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Samsung Katalyst, which is also known as Samsung SGH-T739 is a sporty looking slider phone that is capable or running on any GSM network in the world. One of the best features of the Katalyst phone is it supports the latest UMA technology that provides access to cellular mobile voice and data services over unlicensed spectrum technologies, such Bluetooth or Wi-Fi (802.11). Since the Samsung Katalyst was released exclusively for T-Mobile, the Katalyst supports T-Mobile’s HotSpot @Home service. Other features of the Katalyst includes a 176×220 pixel 262k color LCD display, a 1.3-megapixel digital camera, microSD slot, and Bluetooth.
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(36 votes, average: 4.14 out of 5)
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I just recently bought a Katalyst, and hated it almost immediately.
It’s a pretty basic, familiar Samsung phone if you’ve ever owned one, with many, many missing functions that you’ll find you can’t live without (for me, at least)
First and biggest mistake of getting this phone – do not expect to put any personal, FREE content in it like you would expect or used to from any other phones in this generation. There is no software nor data cable for the Katalyst (they changed the size on purpose i feel) This phone’s out there to forced you to buy content given by the company. Yes, you can find the data cable online if you try hard enough, however, it would only be listed for “charging purposes” and no there is “no software included”.
other gripes i have with it – it lost many basic functions i’ve come to rely on. If you like personalizing your phone, don’t get the Katalyst. I could not change my home/soft keys (very annoying once you realize you need to take 3 steps every time for functions you use frequently)
WI-FI – don’t expect much from it. For the hotspot@home service, unless you have a VERY good connection or willing to allocate all your bandwidth for the phone it’s not very convenient at all. And we’ve been living without “free nationwide calls on a wi-fi network” for so long, I imaged we’ve all learned how to manage our minutes.
I tried looking for some help and/or review on this phone before purchasing and could not find any, so here. This is my first time posting a phone review so please ignore the bias and try to see if what I’ve written here applies to you. Good Luck.
yeah I agree completely – they (salespeople bustards) made my wife to get it FOR ME, oh mi god it sucks now I don’t know what to do with it …
I’ve had this phone a few weeks and, while I recognize the drawbacks noted by the other reviewers, I think this phone is decent for the price.
First, the “hotspot at home” feature works very well. My house is essentially dead for cell phone reception, at least on the T-mobile network. With the wi-fi connection, I can make calls and have solid reception on both ends. I bought the Linksys router from T-mobile that is pre-configured to use with their wi-fi phones; with the rebate, the router is free. It was easy to set up and do the security encryption with the phones that I bought. Although the router is not supposed to transmit data as fast as my previous Netgear router, I have noticed no difference in speed. What I have noticed is that it is far more reliable — the Netgear router regularly would have to be reset when just two computers were in use. This one has no problems with two computers and three phones on the same network. I don’t know about the bandwidth issue mentioned about, but for me the use of the phones does not seem to interfere with the use of the two computers.
Second, the phone has a nice-sized screen (for a small phone) with excellent resolution for a phone at this price, which it particularly nice when using the T-mobile internet service, which is a bargain at 6 bucks per month, and is very fast when on the wi-fi.
Third, while the camera is not spectacular, but I don’t need it to be so. It’s much better than my previous low-end Nokia, so I’m satisfied with it.
I agree that you should be able to program the hotkeys — I don’t know why they chose to dedicate one each to voice note and another to the call list. I don’t use those. At least the other two go to the contact list and text messaging, which I use all the time.
On the positive side, it is very easy to switch to silent mode by using the volume control while the slide is open. I really needed this feature to be convenient because I use it daily.
While this phone is limited, there were only four available phones compatible with hotspot at home. The Blackberry Curve would have been substantially better (RIM makes great products, don’t they?), but buying three new Blackberrys was not in my budget. This one was better for me than the two lower-end phones. If I didn’t need the hotspot at home, I would have chosen something like a Sidekick because of its large QWERTY keyboard for easier text messaging. Texting on ANY non-QWERTY phone is painfully slow and annoying for people like me who are sticklers for grammar and spelling.
So, while this phone would not be my first choice under other circumstances, it suits my purposes well enough. Most important for me is that hotspot at home works very well, and will allow me to give up my land line and reduce my plan to one with fewer free minutes. While my cell phone bill will go up some, the savings will offset most of the increase.
