Samsung Ch@t335

Appearances can be deceptive: the Samsung Ch@t335 might look like a smartphone, but it's actually a fairly basic mobile.  The target market is users looking for a simple handset for making calls and sending texts, but who would also like to stay in touch with friends via Facebook and Twitter or make the occasional Google search.  It's very affordable, and instead of a touchscreen interface relies on a Blackberry-style physical keyboard.  But is it value for money?  Let's take a closer look.

NB: it should be fairly obvious that the Samsung Ch@t 335 isn't in the same category of handsets as the other smartphones we review.  It is, however, capable of offering many of the same features as a smartphone without offering the full range of functionality you would expect.

Design and handling

The 2.4'', 240 x 320 display will come as something of a surprise to anybody used to a mobile with a flashy screen with wide viewing angles.  It's back to basics here, if not the bare minimum.  Those viewing angles are very narrow, the screen flickers all the time, the colour reproduction is years out of date and the contrast ratio struggles to reach 235:1.  Obviously, it's hard to expect much from a phone at this price point; arguably, having a colour screen at all is something of a luxury.

We liked how thin and light the handset is as well as the neutral design.  The finish is entirely plastic, but at least the quality is acceptable.


This phone claims to be designed for 'ch@tting', so let's look at the keyboard.  It might look like it's been borrowed from a BlackBerry with a full-size keyboard, but it's nowhere near as easy to use as one of RIM's devices.  The keys are much shallower and a little too soft, so when you press one button, the surrounding keys are also activated.


Nevertheless, anybody who can't stop texting should be more than happy, especially give how many shortcuts there are to important features via the keyboard.

Interface and navigation

The Ch@t335 uses a proprietary interface designed by Samsung.  It might not be very attractive, but it's certainly easy to get the hang of.  Given that there aren't many features, the menus are hardly overflowing with options.  The homescreen has shortcuts to the main features like text messaging, social networks and Google Search.  If you want to try using Facebook or Twitter, then you'll need to be patient as both are very sloooooow.


Users move from one feature to the next using the optical trackpad, which was just a little too sensitive for our liking.  We often found that we ended up selecting the option just after the one we were after.

Multimedia features mostly for show

The last part of our test, looking at multimedia features, is the most problematic for this phone. 

There's a 2 Megapixel camera, with a 2x zoom and no flash, which can take video in a pinch (in a real pinch), but you can't expect sharp photos.  The first iPhone did better than this three years ago.  We're sure that proud owners of the Ch@t335 won't hesitate to use the camera to capture a moment with friends to be shared immediately on Facebook.  Of course, if you're hoping to have some detail, you should avoid night time shots in favour of brightly-lit environments.



Web browsing is something you should reserve for when you're really stuck.  Pages take a long time to load, aren't laid out properly and are difficult to scroll around using the fiddly trackpad.

Given that most people end up using the Ch@t 335 much less often than a fully-powered smartphone, and that it only has Edge and WiFi (but no 3G), then the a battery life is much better than on some of the latest handsets!  It was still going strong after three days ...