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It's not all fun and games, though -- we noticed a couple shortcomings of the Impression that might give potential buyers pause. Most notably, the smooth, pebble-like shape of the device lends itself to an awful lot of bobbles and potential drops, especially in light of the fact that the entire phone is hard, glossy plastic (it seems like the issue could've been at least partially solved if they'd gone with soft-touch). Also, because the sides of the phone are rounded and you're dealing with a slide mechanism, all of the side-mounted buttons are positioned below the break between the upper and lower halves of the phone; the net effect of this is that they're angled toward the back, making pushing them awkward. We found this particularly true with the right-mounted buttons -- lock / unlock and camera -- because pushing them causes you to unconsciously put pressure on the other side of the phone, which in turn causes it to start to slide open. Bottom line: using the side buttons is awkward, and in general you'll want to be careful when you're holding it.


A couple of UI issues gave us trouble, too. First off, despite the fact that the interface is reasonably well designed to be finger-friendly throughout, the resistive touchscreen wasn't sensitive to every touch of our finger -- a shortcoming of the technology -- and we found that we had to use our fingernails to get the kind of precision and control we wanted in some situations (it almost seems like you can't ship a resistive device without a "just in case" stylus tucked in there somewhere). Second, we discovered that although all of the Impression's native, built-in applications support flawless, fast orientation changes, the Java-based stuff like XM Radio and The Weather Channel (and likely anything else you download) does not -- and in many cases, the interfaces are entirely inappropriate for a finger-controlled touch UI altogether. We wish Samsung and AT&T had put more effort into loading more appropriate apps here, because in a device of this caliber, attention to detail makes a big difference.
Turning our attention back to hardware, the keyboard feels fantastic and is incredibly easy to get up to speed on; you'll be busting out speedy texts in no time. There's one big problem, though -- inexplicably, Samsung has chosen to make the shift key behave as a capitalization mode toggle alone, which means that holding down the key while typing a letter has no effect. Instead, you have to use it in exactly the same way you would a mode toggle on a T9 keyboard, which makes no sense here. We're hoping this'll be quickly addressed via over-the-air firmware update, because it's got to be a bug.

The camera produced decent-quality shots considering there's no autofocus involved on that 3 megapixel sensor (sadly), but our impressions are likely skewed by the fact that everything -- and we do mean everything -- looks more gorgeous on that OLED display. For what it's worth, shutter lag is nearly nonexistent, which is nice -- but we naturally would've preferred more full-featured optics and at least a basic LED flash. In the multimedia vein, the music player is really usable, uncluttered, essentially lag-free, and offers a selection of automatic equalizer settings -- and as you can probably imagine, album art looks great on the display -- but it's inexcusable that Samsung failed to include a proper headphone jack. Yes, we know that these guys are really tied to their weird proprietary connector that does double duty as a data port and audio out, but it's 2009, and this is seriously no longer cool. Fortunately, the phone's loudspeaker is loud and clear, so at the very least, you'll be able to rock out in a very public manner should the need arise -- and the earpiece is loud enough to damage eardrums, so if you're placing a call next to a jerk blasting music from his own Impression, you'll still have a fighting chance of holding a conversation.
Faults aside, it's hard to not love the Impression; the amazing display is still a bit of a novelty, and call us crazy, but we think that gives it some carte blanche for coming up short in other areas. Yes, we could've used a 3.5mm headphone jack, squared-off sides, a capacitive touchscreen, a better camera -- and hell, you may as well throw in a smartphone OS while we're at it -- but this isn't the OmniaHD, it's a midrange feature phone with enough dazzle to draw some attention. We think it'll play that role reasonably well.

Design
Say what you will about our tastes, but we dig the overall design of this here handset. BlackBerry converts won't find it any thicker than most of the slabs they've willingly dealt with over the past few years, and even those coming from a touchscreen-based handset won't notice an awful lot of heft. And, for whatever reason, we just can't shake the notion that the Propel Pro is downright cute. Maybe it's the resemblance to a traditional compact, or maybe it's the overt love affair with all things chrome and shiny; whatever it is, we've found the formula quite appealing.


When you first pull this bugger from the box, it's easy to assume that it's just another cheap handset trying to sashay about as a real smartphone. But really, it's just exceptionally light. The actual build quality here is fairly impressive, with the only gripe from us coming from the somewhat mushy call / end keys. Outside of that, everything else is super sturdy and not at all burdensome in the pocket. The slide action is smooth and controlled, the backlit keyboard is ready for 1,000 texts per day (for at least five years, we'd assume) and the side-mounted volume rocker is amongst our favorites due to its length and great positioning.