I’m a big music fan, so being able to listen to music on my phone is a must. I bought the Katalyst because it was advertised as having an MP3 player built in. Unfortunately for me, the samsung katalyst doesn’t come with any cable or headphone adapter for me to transfer music onto it or to even listen to music once I get it.
I tried ordering a samsung data cable and headphone adapter from ebay, only to find that the samsung katlyst has a DIFFERENT INPUT THAN OTHER SAMSUNGS SO AS TO PREVENT USERS FROM BEING ABLE TO UPLOAD MUSIC / ETC. ONTO THE PHONE.
This is absolutely ridiculous and infuriating as I’m not going to be able to return the useless Samsung adapter that I bought just for the purpose. If you’re not at all interested in using music on your phone, it’s not bad. But this is a big issue for me and I will be returning this phone ASAP.
So I was looking at my phone after reading these reviews. I just got it, and I love it. I do not need it for music, but I am having to text a good deal. Therefore, it is okay. Sure I cannot direct load to a miniSD which I have to buy directly but there are two ways to get around that. The first is to buy the cord for datatransfer and make sure to change the setting inside the phone to “Data Transfer” instead of charging or Modem. The second thing is I could also just use an adapter and pop that sucker into my computer directly, no usb wires involved. This seems like a plan right?
The battery cover is hard to get off, I cannot do it by myself and have to have my sister do it for me. I can deal with this, though the battery covering the SD port is annoying. The low memory is also bad. All in all this phone has some flaws but it is an easy to use, shiney, and great NONmusic phone. The picture quality is mediocre though it does have a zoom function, the videos are small, and the effects are actually pretty awesome. My sister is obssessed with Blue so taking a picture of her with the Aqua wash for her number in my Faves made her day. I am not using the wifi access as this is an extra cost that I do not require.
I give this phone a 7/10 review.
I just bought this phone today…Oh my God.So much bad comments here,i already signed the contract,Lets see what bad situations going on
I bought this phone because of its features mainly the MP3 player.(Ha Ha). I had to buy a USB and miniSD card because they weren’t included. This is infuriating. I have had to reformat the card twice and I downloaded about 35 songs and so far I can play 2. Everytime I try to add music from my memory card the phone says “memory full”. I have removed everything from my phone, pictures etc. Nothing works. I paid extra for this phone because I wanted it to play music. I could have just kept my old phone and my cd player. Also I’d like to note that my friend also has a samsung, different , with the same problem.
I don’t know what everyone is talking about why it such a bad phone. I love this little thing.
Why is everyone talking crap about the .MP3 player? Of course you are gonna have to get a “microSD” card (the phone only has only about 10 Mb of memory) and to get music onto that, you are gonna have to get/borrow an adaptor. But besides that, everything else is great about the .MP3 player. The speaker is pritty daing loud, witch i like while working. Also the quality of the playback is great. As long as you have correct formats of the song (.MP3 or .M4A, i believe) it works.
This message is for Dawn.
Dawn I had the same problem. And what ended up happening is that you have to change the format to mp3 in order to work. when you rip the music make sure its on .mp3 and not on .wma
Hope that works
I brought this phone but returned it but I purchase a bundle which includeds a case,data cable,car charger, and invisible shield for the phone. I only return the phone because I did not want to pay cingular a cancelation fee. If someone needs these acces. that are brand new email me at sister17@sbcglobal.net
Thanks
I’m not sure what the others who had complained about the bad experiences were doing, but I’ve had this phone for 3 weeks now, and it works very well. The Hotspot @ Home feature works very well and allowed me to drop my VoIP carrier and save $12/Mo.
All in all I’ve been very pelased with it, and with the current promos they’re running, I got it for free after rebate for extending my contract for a year. Since the contract I’m extending is no longer offered, I wanted to keep it anyway because it’s a great deal. I would buy it again, and recommend it highly.
