The Apple iPhone started the touch screen craze. Other phones have followed suit – some with touch screens alone and some with touch screens and physical keyboards. Now, Samsung has introduced a touch screen phone that utilizes their new Smart Wiz technology along with many multi-media features. We were curious to see just how much these new features added to the usability of the phone, so we were happy to review the Samsung Eternity SGH-A867, which is available through AT&T.

The Eternity is one of a whole family of phones with the same type of design. Each is tied to a certain cellular provider. So the Samsung Behold is a similar phone which is available from T-Mobile. The Instinct is available from Sprint. Each of these is similar, but each has their own unique features.

As can be seen in Figure 1, the orange and white box contains the charger, a small quick start guide, and an interactive tutorial CD, the Samsung Eternity itself, featured in Figure 2, is also included.

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 Figure 1: The box and some contents.

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Figure 2: The Eternity.

The included CD contains an interactive tutorial and a copy of the user’s manual. The tutorial, except for a minor error that will be noted later, was quite informative.