The Samsung Propel offers a sliding keyboard, camera, and 3G antenna in a compact form factor.

This AT&T-powered phone is web enabled with a full keyboard to make messaging easier, but there are some notable deficiencies in the Propel. The screen has an average resolution, and is small compared to the available space available.

Weighing the pros and the cons of the phone, it’s hard to say that the Propel significantly outshines its competition in the $50 price range in which it resides.

Design and Build
The Propel is more comfortable in your pocket than a deck of cards when the keyboard is hidden. The keyboard slides out easily, though not easy enough to do so accidentally.

Keyboard: The Propel’s keyboard features a dedicated letter per key, with most keys also serving as a function key. There are also shortcut keys for AT&T’s Cellular Video, the camera, and a toggle mode for vibration.

Users probably won’t feel comfortable typing at great lengths on this keyboard, but it is a big improvement over the traditional numeric keypad. The biggest problem with the keyboard is the lack of space between the top of the top row and the bottom of the sliding portion of the phone. A touch more space would make it more comfortable for the user to type using both hands at once.

Display: The display is larger than an average phone, but it could still be a little larger to really stand out. Though its resolution is average, some features look better than others. For example, AT&T’s Cellular Video provides full episodes of your favorite shows (read: Lost) that are actually good enough to watch.

In other applications however, the display isn’t done justice. The web browser launches with three task bars, diminishing usable real estate, and what is displayed isn’t very sharp or impressive. This may be a browser-specific issue though, because camera pictures are surprisingly good-looking on the screen.

Front buttons; In the middle of the Propel is the “feature” button which by default opens the web browser. This will, of course, be a problem for those who elect not to add data to their phone. This button is in the center of a round donut-like directional pad with four sub-buttons at the top, bottom, left, and right. By default, these provide shortcuts to mobile email, instant messaging, “My Stuff,” and the address book.

Design Quirks: Samsung elected to provide coverings for the charging/headphone slot as well as the microSD slot. Though this might make sense for the microSD slot, it is a bit of a pain when trying to charge the phone. The biggest hassle with this phone however, is the proprietary headset it uses.

The phone can play media on microSD cards, but because no headset is provided, you’re forced to either buy a headset, play music through the ample speakerphone, or invest in a stereo Bluetooth set.

Performance
The Samsung Propel offers more functionality than your average phone, but don’t be fooled by its looks — this is no BlackBerry or iPhone.

The Propel does have some nice features, is web capable, and sports a full keyboard and camera. Yet, there are still some features that it lacks or that could be improved to make it a true contender in its price bracket.

My Menu: To add to your productivity, users can customize the last three slots of the “My Menu” that is triggered by the left convenience key on the face of the phone. There is also the ability to customize many of the sub-menus and enable useful features such as number blocking, and T-Coil mode for the hard of hearing.

Quick-switch convenience key: The right convenience keys serves as an application switcher, allowing you to quickly access and manage open windows. This is useful in situations where you might be instant messaging, web browsing, and listening to music all at the same time.

Call Quality: The call quality is slightly tinny, but not enough to distract callers. The people I talked to didn’t report any noticeable difference in call quality between the Propel and other devices. This phone also boasts a speakerphone that is slightly underpowered; in some situations it would be nice to be able to dial up the volume a little.

3G: To most, a 3G antenna means fast Web access, but because the Propel’s web browser experience is generally lackluster, the real purpose of the antenna is to improve coverage range.

As AT&T starts to introduce 3G areas in new-coverage areas, there simply is no EDGE signal in many places. Because of this, having the 3G antenna means that the phone will be able to function in more areas than its EDGE counterparts. Because the Propel isn’t data centric it maintains excellent battery life, weight, and size.

Calling Features: A nice feature of the propel lets you designate people to block via the “Reject List”; it can be a specific number, a person from your contact list, a group of people, unknown numbers, a selection from recent calls or Fixed Dialing Numbers.

FDN is a feature that allows outgoing calls to be limited to a selected set of numbers. Parents may find this feature useful for monitoring whom their kids can call.

Messaging: One of the most attractive features of the Propel is its slide-out QWERTY keyboard, which makes messaging much easier. The Propel features standard SMS and MMS messaging (including the ability to send videos), as well as instant messaging and mobile email.

Natively, the Propel sports AIM, Windows Live, and Yahoo messenger. For mobile email, the phone supports a range of providers both big (Yahoo Mail), and small (Mind Spring, Juno). Conspicuously absent from this lineup however, is mail giant Gmail by Google.

Instant Messaging: The instant messaging features on the Propel are satisfactory enough for most users. The interface is fairly easy to use, and there doesn’t seem to be much delay.

When new users sign on, an indication is given on the main display. Messages from instant messaging clients are not integrated with the rest of your (SMS/MMS) inbox, but there is an indicator on the home screen for when you have a new message. A major con for the AIM client at least, was the inability to view away messages without sending the recipient a message first.

Mobile Email: The Propel’s biggest mobile email flaws are the lack of integrated new-message display, the lack of Gmail support, and the inability to set up other email accounts (for example, school or corporate IMAP accounts). Also lacking in this area is the ability to send attachments in the supported email clients. It would also be nice to be able to call up contact-list entries when selecting email recipients, a feature currently lacking on natively supported accounts.