Its a cool looking phone nice size screen but Tmoblie told me I could bluetooth file transfer and it doesn’t nor could I find a usb wire but after going to a couple of tmobile stores someone gave me one then I had to download the software off of the samsung website it has a music player but like said you have to buy the memory it sucks cuz it only has 5mb of memory To me its one of the best phones Tmobile has to offer look wise.7/10
This phone works great when it is working. Every night i put my phone on the charger and wake up to 30 minutes of trying to get my phone to turn on. Have any of you encountered this?
gimmi a break its a fucking phone. calm down about the inability to freely upload all your music and shit, its a PHONE and its actually a pretty damn good working phone. just years ago we didn’t even have the ability to get mp3s to play music on our phone. Get a freakin ipod or other mp3 player and use that like everyone else.
its a pretty good phone, with some flaws of course but all phones have at least a few.
get past the fact that these companys are tying to rip all its customers off by making the music thing nearly impossible without paying. if your not used to being raped by the cell phone companies then you better get used to it, its just going to keep getting worse
Okay, I like this phone. The Hotspot @ Home (aka UMA) feature is nice, and it’s free if you don’t need the unlimited calling. Works great if you have marginal reception at home or work.
The phone itself is fine for my needs. I bought a data/charging cable off of ebay and it works just fine. Yes, Samsung has multiple connector types, as do many other companies, so you need to buy the right one. Several other Samsung phones use the same one. I also bought a 2Gb micro-SD card and USB adaptor so transferring music is quick and easy. It would be nice if you didn’t need to take the battery out to get to the SD card, but I’ll live.
So, in my experience, the phone works well, the MP3 is alright, and it was free after rebate when signing up for T-Mobile. I’m happy.
I just got the Katalist and bought a 1 gig memory card and datacable. I downloaded the software from this sight. I was able to download music and photos from my laptop to the phone with the Samsung PC Studio 3 software. It seemed easy enough for me and I am not that versed in downloading music. I don’t have a comparison as this is a first. The only fallback I see is photos can be too big for the phone. You can use the Usb data cable to charge through the pc and transfer data. There is only need for one cable.
I’ve had this phone for two days, now. For a free phone, I think it’s great. The wi-fi connection rocks, and a number of people who I’ve called commented that the connection was land-line quality – and hey, it doesn’t count against your minutes. No problem using my laptop at the same time. Both the phone and the d-link router were FREE after rebate and a 2-year contract extension.
I have to agree with “please” when it comes to the MP3 aspect. Seriously, folks, if you are that passionate about mp3 capacity and functionality, get an iPod!
My last phone’s camera was a 2.0 mp, so this one is not as great, but the photo effects that come with the Katalyst make up for the loss in mps. Sepia and Mosaic are cool effects.
My BIGGEST gripe about this phone is that the only Bluetooth services supported are headset and handsfree. This sucks as my laptop is Bluetooth capable, and I don’t want another damned cable to plug in (nor do I want additional software installed on my PC). Although, it sucks that you can’t change the softkeys (I’ll never use Voice note), I can live with it since the two things I use most are assigned (contact list and text messaging).
All in all, I’m pretty happy with it. Does anyone know if you can load other applications (besides games & ring tones) to this phone? nomadicone@atlanticbb.net
Forgot to mention that I was initially pissed when I got the phone because of the lack of Bluetooth services, and I didn’t know how I was going to get my contacts from my other phone or laptop to this one (I don’t store my contacts on the SIM card, and I don’t have the data cable). Then I learned how to use the Synchronize function to upload and download all contacts using the Manage Address Book on T-Mobile’s website (no cable necessary). I was VERY impressed that it maintained the relationships between contact, mobile number, home number, business number and email address, i.e. it did not create separate entries for each contact. It was a piece of cake!
I have read some of the reviews here and found that everyone that posted negative things about this phone simply do not know how to operate it as well as a computer. The ONLY negative I found about this phone was the bluetooth functionality. You cannot transfer files via bluetooth but it was a pain with my old samsung phone anyway. I purchased the charging/data cable for $12 from discount cell phone without any software. Come to find out I do not even need the software to charge the phone or simply transfer files to and from once I selected USB mass storage in the USB settings on the phone. I was able to download the software from samsung for free just to check it out and I must say it’s pretty cool. The wifi works great and for a phone the sound is pretty loud. For the price I can’t think of a better phone.
after purchasing the extra memory card, i am even more pleased with this phone. however, i’m having trouble setting my mp3’s as a ringtone- everytime i try to copy a music file to the phone, it says ‘memory full’
i tried to delete some ringtones the phone same with, but i don’t know what memory its talking about that is full.
