Phone Review

What's hot: Cool looking. Good messaging and web surfing speeds.

What's not: External display is subpar, menu structure isn’t consistent.

Full QWERTY phones always sell well here in the U.S., and a full QWERTY with bright colors? Even better. With a chic pearl white casing and a bright red or purple keyboard (two colors are available), the Samsung Comeback t559 looks hip and attractive. In addition to the cool looks and full QWERTY keyboard, the phone has dual displays with a large landscape internal screen, built-in GPS that works with TeleNav, Bluetooth with A2DP, a 2 megapixel camera and a microSD card slot. The Samsung Comeback also works on T-Mobile’s 3G high-speed network and comes with the very capable Netfront web browser.

Compared to current QWERTY feature phones, the Samsung Comeback is much smaller than the giant Samsung Impression but slightly larger than the LG Xenon from AT&T. Measuring 4.33 x 2.20 x 0.73 inches, the Samsung Comeback is noticeably wider and thicker than the Samsung Gravity 2. But what really makes the Samsung Comeback stand out from the pack is the landscape flip that bears a resemblance to the T-Mobile Sidekick minus the swivel hinge. The Samsung Comeback is a good messaging phone, a very decent music player and an adequate GPS navigator.

The Samsung Comeback’s design is playful yet with a dash of elegance, and it doesn’t look like “just another QWERTY messaging phone”. The phone has some heft at 4.6 ounces and feels good in the hand, though it does scream “plastic”. The front external display is the smaller one of the dual display, and is 128 x 128 65K PMOLED screen that looks decent in sunlight as well as indoors. The front keypad has slim but wide number keys, and 6 menu keys flank the 5-day d-pad: shoulder menu keys, call send and call end buttons, camera launcher and the back key. The square d-pad is easy to control in most tasks including gaming.

Open the side flip to reveal the larger internal display that’s bright with 240 x 400 resolution and 262K colors. The QWERTY keyboard shares the space with another 5-way d-pad and 5 menu keys (call send, call end, messaging, camera and back). While the menu keys and the d-pad are large enough for most people, the keys on the QWERTY are on the slim side and folks with large fingers might find it hard to type fast on this keyboard. The four-row keyboard offers dedicated keys including “www/.com” for your web browsing convenience and an emoticon launcher. There are also two shoulder menu keys on the inside of the flip just above the keyboard, but oddly they live closer to the center instead of closer to the edges.

The Samsung Comeback has a mono rear-firing speakerphone next to the 2 megapixel camera on the back. The battery covers up both the SIM card slot and microSD card slot. So no hot swappable media cards for you! Side buttons only include the volume rocker and the charging/headset port. There is a strap holder for those who use charms on their phones.

The GSM quad band + 3G Samsung Comeback doesn’t have very strong reception even in good coverage areas, but it never drops a call. Voice quality is good but not superb. The phone has an address book that can store up to 1,000 contacts and each contact entry can have 5 numbers, 4 email addresses, 3 IM addresses, notes, birthday/anniversary and more. You can also have 8 speed dial numbers. The Samsung Comeback has Nuance’s voice command software that works reliably, but there is no quick way to launch it. Oddly the application lives under Organizer menu and it takes 2-3 key presses to get to the application which isn’t idea for someone who is driving. The easiest way to launch it is via Bluetooth headset. We tested several Bluetooth headsets with the Samsung Comeback, and voice dialing via Bluetooth worked well. The Nuance voice command software can not only voice dial but also launch apps, find contacts for messaging and more.

As a messaging-centric phone, the Samsung Comeback supports SMS, picture messaging with the option to add audio (audio postcard), attaching video to messages, web-based email and IM. The phone comes with a good number of options to set up your message sending and receiving options, templates and more.

The Samsung Comeback has the very capable Netfront v3.5 web browser and it can display full HTML pages with images and layouts intact, though some advanced Javascript still isn’t supported. Web page downloads are fast thanks to T-Mobile 3G HSDPA. Even large pages (like our home page) load reasonably fast (15 seconds). Happily, the Comeback is sold with T-Mobile’s cheaper $9.99/month web2go unlimited data plan rather than their more expensive 3G data plan. You need not get any data plan with the phone, if you have no need for it or want to save money.