News

Samsung dresses boring old Behold in Android smock

Samsung already has a Behold phone, a year old. The world is wondering whether to get excited about Behold II which, spec wise, appears to be an identical machine with Google Android on it. And it's not for European users; Behold II is a T-Mobile exclusive for North America.

Samsung itself doesn't seem to be all that excited, yet. We checked the Behold fan site for enthusiasm, and found none there, either. "It's available in pink," yawned the reviewer, scraping the barrel for stuff worth reporting.

It has the same 5 megapixel camera, the same proprietary Samsung "TouchWiz" software operated through the same touch screen, and the same aGPS. The new model has Wi-Fi for high-speed browsing, and you can plug in a miniSD memory chip (they say it's limited to 16GB capacity, but that's probably not right).

Samsung worked itself into the smallst PR frenzy: "We’re excited to announce Samsung’s first Android-powered device with T-Mobile in the US," was the quote attributed to Omar Khan, senior vice president of strategy and product management in America.

He then went on to say most of what we've said: it's the same thing as the old one. "The Behold II follows the success of the Behold that launched last year taking the device and user experience to the next level with the Android platform, a large 3.2-inch AMOLED screen, next generation TouchWiz user interface and customization capabilities and premium features."

On top of TouchWiz, Samsung's "Cube" menuing system lets you choose between music, photos, videos, and shopping for music on Amazon, as well as browsing.

A brief look at the device in action shows that
1) there's a pink version (wow...) and
2) like all touch-screen devices, you can't see much of what you're typing, because the whole display turns into a keyboard.

This isn't Samsung's first Android; it already has the Galaxy i7500 available. But that doesn't sell in North American markets.

Most of the US excitement about Android this week will be focused on Motorola's new model. If anybody else had launched that, it would be a hit already; but the best we can expect from a Motorola launch is "another RAZR" flash in the pan. So Samsung won't be panicking, and our analysis would be: "Expect a decent Samsung Android in the first quarter of 2010, and don't waste too much time looking for excitement in a Behold coat."