any help?
boredinclass, you can check your memory usage by going to settings>memory status (2 down from the bottom).
this will show you the exact usage of the phone’s memory.
i also don’t know if you can add your own songs as ringtones. i use a jawbone 12 hr’s a day anyway, my phone is always silent. :>
i just got this thing tonight, my samsung t629 tanked after 2 years of happy usage (screen went dead, i suspect from me having extreme adhd and sliding the phone constantly wile i walk around and talk on it)
the bluetooth is at the moment the only limiting factor for me, the hotspot feature is gonna rock my world. i have basically a text only plan… and i work in the it field. basically 90% of the places i make long calls have wifi and i have access to them. my bill is gonna drop like crazy
if anyone hears about any way of enabling the FT services on bluetooth please shout out. im bookmarking this right now.
All I want to know is how to change the ring tone and alert type for incoming calls. It seems near impossible to figure how to do it on the Katalyst. On my previous Motorola cell it was so easy to choose a comfortable ring. Does anyone know how to change from T-jingle and Melody to something more reasonable?
Hey everyone,
I’m debating between this phone and the T819, and I was wondering about some things. First off, does the Katalyst use its speaker on the back for ringtones or just MP3s. I’ve heard the T819 is hard to hear because it just uses the same speakers as it does for calls. Also can you use any wifi out there that is open or is it only home and hotspots?
Email me at captain197@gmail.com, thanks.
The Katalyst will play both mp3 and ringtones through the speaker but be careful about if you want to use stereo Bluetooth. The phone is not A2DP compatible, meaning no stereo for Bluetooth.
The Katalyst will play both mp3 and ringtones through the speaker but be careful about if you want to use stereo Bluetooth. The phone is not A2DP compatible, meaning no stereo for Bluetooth.And if there is no passcode for the wifi then technically you can connect I had trouble with the one at the airport though.
The Katalyst will play both mp3 and ringtones through the speaker but be careful about if you want to use stereo Bluetooth. The phone is not A2DP compatible, meaning no stereo for Bluetooth.And if there is no passcode for the wifi then technically you can connect. I had trouble with the one at the airport, but that was my only attempt at wifi at all. If you are looking for something stylish and very basic then this will make a good phone. But, my wife likes hers. I however went with the blackberry pearl aka the 8100, and I won’t be going back to another ‘phone’ any time soon. The differances between the two are too vast but if you are looking for something that can do a lot then try and find the 8120 available through t-mobile last time I checked which is a blackberry pearl fully loaded, including wifi.
Sorry about that, lol
I was very excited to get the Katalyst – figured I’d finally have no t-mobile dead spots in my apartment. However, after spending several hours trying and talking to half a dozen tech support people at t-mobile and att u-verse (my cable/internet provider), I am still not able to connect to my home wifi network! The phone connects to the t-mobile hotspot in Starbuck’s without a problem, but won’t connect in my apartment, or in my university (which has wifi that I need to sign into). In both locations, I can access the internet from my laptop. Of course, t-mobile blames att u-verse, and att u-verse blames t-mobile, but neither can pinpoint the problem or give me a solution!! if anyone has any ideas on how to solve this, I would appreciate hearing about it.
Hey everybody! I have had a Samsung T-809 for 2 years now. It now freezes then shuts off involuntarily.
I loved my slider phone but now I am looking for a new one. I am debating between the Samsung T-819 or the Samsung Katalyst. I want a phone that can give decent mp3 player quality tones. But at the same time to have good signal and to be able to hear good during a call. Which phone is better the T819 or the Katalyst? Email me at k_belkina@hotmail.com for any advice. Thanks.
i think samsung is great for me
I bought this phone and found quite well,but it doesnt have anough memory just to download 2 songs i’m trying to find a memory card to download more song but nevertheless its an awesome phone
I bought this phone and though it was pretty good though it took me a hour to figure out how to use the data cable for music and just find out after deleting everything it can only hold one song so i’m trying to find a memory card
On the Samsung Katalyst can you change your message tone/ ringtone to an actual ringtone that I bought? I set the song as the ringtone and it seriously NEVER plays when people call me… It’s the most annoying thing in the entire world.
