About a month ago, I bought the Samsung Memoir. The other reviews out there are mostly written from the perspective of people who are highly experienced with using smartphones, comparing them, and writing about them. This review is from the perspective of never having used a smartphone before. Before we begin, I think it’s important to note my requirements in my search for the perfect phone.
My Requirements
- I always forget my camera, but remember my phone. My new phone needed to have the best camera possible, built right in so I’d never forget it.
- The phone needed to have the internet. I primarily use Facebook, Gmail, AIM, and Google Maps, among other things.
- It had to be a phone. If it was just a camera with internet, I still wouldn’t remember to bring it whever I go.
The Searching & Waiting
I looked at the iPhone. Then came the G1. Both were nice. Both had tolerable cameras, but nothing special. Both were great for web access. Nothing else on the market seemed great, so I waited in hopes of a G2 phone. Rumors all over the web seemed to indicate that the release for a G2 was being delayed repeatedly. I kept waiting.
Then, one day on the T-Mobile website (that’s my carrier), I see that glorious “New!” tag while searching through their camera phones. “The Samsung Memoir, how interesting, let’s check it out,” I thought to myself.
The Specs
The things that stood out to me were the following:
- 8 Megapixel Camera
- Web Browsing
- Video Recording
- Touch Screen
- 3G Network
- Micro SD Card Slot
If you want to check out more specs on this phone, you can look on the T-Mobile site or the Samsung site. As you can see, the camera is impressive just based on the number of megapixels, which is more than my regular digital camera I’d been using before. (Please keep in mind I make no moves toward professionalism in my photography. I just like to take pictures of stuff I think looks cool. Mostly nature. It’s a hobby.)
So I impulsively bought the phone the next day, and have been using it for the last month.
The Pros
The camera works amazingly well. Some of the useful or just fun functionality built into the camera are:
- Auto-focus and anti-shake - makes things really easy for clumsy me.
- The flash - it is nearly impossible to take good pictures without a flash, so I’m delighted that this phone has one.
- Panorama mode – guides you to aim at the right spots and pieces the images together automatically for you. The only compromise is that it uses a lower resolution.
- Continuous mode - hold down the button and it takes 9 photos really fast in a row. The resolution comes out tiny, but it captures great action shots anyway. (This will come in handy for snowboarding when my little sister goes through the terrain parks.)
- Negative effect – captures everything in the opposite colors. Just looks neat. There’s also black and white as well as sepia effects.
Other things I love about this phone:
- Video recording - I was never much into video, but now that I have it, I may experiment with that a little more. The end product is quite clear, fairly large resolution, and it captures sound too.
Chickens from Georgia Otto on Vimeo.
- Haptic feedback - every time you touch something on the screen, it vibrates a tiny bit to let you know you activated the button or whatever you touched. I have my intensity set to “2″ which keeps it subtle.
- Flickr uploader – there’s a built-in shortcut to send your photos to your Flickr account right after you take them.
- Micro SD card slot – this is immensely helpful if I want to take a ton of photos or video and put it all on my computer at a later time.
- USB mode - you can set the phone to act like a normal USB memory stick so you don’t have to install any drivers or go through any annoying interfaces to simply transfer photos, videos, and other files between your computer and phone.
- File manager - it lets you delete a bunch of things at once, which is great, because I don’t like repetitive actions in interfaces if I can help it.
- Widgets and shortcuts - these are great, I have the weather forecast and date display on my little desktop area. My photos, text messaging, and AIM are at the top of my quick-access area.
- The look & feel - This phone looks so much like a camera, I love showing people the back of it first and saying, “Have you seen my new phone?” It gets them every time – “That’s not a phone, it’s a camera!”
- The dot-com key – when you’re typing a web address in the browser, the on-screen qwerty keyboard has a “.com” key you can press, which saves you 3 keystrokes. A nice touch. No pun intended.
- Automatic screen lock - when you make a phone call, it locks the screen so your face doesn’t try to communicate in morse code with the other party. The screen also locks to save power when you aren’t using it for a few seconds (you can set the time).
The Cons
There are some things about this phone that bug me, and I will list them. But please be mindful that I consider these to be fairly nit-picky details.
- No wifi - this is pretty bad and is the biggest drawback in my opinion. But since the camera is the most important thing to me, I tolerate it. Having wifi would have made this phone ultimately perfect.
- No optical zoom – the camera has digital zoom, but that’s never as good as optical zoom. By the looks of the casing around the lens, you’d think it could have optical zoom. But no, it doesn’t. Good thing it’s 8 megapixels, so you can get distant details pretty easily anyway.
- Not many applications – this phone isn’t popular enough to have a ton of applications built for it like iPhone and G1. T-Mobile has some stupid games that I don’t care about, and it might have some useful stuff, I haven’t really looked because it already does everything I care about right now.
