By The first Samsung Android Phone to land in the United States has just gotten official as today T-Mobile announced the Samsung Behold 2 with availability this holiday season! Of significance is that the phone comes with Samsung’s TouchWiz UI so you’re not getting vanilla Android with the Behold 2. The phone features a 3.2-inch AMOLED screen, 5MP camera with autofocus and flash, 5 “shooting modes”, video recording, visual voicemail, MicroSD slot (16GB), A-GPS and Bluetooth 2.1.
See that “cube” and “task bar” of sorts at the bottom? That’s what we mean when we say “TouchWiz UI”. You can rotate/spin the cube to pick your poison and it looks like the 6 sides of the cube by default will be:
- Music
- Photos
- Videos
- Web
- YouTube
- Amazon MP3
I wouldn’t be surprised if you could customize this and of course, you have the typical home screen customizations of Android with icons and widgets with which we’re already familiar. Now about that hardware… does it look familiar to you? It should.
Comparing the just announced Samsung Behold 2 with the already launched Android-based Samsung Galaxy shows they are almost identical phones, save for the D-Pad getting some circular love. And sit that next to the original (and non-android) Samsung Behold and we’re thinking this is quite an interesting bizarre decision in terms of marketing:
Also interesting to note is the failure to highlight the Behold 2 in any sort of build up, marketing announcement/event or buzz. Not even a mini-site with a countdown timer? Samsung has been very quiet in their Android initiatives, at least for those with their ear to the ground in the United States. T-Mobile didn’t make a hoopla about the phone either, possibly because they’ve got bigger fish to fry and hey – if Samsung isn’t going to put the effort forth, why should they?
Date and price is still unknown but we should see this in time for the start of holiday shopping. T-Mobile is still selling the original Samsung Behold for $79.99 after an instant discount of $270 and $50 Mail-in rebate – for whatever its worthy we would obviously expect the Behold 2 to have a significant price bump.
[Via Businesswire and the 2525232432 tipsters who sent this in… thanks to ALL of you!]
i prefere the looks of the samsung galaxy…
also i dont think the interface is very handy…
to much wasted space…
with the HTC hero i have time, date, weather, music control and 4 shortcuts on my main desktop.
i wonder how this will support widgets…
Adobe flash 10 for android and all other os’s(except apple)possibly 1q 2010? How’d you let that one by,fellas?found that on gizmodo.FINALLY!!Give me stereo bluetooth,and i will be perfectly fine to hold on to the g1 till x3 comes out!
This looks terrible….when I saw the title I was like “Oh man….this might make me rethink the MyTouch in a few days and wait it out for this.” But the UI looks dumb and cheesy, nothing special spec wise – MyTouch here I come. Screw this phone….
I agree, thats a terrible UI.
uma?
Can we switch it out for the standard UI + does it have a trackball?
So the only thing the Samsung Touchwiz UI adds is the cube like navigation? To me it’s not clear why a manufacturer would add its own UI to an already functioning operating system like Android (I mean Google’s own G1 runs on Android only I guess). Is that to add something that makes this phone unique? Nevertheless, I only have had good experiences with the Samsung Touchwiz UI.
I like the look of the phone, but the UI looks terrible. Hopefully this will have an option to revert to the standard Android UI, ala the HTC Hero.
A) Let’s wait to see the UI with Android’s capabilities.
B) Wtf is that cube button do? I’ve seen phone-lock & camera buttons on the side, and there’s obviously a home button, yet I’m not spotting a dedicated Search key…just the cube button?
This leads me to think the cubic TouchWiz isn’t a part of the home screen. Depending on specs and price point, this could be a much better phone than it currently looks like.
If I’d have to venture a guess, I’d say that cube button brings up the cube interface… one of three home screens. It is not the main interface, just one that has shortcut to things like youtube and amazon’s mp3 store. I’m not sure why there’s so much hate towards this phone, which is basically a Galaxy with a couple of extra buttons on the bottom. I’m not personally sold on this phone just yet, but it has a much better camera than the mytouch… and that AMOLED screen is a nice touch.
I’m sure the ui can be changed. If nothing else it can be chnaged if you root it I’m sure. I just wish it had hard keybord. The specs are very nice
What are the odds this UI shows up on the Instinct Q?
1. It seems the Cube button will rotate the cube (IMO)
2. This thing looks like an undercover Galaxy w/o the internal HD.
3. I want to see the specs of this.
4. The UI can also be changed with a ROM. So I’m not too worried about that.
I think it looks too similar to the Galaxy. I had a galaxy pic and this next to each other and they looked similar. They even share the same cam and screen specs. Not to mention the button layout (camera) is similar.
