With the Omnia and Eternity, Samsung has flung itself into the Touch phone market and presented considerable competition to the dominating sets like iPhone and Black berry Storm. Here’s a look at Eternity; we’ll see if it lasts long!

What’s good about the Samsung Eternity

• The Samsung Eternity comes in a classy black and chrome color scheme that looks good even in the dorkiest of places. The front of the phone is made up almost entirely of the touch screen display, and there is chrome lining around the edges of this cell phone, and the entire back plate is a textured matte black plastic. A Really classy thing to be found with, in short.
• Despite being cased mostly in plastic, the Samsung Eternity feels really good in the hand. At 109.2mm x 55.9mm x 12.7mm (4.3″ x 2.2″ x .5″) it’s quite small and fits into one hand. In spite of not being the Size Zero in phones, weighing 110.6g (3.9oz), the Eternity feels somewhat hollow and lighter than expected. The 3.2 inch long and narrow display screen leaves little to be desired in terms of graphics and responsiveness.
• Eternity might not be among the better Windows Mobile on the market (like the Omnia or the Behold), but Samsung has, for now, concentrated on the much awaited upgrades required for better-polished applications (hint Media Player), specially the TouchWIZ theme.
• TouchWIZ is the widgets-based interface that Samsung has been laying on top of their recent all-touch phones. The home screen has a slide-out drawer with widget icons, and you can drag the icons onto the desktop space to enlarge them and add functionality.
• Call quality on the Eternity was very good, with calls that sounded loud and clear. The phone used a nice, large keypad for dialling, and the in-call screen was polished and useful. It was easy to manage multiple calls for a conference or call-waiting, and the phone lays out multiple calls in tabs and offers a “Join” button right on the calling screen.
• The Keyboard performance was a pleasant surprise. Though it isn’t especially large, with fewer symbols on the main QWERTY screen, the accuracy is pin point in most strokes. In fact, you’ll find yourself to be more accurate on this phone than on most touch screen phones, including the Blackberry Storm.
• The Samsung Eternity includes an exceptional music player (with the awaited upgrade) with large buttons that responded well. The music library can be browsed at the swipe of a finger, with vibration feedback as the songs scrolled down the lists. The App itself can be controlled via the widget present on the Home screen.
• GPS Navigation worked well, and the phone kept up with us on our commute home, even suggesting new routes around traffic problems ahead. For spoken directions, the Eternity worked well, though the maps have room for innovation.

What’s bad about the Samsung Eternity

The Samsung Eternity’s virtual keyboard isn’t available when entering message recipients. It lacks a camera flash, Wi-Fi and voice dialling and the 3G connectivity could be stronger.
Widgets are a popular idea, but they don’t really work on this phone; it didn’t take more than a couple of widgets to fill our screen
At the back of the Samsung Eternity, is a slightly plainer 3 mega-pixel camera, as compared to the impressive 5 MP ones on Omnia and Bold. Details were hazy or noisy, especially in dark spots. Color was all over the place, with some bright reds and oranges popping out of their boundaries, and other drab colors completely washing out the pictures. We had trouble getting the camera to focus properly on the subject at hand, and often the background would be clear while the subject would be blurry

Samsung Eternity Review

Even though the Eternity is a Windows Mobile powered device, the Web browser on the Samsung Eternity is just passable. Pages loaded quickly and looked accurate, though some graphics came through looking blocky and jagged. The browser responded quickly to our touch, but didn’t keep moving once we lifted our finger. There was no acceleration, so scrolling was a long and laborious chore on large pages. The phone did perform well switching screen orientation from landscape to portrait. Still, if Web browsing is your thing, better go for the Omnia.
On the Samsung Eternity, the Mobile TV service doesn’t look much better than streaming video. In spite of the various programming options available, the video quality was bad enough to fall flat on its face.
Although the keyboard of Eternity surpassed expectations when it came to accuracy and usability, its actual function, i.e. messaging had very limited options especially IM. For instant messaging, the app looks good, consistent with the SMS client, but we were limited to AOL, MSN or Yahoo, when Google Talk is really our preferred messaging service. For e-mail, Gmail had been conveniently ignored. The SMS and MMS worked okay though.
• The microSD slot is frustratingly located behind the back panel and requires removal of the battery to change the card.
• There are three buttons along the bottom edge of the phone, providing send, end/power, and back functions. On the top edge of the Eternity, there is a single ‘Hold’ button, used to lock the touch screen. Along the top right edge of the phone is the standard 3.5mm audio port. Below it lie the application switcher button and the one touch camera key. The microphone is located at the bottom edge of the Samsung Eternity, and along the left edge is the proprietary power/data/headset multi-jack. Also, the volume rocker is located towards the top of the left edge. The 3 megapixel camera is located on the back of the Eternity, and the entire back panel slides down and out to offer access to the battery and SIM card slot.

• The phone comes with 200MB of internal storage; you can add up to 8GB using a microSD Card (not included).
• The Samsung Eternity is available now for $150 with a contract agreement and available rebates.
• The Talk time is estimated to be up to 300 min ;

Final Words and Conclusion

Final Words and Conclusion

For a non-smart touch phone, there are “smarter” options if you are looking for the Touch experience. The Samsung Eternity succeeds as a multimedia device, but without Wi-Fi and full e-mail support, it stops well short of being a business-friendly device. Better not depend on Eternity for too long.

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