- Touch screen scratches easily - The shop didn’t have any screen protectors for this phone when I bought it, and I scratched the touch screen a few days later. This was not only devastating to begin with, but I literally heard the sound of the scratch happening as I did it. Some stupid particle just happened to get between my finger and the surface, and now there’s a pretty obvious, nearly half-inch long scratch there. I also dropped it from about 1 foot above some pavement, and it put a ding in the plastic upper part of the phone casing. If you buy this phone, buy screen protectors before you do anything. I feel like that was too easy – maybe all touch screens are like this, maybe not, but this one scratches easily, so be careful.
- The battery life is just ok – I think I’m going to buy some extra batteries so I can capture whole sports games and not miss anything. It would probably get used up in a day at the zoo too.
- No gtalk - the built-in instant messenger application doesn’t have an option for gtalk. This makes me sad, but I don’t care that much cause I use AIM a lot too.
- Widgets not customizable enough - on my Razr phone, I used to be able to go to any spot in the phone’s menu structure and create a shortcut to that point. This phone only has a certain number of select “widgets” and you can choose whether each one shows up or not, and whether it’s on your desktop or in the widget menu bar thing. But I can’t just make a new one that goes to the calculator, so that’s a little sad that it takes me 3 clicks to get to that.
- Speed dial isn’t that speedy – I have to unlock the phone by pressing an actual button, then touch the phone icon to get the keypad to show up, then touch and hold the number of the person I want to call. It would be nice if my speed dial choices could be right on my desktop, or better yet have a couple real-life buttons on the side of the phone that when pressed and held down would dial numbers of your choice. I pretty much only call 2 numbers ever, so that would work for me.
The Photos
All the photos in this post (except the product shots) were taken with my phone. You can click them to view the original (very large) sizes. Here are few more photos taken with the Samsung Memoir’s built-in 8 megapixel camera:
The Verdict
The camera is awesome, the web browser is handy, the phone works. Overall, the Samsung Memoir is great. It really satisfied my main goals in buying a new phone, so I have zero percent buyer’s remorse about it. 
I won’t be buying a new phone until they come out with one that’s got a projector and a laser keyboard built into it. 
If anyone has questions about this phone or how to use it, feel free to ask in a comment on this post, I’d be happy to help if I can. 
29 Comments
I’ve had a lot of experience using touchscreens but I’ve never need any screen protectors before. Other than the good camera, I don’t see why they need to compromise on the touch screen plastic.
Yeah, it really was a shame I scratched it so soon after buying it. I researched online about different solutions you can use to buff out the scratches, but it sounded unreliable, like some are too abrasive and others don’t do anything. I was too afraid to actually try any. I also heard toothpaste works, but there are so many types of toothpaste, again I was too afraid of making it worse.
I have a question. How’s the aim on this thing? does it limit you to 30 buddies like the Samsung Behold? or is it full aim? and do you know if the touchscreen is capacitive or resistive? (don’t have to answer the touch screen question if you don’t know the answer. Aim is my real big question)
Good questions, Jesse. The AIM does limit your buddy list. I found this out through trial and error and ended up creating a whole separate phone buddy list of just my most frequent contacts. It was annoying, tedious, but worth it I suppose. I don’t use the AIM a ton, but it’s helpful to have for quick contact if needed.
I did some research on the screen. Based on this article: http://computer.howstuffworks.com/question716.htm I am pretty sure the Samsung Memoir has a resistive touch screen. Sometimes I touch it and need to press a little harder to get it to register. I can touch it with a pen cap and it works just as well (though I don’t due to fear of scratching). It was a pretty low-priced phone. These things are all characteristics of a resistive type touch screen according to what I read in that article, so I am pretty sure it’s resistive.
I have also noticed that in certain light conditions and from a very sharp angle, I can see a faint grid of dots over the whole screen. I figured this has to do with the touch technology.
how do you put pictures from the phone to your PC computer..
The fastest way is to use the USB cable that comes with the phone.
One thing I did to make this easier is change the phone’s USB settings to “mass storage device”. You can do this by going to Menu > Settings > Phone Settings > USB Settings > Mass Storage.
Another thing to note is that for some reason my camera defaults back to storing captures directly on the phone rather than the memory card. So if you have time, before you start using the camera or video cam, just check that the settings are adjusted to store your captures on the memory card by default. If you don’t remember to do this and you need to get photos from the phone’s memory to the removable memory card, you can move them by going to the photos folder and touching
“more”“manage”, where you will find the “move” option.Other ways to transfer data from this phone to the computer is by uploading it to the web via facebook, flickr, etc. The built-in email app does let you make attachments to gmail messages, but gmail’s mobile website does not. Either way, when you upload things to the web or send them to people, you typically have to wait for it to load. Using the USB cable is pretty close to instantaneous.
I still haven’t learned how to get videos from my phone to the computer using the USB, is it possible, or would I have to transfer files through the memory card? If you can help me with this problem, I would greatly appreciate it.