As for the 320 x 320 resolution display, it's... um, decent. For starters, we're not huge fans of square displays. We end up scrolling down far too often, but really, we suspect this is just a matter of taste. As for the quality of the display, we're yet again left with mixed feelings. In low light, the pixels are bright, vivid and stunning; take it outside for a leisurely walk, and good luck seeing anything. We were pretty disappointed with how the panel performed in sunlight, even compared to similarly priced alternatives. We have all ideas that the mirror coating above it is somewhat to blame, and while we're on the subject, we'll just get this right out there: the shiny covering may look svelte on retail shelves, but it's a pain in real world use. Even in dimly lit rooms, the glare is simply obnoxious, and to us, it's a perfect example of letting style hamstring utility.

We already mentioned that we weren't huge fans of the mushy buttons, but the central joystick is another story entirely. It's easy to maneuver, highly responsive and makes navigating the non-touchscreen display a real joy. For trackball lovers in attendance, we suspect you'll also fall for this quickly, and even for those dead set on touch input, we reckon you'll warm to this 'stick with impressive haste.


Software
Ah, software. As with pretty much every other WinMo handset hitting the shelves these days, this one also comes loaded with Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard, and if you've used it on anything else, you know what to expect. Unlike HTC's offerings, there's no big overlay here to hide or sugarcoat what Microsoft has built. The vertical panels approach works about as well as anything on this phone, with a downward punch of the joystick giving you glances at Application, Media Player, Photo Viewer and Profile shortcuts. This "home screen," if you will, is quite stunning, and in our testing, we found it to be satisfactorily responsive to our inputs -- something you can't always count on when navigating around in a WinMo front screen.


Compared to Sony Ericsson's XPERIA X1, we found the overall Windows Mobile experience to be far better on the Propel Pro. Lag within menus was minimal (albeit noticeable at times), and application launching was on par with other snappy WinMo handsets. The media player wasn't anything out of the ordinary, but it did manage to handle our photos and audio tracks with ease. Overall, we felt the Propel Pro had plenty of horsepower to handle the OS, and apart from a few bouts with lag that just seem to plague every single WinMo handset we touch, we were quite pleased with performance. Who knows -- maybe the lack of "fancy" helped the basics to move along more briskly.

Usage
All around usage of the Propel Pro left us mostly impressed. The size was just about perfect for us, and despite our doubts, we actually forgot to mind that there was no touchscreen shortly after we began using it. All the usual WinMo gripes were here -- screen freezes while trying to connect to WiFi, delayed reactions to incoming calls and texts and sluggish load times when firing up a mildly intensive app -- but the Propel Pro did a remarkable job with mitigating those quirks. In other words, it minimized the lag about as much as it could from a hardware and usage standpoint, and really, that's all we can ask.


As much as we appreciated the volume rocker, we lamented the fact that no headphone jack was included. Not a 3.5 millimeter one, not a 2.5 millimeter one. Just a power plug / headphone jack combo that's about as unconventional as it gets. So yeah, you're not buying this phone to double as an MP3 player, though we will admit that the internal speaker sounded about as good as a phone's internal speaker can sound. Samsung also (smartly, might we add) threw a dedicated camera launch button on the right side of the phone, and amazingly, the camera app was pretty snappy to open.

The 3.0 megapixel shooter actually had a decent amount of options (including selectable ISOs, scene options and a video record mode), and as you can see below, it took pretty decent images for a cameraphone. The microSDHC card slot was also quite helpful, and the oh-so-capacious 16GB SanDisk microSDHC card we had on hand worked like a charm. Moving on to the keyboard -- which is definitely going to be a make or break aspect for some, if not most prospective buyers -- we really only have positive things to say. At first glance, the keys seem just a wee bit squashed. There is only a sliver of space between each key, but the raised nature makes it easier to "feel" exactly what key you're currently on. After a day or so of texting and emailing, we were already adjusted. Our only real complaint comes when looking at key placement; call us crazy, but we aren't fans of where the period, comma and delete keys are. On more than a few occasions, we found ourselves hunting around for the comma and period key, and often we'd mash "Return" instead of "Delete."


Call quality was also up to par, with volume being plenty loud and colleagues confirming that our voice sounded as handsome as ever on the other end. Little did they know that we hired a professional to do the talking, but hey. Oh, and as for accessories? You're looking at a home charger, proprietary USB cable and a few sheets of paper. That's it. Not like we'd expect too much more for $149.99 on contract, but if you were banking on getting a set of weak earbuds that work with that funky connector, you'll be heartbroken and stunned.


It's also worth mentioning that Internet Explorer managed to perform decently at 3G speeds. Should you consider this something you can easily browse complex sites on? Definitely not, particularly with that 320 x 320 display, but it'll definitely handle made-for-mobile news sites (you know, like the Engadget suite of sites) with ease.


All in all, Samsung's Propel Pro does WinMo 6.1 about as good as it can be done without any super fancy overlays. The build quality is stellar, it nails the basics and -- just in case you missed it the first go 'round -- it's as cute as a button. To be honest, though, it's a hard sell with the S60-packin' E71x available on the same carrier for $50 less. If you're a diehard WinMo user, you aren't apt to be disappointed, but if you're open to options, we'd have to suggest looking elsewhere with your buck fifty, much to the chagrin of the otherwise fundamentally sound phone.