Though these may seem considerable flaws, because this phone is not billed as an email-centric device, most users will be able to accept the limitations. If you want to casually check your email, this device works well; even if there is no native client for your account, you can still browse to your inbox through the Propel’s web browser.

Email messages sent from native applications are sent quickly and the recipient cannot tell you sent it from your device.

Web Browsing: The browsing experience on the Propel meets expectations….as long as your expectations are low. Though the device boasts impressive features including 3G accessibility, don’t expect any bells and whistles. The browser is pretty limited in terms of the types of pages it can handle; one thing that it does very well is bring the user to the AT&T mobile page. One thing that is difficult is directly browsing to any other page.

In order to browse directly to a page, you have to scroll down the options button menu items, and then go into two sub menus. This is not only annoying, but will leave a sour taste in the mouths of new users who perhaps haven’t used a mobile browser before.

Camera: For an average device, the camera packs a surprising breadth of features. Though it is only 1.3 megapixels, picture quality is decent, and the camera offers a slew of customization settings. These include night shot, a timer, single to multi-shot, light settings, image customizations (black & white, sepia, and negative).

The best camera feature is the panorama setting. In this mode, you select how many shots to shoot horizontally, and starts at the left-most side. After taking a picture, an arrow instructs the user to pan to the right, and the rest of the pictures are automatically taken after the ending spot of the frame is recognized. When finished, the camera constructs a seamless panoramic shot. See my example pictures below.

• Sample Panorama Picture
• Sample Picture

AT&T Music: Every item in the music section of the phone seems to attempt to route you to the pay section of AT&T’s mobile site. Of the 8 sub-items in this section, all except for one are subscription services, and almost all of the apps besides the music player are largely useless.

The eight subsections are: a music player, music store, Music ID (powered by Shazam with a monthly subscription fee), XM Radio, Music Videos, Make UR Tunes, Community, and Music Applications.

The music player and the Music ID app are the only two useful items from this section. The Music ID application will become addictive, and if used judiciously, can recoup its subscription fee in settled bets.

The music player is pretty standard issue, but does have some redeeming features. These include the ability to transfer audio to a stereo Bluetooth receiver, manage playlists, and the ability to hide the player.

Cellular Video: The Propel offers many media applications, including Cellular Video. Loading the service, you can view feeds from CNN, ESPN, ABC, Comedy Central’s the Colbert Report, and other offerings, including HBO Mobile etc. This provides a distraction for a range of audiences, a definite plus when looking for ways to pass the time.

GPS: The Propel is GPS equipped, which is a great feature to have on any phone. To use this functionality, this phone is loaded with AT&T Navigator and another program called “Where.”

AT&T Navigator is a version of TeleNav, which provides spoken and on-screen directions. Using it requires a monthly subscription fee.

This “Where” program is a useful little tool that gives you location-aware searches for all the necessities — like Starbucks, gas, weather, etc.

The screen size and quality of the Propel are such that you will not be replacing your full-time GPS with it, but these features give a good level of functionality to the phone. You can even enter your own searches, (ex. Pizza).

Also featured is the Yellowpages.com application. Again, this has some practical features, but going online and searching is probably a more fruitful use of your time.

Bluetooth: The Bluetooth capabilities on this phone are pretty strong. Of course standard headsets are supported, but so are stereo headsets and speaker systems. Object Exchange is also supported, giving you a third way to off-load media other than transferring via the microSD card or sending MMS messages.

Battery life: For a 3G-enabled phone, the Propel’s battery life is awesome. AT&T required Samsung to include an extra battery in its first generation BlackJack because the battery life was so dismal; such is not the case here. The Propel offered a pleasant reprieve to the battery woes of other devices typically on the Brighthand lineup.

Charging was required infrequently, about once or twice a week with casual use.

Software quirks: The Propel wants to tell you exactly what’s going on via a slew of notification icons on the main display. Many of these will serve little to no purpose for the user and are a waste of space. One such example is the microSD indicator — most people who buy a microSD card will probably keep it in their phones at all time and therefore won’t find any value in the icon.

Another deficiency is the complexity of some of the menus. As mentioned in the browsing section, there are some menus that are difficult to navigate through to access simple functions, as they provide more specific details and settings than most casual users will care for.

Finally, when looking for media under the “My Stuff” area, the user has to separately search for items on device memory as well as those under the memory card. It would be more straightforward if all media items, regardless of origin, were displayed in the same screen.

Conclusion
AT&T’s Samsung Propel offers a balance of useful features and quirks. For users looking to make calls and respond to text messages quickly, this phone is a contender in its price bracket. For those looking to up the ante with higher-quality pictures, or those seeking a more media-centric experience, this device under-performs.

Quickly glancing at AT&T’s wireless online site, there are easily over 40 phones in the same price range as the Propel. Considering the range of selection and features, it is hard to say that the Propel is the right phone for anyone. Users shouldn’t fall into the trap of thinking that all phones are created equal, but should take a moment and consider the unique offerings of each device.

Samsung is a solid name that makes solid devices, but the Propel isn’t right for everyone.

Pros:

• QWERTY keyboard
• 3G coverage
• Novel form factor

Cons:

• So-so camera
• Proprietary headset
• Menus lack some logic in some places.