Ultimately, this phone might help me stay with T-Mo though I’m looking at the Hero and Q coming out in the next month.
patience, young padawans. We only have one pic for the UI. Anyway i think it looks a lot better than the previous samsung and i like it but definitely not planning to pick it up
UAM…UMA…UMA………aarrrgh!
looks like they took the size of the galaxy and the buttons of the galaxy lite and mashed them together. think we’ve forgotten the fact that the battery size in this phone is supposed to be horrible.
What is AMOLED mean?
FINALLY!! and it will have FLASH!!! AIGHT so i wont have to cancel my service!!!
im not a fan of that UI either. The Best custom android UI IMO is HTC’s Sense. All the others, (moto’s, samsungs, and others) just look flashy or crowded.
On another note, great looking phone. But how many androids are these people going to get!!! common AT&T.
Take a look at this video for the samsung jet and it will show you the new touchwiz ui.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yqKBsaXKPM
Don’t particularly like the look of Behold 2. Does looks like the design has gone backwards a little. The original Behold has something more to it that looks much more slick and streamlined.
Of course crome accents are in and plastic color components are out. Why do they give an old feel to the new phone? Don’t get it.
Decent looking device. Processor same as Galaxy? Does that round button actually roll (ala the shadow)? I think touchwiz could be good but no physical search button concerns me. Especially since donut added universal search. The flash makes it tempting, but I don’t think it outweighs MOTO’s Blur. Still going for the cliq, but I’m looking forward to playing with this one.
no internal memory!?!?!?! I was waiting for so long for the damn galaxy and we get the lite version? not buying, i will wait for the next good phone. Can’t belive t-mobile. I’m so mad at them. does anybody knowes the price of that piece of junk
Absultly love. took it for a test drive at a tmo store and the ui is amazing, touchwiz + android is like godsent.. the ui is alot like andoid but uses touchwiz animations. plus it has a flash so no more crapy low lite pics, cant wait to get it!
I was playing around with one of these at a T-Mobile store two days ago (they brought it out of the back for me) and it’s awesome! The cube is just an app you can bring up. The phone uses the standard Android UI. The T-Mobile store manager said you cannot change the default options on the cube, so it’s kind of a waste in my opinion; no problem though, because you still have the default Andrio UI and three desktops.
The phone is well built, sleek and runs nice and fast. The camera is tip top.
Official release date for the phone is November 18th, 2009. Although they have the phone in the stores already, they will not sell it until the 18th. The manager wouldn’t tell me how much it’s going to cost.
The samsung behold 2: behold for more terrible os’s
Behold for cloned functions.
Behold for another bad mobile made by samsung!
I picked this phone up yesterday and as Jeremiah said above, it is a nice phone. I was glad when it started up and I saw the Touch Wiz cube is just and app and the desktop is standard android. The pricing is pretty standard for some of the new android phones hitting the market of late. If your contract is up and you get the max upgrade offer, it’s $199.99. The phone alone’s price is $499.99. In the box you get all the basic stuff, Wall charger, USB data cable, Wired headset, and SD adapter (for the 2GB MicroSD that is in the phone). The only thing I was not happy about was the charge/data port on the top of the phone is not a standard mini-USB plug, so you may need to buy a special car charger (unless this is a mobile phone type USB that is common and I am most likely unaware of).
i got the behold2 because i was interested in the memoir’s camera.. But was taken in by the android ui and wanted a droid or g1. So with this i think i got the best bargain and a great camera / video camera. Now i get flash as well. It gets better and better. Love the apps love the camera.. Only bad part is that tje text input os too small for my huge hands and tje cibe buttpn is cute but lacks any real purpose.
I have had this phone for about 2 weeks now and I absolutely love it
THE BEHOLD 2 IZ A GREAT PHONE JUST WITH A FEW UPDATE THE FONE CAN BE PERFECTLY ON OF THE BEST BUT THAY SHOULD MAKE THE CUBE BOTTON TO AN UPDATE WERE IT GET FUN YET USEFULL THEN THE BEHOLD MIGHT BE EAVN THE BEST JUST WITH A LIL SMALLER SCREAN DISADVANTAGE THAN THAN THE DROID OR THE NEXUS ONE BUT OVER ALL I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!
EL SAMSUNG BEHOLD 2 ES EXCELENTE TELEFONO LO MEJOR QUE HE COMPRADO.
Quick Update on this Phone. It is now Free from T-Mobile with 2year contract extension.
I just bought this phone and i can’t wait to recieve it in the mail :)
This is a fine phone indeed.