As far as I know, the only way to get stuff off your phone is by first transferring it to your memory card as described in my comment above this one.
It would be super great if stuff could go directly from the phone’s memory to the computer through the USB cable. But I haven’t figured out if that’s possible either.
Sorry I can’t be of more help. If you find a way, please let me know. 
do you need internet in order to use aim?
Yes, you need to be connected to the internet in order to use the AIM application. This phone connects to the internet the same way it does for phone calls, so as long as you have phone reception, you have internet access and can use AIM.
Soo, questions coming in.
1) When you say AIM needs internet to go on AIM, are you talking about an internet plan or is a text messaging plan suitable enough?
2)”Flickr uploader – there’s a built-in shortcut to send your photos to your Flickr account right after you take them.”
Can you upload pictures without an internet plan? (And not pay for any data)
3)Can you get weather updates from the widget without an internet plan? (Again with not paying for data)
Basically, what can’t you do with an internet plan for the phone.
1 & 2 – You need an actual data plan (not just text messaging).
3 – I’m not sure, but I’d be willing to bet you need a data plan for this also.
I suppose you could buy the phone without a data plan at first, see what works, and then if nothing works, get the data plan later. I just paid for unlimited data and texting, so I could avoid hassles and get right to doing whatever I wanted.
Thanks
It’s a shame i might have to dish out the extra 20-something dollars for a data plan. But at least I’ll be able to tweet and youtube on the go.
Have you managed to find a screen protector for it in stores?
I’ve been too lazy to look for a screen protector. After I scratched it, I thought who cares, what do I have to lose now? lol
Anyway, just be mindful that this is not as good a web-access phone as the iPhone or Google Phones. It’s mainly for the camera. Unless you have 3G network, you’ll probably have a very slow time trying to use youtube. Twitter works fine.
i had bought the memoir when it first came out and i love it. i had come from a sidekick to this. the two things i really miss from the sidekick is the aim and long notes you could hold (with the memoir on a single memo it only takes in 100 letters i think). also the ability to copy and paste on internet, text, etc. but going back to the aim which makes me really sad its the only messaging that doesnt work (msn messengrr, yahoo, and icq does work)
every time i try to sign on, it gets up to retrieving buddies but then stops and it says failed to sign in.
i tried calling tmobile they could not fix it (my area of servive was fine with 3g), they sent me to aim customer service which i had no time to deal with the computer operater which led me nowhere.
(i guess i will call back if i get no help)
but now u say u had to limit your buddies, i have over 200 buddies, and i have a mobile friends group from a past fone that only took thirty so i dont see why i still cant get in…help???
Yeah that is really strange. AIM worked fine for me (apart from the limited buddy list thing). I wish I could help you, but I don’t really have the technical knowledge to explain what’s going on with your specific situation. Sorry
how can you upload videos to your computer? i haven’t figured out how to do it yet with the phone?
Change the phone’s USB settings to “mass storage device”. You can do this by going to Menu > Settings > Phone Settings > USB Settings > Mass Storage.
Record a video. In the video recording screen under the settings button, go in there and make sure it’s set to save your video to the memory card, not the phone’s memory. If you accidentally record to the phone, you can go to your phone’s files and move the video to the memory card.
Plug your phone into your computer using the USB cable. Tell your computer to open up the device and view the files and folders stored on it. There should be a folder for images and one for videos. Your video should be in there, and you can just copy it to your desktop or wherever you want to save it on your computer.
That’s how I do it.
Okaay. One more question. I really appreciate this.
Do you happen to know how to make the contacts list sort by last name instead of first
Sorry, I don’t know a way to do this.
My first instinct is to say it’s not possible. But if you find a way, please do let me know. 
I just ordered this phone and I was wondering can u have custom away messages on thaim?
I’m not sure what you mean. Are you talking about away messages for the instant messenger application only, or away messages for people who call you on the phone part? I don’t really use any away message type of thing personally, so I don’t really know about about it.
i have an unlimited calling and texting plan for my phone. do you need to have an internet plan to use the aim or is the unlimited texting and calling plan good enough to use the aim
I think you need the internet/data plan in order to use AIM, but you should ask your local T-Mobile shop to be sure.
why is it that no sound uploads with my videos?
I’m not sure, I don’t think I’ve ever tried to upload a video yet.
Hi,
I have only one question that has been bothering me for a while now. I am going to get this phone on sunday, it is friday right now so please help! Ok, so I mainly use facebook and texting, but my main question is, is there Facebook on the Memoir?
Thanks!
Jordan
There is no built-in application for Facebook. You have to use the web browser and log into Facebook’s mobile version of their site. It’s not that bad, but if you’re looking to get some kind of alerts on your phone every time someone posts on your Facebook wall or something, I don’t think this phone can do that.
But your best bet is to ask a T-Mobile representative when you visit your local shop.
Ok, thanks alot