The Samsung Highlight is a great entry-level touchscreen from T-Mobile.

When it comes to standard cell phones, cameras usually are lacking. However, the Samsung Highlight T749’s camera is 3.0 megapixels and has pretty decent quality. You can capture stills and videos, then send the videos (one minute max) upload them to a T-Mobile album. The bad part about having a good camera is when the phone sticks you with a low amount of memory. The Highlight has just 60 MB of memory, which is really almost nothing (maybe some of that contact memory could have been used for other stuff) when it comes to snapping photos, especially higher quality pictures. Better grab a microSD, as the Highlight handles up to a 16 GB card.

A few annoying issues
The Samsung Highlight T749 offers a full HTML browser, but when it comes to zooming you have to deal with that “magnifying glass” zoom setting. For what it’s worth, it does have a beautiful looking screen. The Highlight has a pretty good music player, but with T-Mobile’s lack of a music downloading service you’re kind of short-changed on that one. Also, the call quality is relatively quiet which means you might not be able to have conversations in noisy areas.

The Samsung Highlight from T-mobile may be entry-level, but is still a great phone

Good camera, bad memory

Battery Life
The Highlight T749 actually has some awesome battery power with right around six hours of life. It doesn’t have a lot of interactive features that will drain the power either, so you’re pretty much set with those six hours.

Phone Specs:
Manufacturer: Samsung
Part Number:HIGHLIGHTSGHT749ICETMB
General
Product Type Cellular phone With digital camera / digital player
Service Provider T-Mobile
Width 2.1 in
Depth 0.6 in
Height 4.3 in
Weight 3.7 oz
Body Color Ice
Cellular
Technology WCDMA (UMTS) / GSM
Band WCDMA (UMTS) / GSM 850/900/1800/1900
Phone Design Candy bar
Antenna Internal
Vibrating Alert Yes
Polyphonic Ringer Yes
Call Timer Yes
Conference Call Capability Yes
Voice Recorder Yes
Caller ID Yes
Wireless Interface Bluetooth
Additional Features aGPS
Communicator Features
User Memory 60 MB
Phone Memory
Phone Book Capacity 2000 names & numbers
Missed Calls Memory 90
Dialed Calls Memory 90
Received Calls Memory 90
Messaging & Data Services
Short Messaging Service (SMS) Yes
Messaging Services Yahoo! Messenger , AOL Instant Messenger Service (AIM)
Mobile Email Yes
GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) Yes
EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates For Global Evolution) Yes
Internet Browser Yes
HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) Yes
Messaging / Data Features RSS feeds
Ring Tones
Polyphonic Ring Tone Voice Qty 72
Multimedia Features
Playback Digital Video Formats 3gp , MPEG-4 , WMV (Windows Media Video)
Downloadable Content Games
Digital Camera
Camera highlights With a resolution of 3 megapixels, this camera phone will give you better pictures than other phones.
Sensor Resolution 3 megapixels
Digital Zoom 3
Features Multi-shots , Video recording
Organizer
Alarm Clock Yes
Calendar Yes
Reminder Yes
Calculator Basic
Conversion Currency
Additional Timer Functions Stopwatch , Countdown timer
Display
Type LCD display
Technology TFT
Display Resolution 240 x 400 pixels
Color Support Color

Color Depth Up to 16.2 million colors
Display Illumination Color White
Multi-language Menu Yes
Features Wallpaper , Screensaver
Digital Player (Recorder)
Supported Digital Audio Standards AAC , MP3 , WMA
Miscellaneous
Included Accessories Headset
Cables Included USB cable
Power
Type Power adapter
Battery
Technology – Lithium ion
Capacity 1200 mAh
Talk Time 390 min
Standby Time 450 h

The LG Xenon from AT&T has a touchscreen that requires a bit of practice.

The QWERTY keyboard is a great touch to the LG Xenon

Touchscreen isn’t foolproof
The LG Xenon’s touchscreen will take a bit of getting used to, as you’ll find out it won’t always pick up the exact place that you touched. As an example, if you’re going to click on a widget and you accidentally hit the top portion of the icon, you could very well call up the widget on top of it. Once you get down the precision of touching the screen, however, it’ll become second nature.
Personalized Text Tones
This is a great feature that isn’t used in enough phones. Everyone nowadays has multiple people that they can text and will text them on a pretty consistent basis. But say you’re in the shower and you’re waiting for a certain friend to text you and let you know when to leave for your night on the town. Instead of jumping out of the shower (or risking electrocution and water damage by bringing it in) to check every text that comes in, you can set a specific tone to your friend’s contact information so you’ll know exactly when that text comes.
Internet options
For a phone that isn’t defined as a smartphone, this phone’s browser is better than most. It allows you to open up multiple windows, a feature which most phones go without. It also has integrated email with the most popular email services. You also have an instant messaging application, which allows you to log on with your screen name for AOL Instant Message, Yahoo Messenger and Window’s Live Messenger.
Battery Life
It has about five hours of talk time, which is pretty good but expect to be doing a lot of texting with the comfortable slide-out QWERTY keyboard. This is going to cut down on battery time significantly.

Phone Specs:
Manufacturer: LG
Part Number:3680271
General
Product Type Cellular phone With digital camera / digital player
Service Provider AT&T
Width 2.1 in
Depth 0.6 in
Height 4.6 in
Weight 3.8 oz
Body Color Blue
Cellular
Technology WCDMA (UMTS) / GSM
Band WCDMA (UMTS) / GSM 850/900/1800/1900
Phone Design Slider
Antenna Internal
Vibrating Alert Yes
Polyphonic Ringer Yes
Voice Dialing Yes
Call Timer Yes
Conference Call Capability Yes
Voice Recorder Yes
Speakerphone Yes
Wireless Interface Bluetooth 2.0
Additional Features TTY compatible , QWERTY keyboard layout
Communicator Features
User Memory 100 MB
Phone Memory
Phone Book Capacity 500 names & numbers
Messaging & Data Services
Messaging Services Yahoo! Messenger , AOL Instant Messenger Service (AIM) , Windows Live Messenger (MSN Messenger)
Mobile Email Yes
GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) Yes
EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates For Global Evolution) Yes
Internet Browser Yes
Digital Camera
Camera highlights With a resolution of 2 megapixels, this camera phone will give you higher quality pictures than other phones.
Sensor Resolution 2 megapixels
Digital Zoom 2
Features Video recording
Organizer
Alarm Clock Yes
Calendar Yes
Reminder Yes
Calculator Basic
Display
Type LCD display
Technology TFT
Display Resolution 240 x 400 pixels
Diagonal Size 2.8 in
Color Support Color
Color Depth 16-bit (65000 colors)
Features LCD touch screen
Digital Player (Recorder)
Supported Digital Audio Standards AAC , MP3 , WMA
Memory
Internal Shared Memory Yes
Flash Memory 100 MB
Connections
Slot Provided 1
Power
Type Power adapter
Battery
Technology – Lithium ion
Capacity 950 mAh
Talk Time Up to 240 min
Standby Time Up to 264 h