Someone please help me… if you know an answer email me at mariahwlsn@yahoo.com
Thank you kindly.
people are complaining alot on the katalyst, all negatives for the most part. I however like the phone -its not perfect but works very well for me. Also the voice notes work awesome, speak to the voice note and send like a regular text… no more texting for me:) its all gonna be voice notes or voice text whatever it’s called. sweeeeet
There is a problem with the music player I bought a memory card and put about 100 songs on it once i put the memory card in the phone and went to files then music i only had 55 songs. Funny, that i put the micro memory card in the adapter and then inserted it into my friends PSP it had all 105 songs on there. I have formatted the memory card many of times and tried to put more music on it still only i have 50-60 songs every time.
yeah this phone has very few features, and disabled the good bluetooth features
i love this phone but my bluetooth is not actually working…. i tried to have my phone checked in a repair shop… they told me my phone has no software… what am i gonna do?????
first of all to all you douche’s that cant get the mp3 player to work….read the directions, go to walmart and buy a card and a cardreader for your usb port….then make sure you read the directions again…..oh yeah did i mention to read the freakin directions….simple as that..good luck mine works great.
I figured out a solution for the “memory full” problem–the space allocated for ringtones is pretty small. I solved it by editing the mp3 file I wanted to use as a ringtone so it was only 30 seconds long (WavePad Sound Editor worked really well), and then I used the shortened file as the ringtone. It worked great.
Hope that helps.
Oh, and by the way, the cables are all the same cables as the Samsung Beat uses. My roommate has the Katalyst, and I have a Beat, and she’s able to use all my cables and chargers when she needs to.
You can by a data cable for 15 dollars @ Walmart, thats where I got mine.
Well i think this is a pretty decent phone to have but the mp3 player was not what i thought it was. Like it only has that 5mb of memory and every song is way over that and you have to go and purchase that microSD card for it. I have to say that the texting is great but the first time i got it, it like i had to breask it in and it was really slow and had glitches all the time, does anyone know why that is??
I agree the cables are tottaly different, I think that they just wanted to piss everyone off with this phone, the only good thing about it is that it looks great and it being a slider is nice but it is so basic and origanL
Overall this phone is just ok but i wish it had some other features, and more memory….. does anyone know how to get around WIFI connection passwords??? there is a ton of people with WIFI connections whereever i go but they all have passwords, i need a way to get around it cause i don’t have WIFI myself???
lamarwes@hotmail.com
Ok phone for the price, but I have had it for 6 months and looks like garbage material. When ever I try to start it up it just stays at the Katalyst screen and doesnt do anything else. Low memory, so you must constantly delete texts if you go over 100 in both inbox/outbox (annoying if texting multiple people). Screen and digital camera is amazing for this price, but the motion camera is just stupid. Never had to plans to use it for music, but I put 20 secs of a song on there for a ringtone (had to delete everything, might be part of small inbox/outbox problem). I had problems with it dropping calls when switching from WiFi to regular service, and vis versa. Sometimes when I could call someone it would call them but wouldn’t ring, so I would have to redial and talk with someone on the other end all pissed off. Don’t buy this phone if you are a heavy user, as you will be buying another before your contract is up.
I’m have the same issue as Tom (August 25, 2008). I have a 2gb micro sd card and have over 100 songs but only 60 is displayed. I made sure they are all in mp3 format.(which they are) Anybody know what to do?
Okay I got this phone from the Tmobile store, waived off all charges free phone free activation and guess what I also made him provide me with a free bluetooth by motorolla….LIFE IS O SO GUD if the phone sucks who cares i thnk its a gud phone overall better thn a basic phone and yea life moves on
OKAY PHONE
I love this phone
the phone serves its purpose….it makes calls. not too great on pic memory but if you like music it will make up for that. decent phone, decent price. just waitin for the contract to be up.
I like this little phone and here is a tip for all of you complaining about not being able to play your own mp3s unlock the phone you have better luck loading your own files on your mini SD and it working on the phone. and as for the data cable i found one on ebay for $2.50 with free shipping. the Hot Spot is great for me also you get the router for free and it a better router than my old one because it has a quick connect button instead of entering some long stupid code you cant even ready. have fun with your phones i like mine