The Samsung Behold II is a touch-screen, 3G- compatible

smartphone A smartphone is a mobile phone with advanced computing capabilities. It typically has a touchscreen interface, allowing users to access a wide range of applications and services, such as web browsing, email, and social media, as well as multi ...

with a 5.0-megapixel camera. The Samsung Behold II is powered by the

Android OS Android is an operating system based on a modified version of the Linux kernel and other open-source software, designed primarily for touchscreen-based mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Android has historically been developed b ...

, making it the fourth Android powered phone by

T-Mobile T-Mobile is the brand of telecommunications by Deutsche Telekom Deutsche Telekom AG (, ; often just Telekom, DTAG or DT; stylised as ·T·) is a partially state-owned German telecommunications company headquartered in Bonn and the largest telec ...

USA. Other Android powered phones by T-Mobile are the G1 (

HTC Dream The HTC Dream (also known as the T-Mobile G1 in the United States and parts of Europe, and as the Era G1 in Poland) is a smartphone developed by HTC. First released in October 2008 for $179 with a 2-year contract to T-Mobile, the Dream was the f ...

), myTouch 3G (

HTC Magic HTC Magic (marketed as T-Mobile myTouch 3G in the United States, and as NTT DoCoMo HT-03A in Japan) is an Android smartphone designed and manufactured by HTC. It is HTC's second Android phone after HTC Dream, HTC's first touch-only flagship ...

), and the

Motorola CLIQ The Motorola Cliq, marketed as Motorola Dext outside the U.S., is an Android-based smartphone developed and marketed by Motorola. It was released in 2009 and was the first ever Motorola device to run Android. It has a custom user interface name ...

. It was released on November 18, 2009. On May 27, 2010, Samsung announced that Android 1.6 "Donut" would be the final firmware release for the device.

Design

The Samsung Behold II is the updated version of the

Samsung Behold The Samsung Behold (model no. SGH-T919) is a touchscreen, 3G candybar-style cell phone designed by Samsung Electronics. It was released on November 10, 2008 as a T-Mobile US specific version of the European/Asian/Australian Samsung Tocco, with a c ...

. The Samsung Behold and the Samsung Behold II are both

candybar A candy bar is a type of portable candy that is in the shape of a bar. The most common type of candy bar is the chocolate bar, including both bars made of solid chocolate and combination candy bars, which are candy bars that combine chocolate wi ...

style mobile phones with a touch screen. The Samsung Behold II has a 3.2 inch

Active-matrix OLED AMOLED (active-matrix organic light-emitting diode; ) is a type of OLED display device technology. OLED describes a specific type of thin-film-display technology in which organic compounds form the electroluminescent material, and active matri ...

touchscreen with HVGA resolution that works with the TouchWiz interface. With this touch screen and interface one can customize three different home screens with widgets and shortcuts, and a “cube menu”, which provides access to six multimedia features: music, photos, videos, Internet, YouTube and Amazon MP3.

Interface

The Behold II uses Samsung’s TouchWiz user interface. This interface has been used with multiple Samsung touch screen phones on different companies such as the Samsung eternity. This interface allows the users to personalize their phone in the way they choose by changing how their home screens look by adding widgets. The Samsung Behold II has three home screens, the main screen and then a screen if the user were to slide their finger across their screen to the right and also to the left. As stated on Samsung’s website: The 'drag and drop' user interface allows the users to have shortcuts on their home screens which in turn gives them quick access to some of their most used applications. The Behold II has a menu of widgets that once placed on the home screen, they can display useful functions such as a clock, the radio player, music player, and even personal elements ranging from photos to birthday reminders. Samsung has tactile technology which can give users a tangible vibration feedback sensation when the screen is touched. However, when Samsung created the TouchWiz UI on top of Android, they did not limit the UI for allowing users from stacking app icons on top of each other.

Camera

The Samsung Behold II comes equipped with a 5.0-megapixel camera. This camera has a few specific features ranging in having an autofocus feature, a flash, and the ability to do video recording.

Additional information

The Samsung Behold II is able to hold up to 16 GB of extra memory via the microSD slot. It has Bluetooth 2.1, Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi radio, GPS, and support for Google services and Exchange ActiveSync. Through Google services, the Behold II has Google Search, Google Maps, Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Talk. The Behold II has a Chrome Lite Browser. It has an internal antenna, alarm, calendar, calculator, stopwatch, and an application for a to-do list, which can be made into widgets. The phonebook allows the user to have multiple numbers per contact. The user can also have picture ID and Ring ID for each contact if they choose. This phone has many more features such as having a speakerphone and a voice recording application.

Bluetooth profiles

The Behold II supports the following Bluetooth profiles: * Headset Profile (HSP) * Hands-Free Profile (HFP) * Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP) * Object Push Profile (OPP) * Basic Printing Profile (BPP)

Update controversy

Despite claims made in advertisements and infomercials that the Behold II would continue to receive Android OS firmware updates, on May 27, 2010, only six months after the initial release of the device, Samsung abruptly announced that Android 1.6 "Donut" would be the last such update. This business decision by Samsung angered many users, prompting speculation that there might be a class action lawsuit. While the Android platform itself is

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

, proprietary aspects relating to this Samsung device are closed source and generally unavailable, making a third-party continuation of firmware updates impossible.
Samsung Behold II Not Getting 2.x - Legal Action Being Considered

References

Jackson, Rob. “Samsung Behold 2: T-Mobile Android With TouchWiz UI!.” Phandroid:android phone fans. http://phandroid.com/2009/10/05/samsung-behold-2-t-mobile-android-with-touchwiz-ui/

External links

the understatement: Android Orphans: Visualizing a Sad History of Support
{{Samsung phones Behold 2 Android (operating system) devices Mobile phones introduced in 2009