Whenever a touch screen phone pops out, everyone compares it to the – wait for it – Apple iPhone. Surprise, surprise. And with the Samsung Behold, it’s no different. The following review is a combination of opinions from an “Apple Fanboy” who currently uses an iPhone 3G as his primary phone an swears by it, and to balance it out an “Apple Hater” who happens to be using the 1st generation iPhone just because he has no choice.

First impressions are everything. Visually the cool espresso color of the Behold sets itself apart from the iPhone 3G which only comes in the boring yin-yang black or white.  As opposed to the plastic backing on the iPhone, it’s nice that the Behold has a metal back plating which makes it feel more solid. The size of it is also smaller and feels good in smaller hands. Replaceable batteries are great for people who plan on keeping their phone beyond the life of the battery itself or for those who need to carry an extra one around because you play with with your phone too much.

We did like the fact that it had dedicated answer and end buttons though it took us a while to get used to them. We wished it was on the iPhone. The keypad unlock button, however, is situated in an awkward position because not only is it on the side of the phone, it’s neither near the top, bottom nor the middle, but rather between the middle and the lower part of the phone which makes it difficult for a right-handed person to easily unlock it single-handed.

Texting and typing on the phone was easy because the keyboard is in landscape mode. The editable menu side bar on the home screen was a nice feature, although launching it or hiding it was a bit difficult because the “button” for it was hard to target and we kept on missing it. The editable home screen where you can customize shortcuts and even move the clock around was a nice welcoming feature that the iPhone doesn’t have.

Call quality was impressive with 3G on; the camera took surprisingly sharp pictures, and battery life was great even when we tested the phone with non-stop calling, talking, gaming and browsing. Haptic feedback is nice because you can tell when you have actually pressed something, but the fact that you had to put pressure on the screen as opposed to not having to on the iPhone took some getting used to. The phone could have offered the option of adjusting the touch screen sensitivity.

The 3G network speed of the phone is not bad for downloading content and browsing websites, but is only hindered by the not-so-intuitive web browser. The smaller screen gives the phone a nicer and smaller footprint, but definitely cuts out screen real estate. The built in browser is also happier when browsing sites optimized for mobile content. Mobile content was also somewhat limited to Java applications as opposed to the thousands of apps on the iPhone App store.

In conclusion, does the Behold top the iPhone? Probably not. But is it a viable option if you’re with T-Mobile? Absolutely!

And here is why you might consider this over the iPhone:

- MMS

- Replaceable battery

- Cool color

- Smaller & lighter

- Call quality

- Less expensive data plan