to be a less-powerful, lower resolution, with an older version of the OS that is more expensive than the Droid. 

I think the deciding factor will have to be the plan pricing along with the phone's price.

Rexsonn International Cell Phones

So about a year ago I came across one of those blue-tooth laser keyboards. It worked pretty well for a few hours then the battery crapped out and wouldn't recharge. I bought a new on, like an idiot then used it until it burned out and failed to recharge. I researched the company that made the battery and contacted their sales department explaining that I review technology and would like a new battery. They never sent me a new battery, but they have started sending me information about every new product they come out with. Apparently they started out making batteries, then moved on to making cell-phones. I looked into the phones they make and according to the specs they look pretty impressive. I tried getting them to send me one, but since they are a Chinese company, the language burier hindered me from securing one. After a few e-mails back and forth I agreed to write a review on their phones based on the promotional material, so here it is.
Most of their phones look like they have pretty similar specs, and they end up boiling down to two phones: A stripped down nokia clone that has minimal features + media playing capabilities. And a super cool phone with a big screen and TV function!

Language:English/Traditional Chinese/Simplified Chinese/ other languages upon customers request
Specifications:
1. Dual sim,dual standby mobile phone
2. Built-in 1.3M pixel camera
3. Screen: 2.8" WQVGA 260K Color display
4. Built-in MPEG-4, MP3 auto player
5. Hand writing function
6. Bluetooth function (support A2DP, MP3/MP4)
7. TV Mobile, FM Radio
8. MMS, WAP 2.0,GPRS: Class 12
9. Extendable: T-Flash 256M
10.Dimension: 120*62*16mm
11.Band: Tri Band 900/1800/1900 MHz

I've highlightd the coolest things that this phone boasts

Here's a link to their product page www.rexsonn.com.

There is no mention of what interface / operating system they run, but if they could run Android, I think that would be an awesome selling point for them and a super cool inexpensive platform to get it out on.

I was skeptical about the price of these phones thinking that they would be pretty expensive, seeing as how they are pretty cool, but after looking through their product pricing list that they sent me there are two price-points. The cheap phones are less than $50 and the super cool phones are about $150. Unfortunately their pricing is only if you are buying 500pcs.
I would really like to test one out for a week or two and see how it performs (and re-charges). If I do get my hands on a demo model, I will write a more in-depth review.

Sony Ericsson W300i Walkman

The Sony Ericsson W300i is the lowest model in the Walkman phone line, but that doesn't mean it is in any way the least capable. The device can play MP3 files and has a built in FM Radio tuner that uses the supplied in-ear headphones as an antenna; which receives surprisingly clear signal. The sound quality of the phone is sub-standard when using as a traditional phone, but when you plug in the supplied in-ear headphones with microphone and you have a rich stereo experience not only when listening to music, but when playing games on the built in JAVA platform, or even while making a call. The built in BlueTooth has more features than you would expect from an entry level media-phone. When connecting to the test laptop (13" Intel MacBook) the phone showed up not only as a phone, but also as a controller and I was able to use the numeric keypad on the phone as an secondary pointing device. I could move the mouse cursor, click and double click using the up-down-left-right and action keys surprisingly naturally - a feature not needed for a phone like the W300i, but a serendipitous addition that I played with way more than thought I would.
The negative aspects of the phone is the lack of the ability to sync to a PC. Even though it will communicate with and mount on a computer as a phone, it will not sync the contacts, calendar or bookmarks. Something that all phones that can communicate with a computer should do is at least sync the contact list with either Outlook on Windows or Address Book on a Mac. It may mean more programming before phones are released, but honestly now! With the line between computer and phone being as blurry as it is, all phones should have some avenue of syncing their contact list with the user's computer.
Over all a very nice Walkman, an adequate phone, a fun pointing device, but an unintelligent Phone-PC interface.

T-Mobile SDA

I purchased a T-mobile SDA because I really enjoy the Windows Mobile operating system and I prefer a T9 keypad over a qwerty keyboard. I am no speed texter, but I can type most words without looking using the numeric keypad. The SDA is generally the same size as most other candy-bar style phones, but slightly thicker.
The SDA is equipped with a mini-SD card reader but is located behind the battery, so hot-swapping is not even a possibility.
The battery gives an adequate life with having to charge every other night after average usage.
The phone is internet capable with the built in Internet Explorer, but limited to edge dial-up speed, which is enough to check e-mail or check your myspace and sometimes stream internet radio stations. But not enough to watch videos without taking a few minutes to download. The slow internet speed is offset by the built in 802.11b WiFi.
Windows Media Player Mobile is my favorite mobile music playing interface of all that I have used. It is not the most straight forward, but the ability to enqueue a selection of songs, remove selections and play radio streams overwhelms the slightly unintuitive placement of certain functions.
The phone has built in bluetooth and was able to see every device I threw at it; from head-sets to virtual keyboards, it connected and mounted them all. The only thing I was never able to communicate with was a wireless printer, but that was no surprise.
The signal strength is sufficient for normal use, but is underwhelming when compared to an average Nokia.
The tri-band functionality does not technically leave it classified as a "world phone" but I had no problem using it in both the United States and Canada. Since the Phone is a T-Mobile branded phone in the U.S. it will alway use T-Mobile service here, but in Canada it automatically connects to Rogers Wireless, which ended up being very convenient.
The SDA has a built in camera which works adequately, but can not ever seem to properly focus. It does, however record videos rather well.
All in all a great smart phone if you don't mind waiting for the internet, or if you are looking for a media-enabled phone but want a little more control over your playlist.