Click to View

In April, at the CTIA Wireless show, Samsung showed off what was then only the second U.S. bound mobile handset, the T719, to support BlackBerry Connect, RIM's program to enable its push e-mail and data access solutions on non-Blackberry devices.

At that time, Samsung said the T719 would be released in the fall by an unnamed carrier. Speculation pointed the finger at T-Mobile. On the even of the fall CTIA show, the operator has posted a coming soon page, confirming these rumors.

The T719, unlike the very PDA-like Nokia 9300 or even the Palm Treo 650 - since BlackBerry Connect-enabled - (both offered by Cingular Wireless) - is that the Samsung is very much a traditional cell phone, and a small one at that. Unlike the Nokia or Treo, the 3.78 x 2.05 x 0.72-inch, 3.53-ounce T719 is a flip phone, which doesn't leave much room for a QWERTY thumb-keyboard.

Rather, the Samsung sports the same SureType keyboard/keypad hybrid as RIM's more phone-like BlackBerry 7100 series and new Pearl, announced yesterday.

For text entry, each key supports two letters, while predictive text software helps users accurately input text. The software's word database encompasses tens of thousands of words plus the user's address book. As with a word processor's spell-checker, you can add more words to it as well.

Additional features for the EDGE-enabled, quad-band GSM T719 include a 2.12-inch, 262K-color 176 x 220 screen, as well as a voice recognition, a speakerphone, 1.3 megapixel camera for picture and video, and a media player.

Samsung rates the battery for up to 3 hours talk and 5 days standby time.