Samsung SGH-T259 - blue (T-Mobile)
Manufacturer: Samsung Part number: SGH-T259HBBTMB
- More product information:
- Editors' review
- User reviews
- Specifications
- Accessories
- Manufacturer info
- Bottom Line:
- The Samsung T259's intuitive design, excellent call quality, and affordable price make it a good choice for someone in search of a simple handset.
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CNET editors' review
Samsung SGH-T259 - blue (T-Mobile) price range: $0.00 - $129.99
- Reviewed by: Jessica Dolcourt
- Edited by: Kent German
- Reviewed on: 02/25/2011
The good: The Samsung T259 has strong call and speakerphone quality, e-mail access, and room for 32GB expandable memory.
The bad: We're not fans of the Samsung T259's squared-off edges, or the shared headphone and charger jack.
The bottom line: The Samsung T259's intuitive design, excellent call quality, and affordable price make it a good choice for someone in search of a simple handset.
Every carrier needs a good flip phone on its roster, and for T-Mobile, the Samsung T259 fits the bill. This 3G world phone resembles its clamshell cousins on other carriers, like the Samsung Contour and the Samsung SPH-M360, but with an edgier, sharper design that compromises comfort somewhat. Call quality is excellent, however, and the speakerphone is pleasantly loud. There are enough software features to satisfy those looking for a simple phone with one or two extras, but there is a design flaw--a shared headset and Micro-USB jack that Samsung should have addressed better on a phone with a music player. However, the requirement for an adapter isn't enough to put us off the affordable handset. Indeed, $29.99 after an instant rebate is a great price for this reliable communicator.
Design
Blockier and less streamlined than the Samsung Contour, the T259 flip phone is still portable. Surfaces are a glossy, midnight-blue plastic of the smudge-prone variety. The phone is also mostly comfortable to hold--the one exception being the flip-up face. Its two squared edges clash with the rest of the phone's rounded corners and lines, and make the T259 feel unfinished. Beyond that, the T259's dimensions are right at 3.9 inches tall, 1.9 inches wide, and 0.7-inch thick. It weighs 3.3 ounces.

On the phone's front is a 2-megapixel camera that doubles as a camcorder. There's also a 1.3-inch external CSTN display with a 128x128-pixel resolution. You can swap the wallpaper to show either a clock or an image. If you choose a digital clock style, you'll also see information like the date, signal strength, and a battery life meter. The external screen also will flash incoming caller IDs and display the number of missed calls and texts.
Flipping up the phone isn't difficult once you work your thumb between the two faces, but we've had an easier time on other models. Thankfully, Samsung has used a thick plastic hinge we've seen before. It may not be especially stylish, but it endows the handset with a sense of durability.
The 2.2-inch TFT internal display has a 240x320-pixel QVGA resolution that looks appropriately bright and sharp. The menus are intuitively laid out and the numbers are large when you dial. You can change the font type, size, and color, and can also customize the background color.
Beneath the display is a generously sized navigation array that includes two soft keys and a four-directional navigation pad (D-pad) with a central OK button. The T259 is chockablock with shortcuts--there are two programmable shortcut keys and a shortcut for each direction you toggle the D-pad while you're on the home screen.
The navigation buttons, Talk and End keys, clear keys, and dial pad are all spacious and comfortable. Buttons aren't fully separated, so it isn't very easy to dial by feel, although we would recommend the T259 for someone looking for easy-to-see and easy-to-press keys. The pound key also turns on vibrate mode.
Although it's a fairly simple phone, there are a few multimedia extras on the T259 that are reflected in the phone's external features, like the camera trigger button on the right spine. Unfortunately, Samsung only provided one Micro-USB jack, which has to do double duty as a charging port and headphone jack if you intend to make use of the music player within. As such, you'll need to pick up an extra adapter to use headphones with a standard 3.5-millimeter connector. The T259 has a volume rocker on the left spine, as well as a microSD card slot that takes up to 32GB expandable memory. We like the easy access.
Features
Making phone calls is the T259's focus, but that doesn't mean there isn't a decent set of essential features inside. There's space for 1,000 entries in the T259's address book, with fields for multiple phone numbers, an e-mail address, a home address, a birthday reminder, and a note. You can also associate a caller with a group, a photo, or one of 19 polyphonic ringtones.

Basic tools include a calendar, an alarm clock, notes, a to-do list, a calculator, a tip calculator, a world clock, a converter, and a timer. There's also a stopwatch, an RSS reader, and voice commands.
Text and multimedia messaging are the typical conduits of written communication, but Web mail is also an option. A Social Buzz app connects you to your Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace accounts. You'll also want a data plan to use this app and others, or charges will mount quickly.
T-Mobile's Web2Go browser attends to your Internet needs as best it can, with a customizable, widget-based home page that quickly routes you to the weather, headline news, sports scores, and so on. It's no high-powered browser and it's not meant to be, but it will work in a pinch for visiting sites. In our opinion the widgets work best, or the Google search bar for launching queries. It took about 8 seconds for CNET's Web-optimized site to load over 3G and about 12 seconds to load over EDGE (that's with very sketchily rendered photos in both cases).

Cameras don't always make an appearance on straightforward cell phones like this, but we're very glad to see that the T259 has one. The 2-megapixel lens isn't going to wow anyone with its grainy and dull photos, but the pictures could be worse and the subjects were discernible. The same goes for the quality of the camcorder, especially since 320x240 pixels is the highest of two resolutions.
At least the numerous camera and video settings help boost image quality. There are five shooting modes, four photo resolutions (from 320x240 pixels to 1,600x1,200 pixels), five white-balance settings, five color effects, night mode, a self-timer, and other various options. Camcorder settings are similar, with the exception of the low resolution and the option to limit the video to about 30 seconds for sending as a multimedia message. There's 80MB of internal memory for all that multimedia, and there's that card slot for 32GB expandable memory.
There is one other multimedia option on the T259: the bare-bones MP3 player that can crank out tunes you've installed on your microSD card or stored on the phone. Controls include play, pause, back, and forth. The player displays album art when available. You can rate tracks and add them to a playlist on the fly, plus play the song through a Bluetooth stereo headset. That may be necessary if you don't have a Micro-USB adapter for your headphones. As we mentioned above, you have only the shared jack to use.
Games, wallpaper, ringtones, and other items of customization are available via the T-Mobile Mall, which you can find in the Menu options.
Performance
We tested the quad-band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900; GPRS) Samsung T259 in San Francisco using T-Mobile's network. Call quality was impressive on both ends of the line. Voices sounded consistently natural and comfortably loud, perhaps a tad muffled on our end. The call clarity was likewise clear, without any background noise, feedback, or digital distortion during both indoor and outdoor calls. One caller described the T259 as "one of the best-sounding cell phones" he's heard, and mentioned it was clear enough to be a landline. We did experience two dropped calls in low-coverage zones, however, with the error being on our end both times.
Speakerphone was also loud and clear. There were the typical tininess and hollow character you can expect from having a rear-facing speaker spill out into an open area, but we could easily carry on long conversations over the T259's speakerphone.
Samsung T259 call quality sample
Listen now:
The T259 has a rated battery life of 4.5 hours of talk time and 12.5 days of standby time. It has a talk time of 4 hours and 48 minutes in our tests. It has a digital SAR of 0.53 watts per kilogram, according to FCC radiation tests.
User reviews
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SOLID, BASIC AND EASY TO USE
by frankandree62 on August 4, 2011
Pros: Wanted a flip phone to replace my AT&T moto razor flip. I have a small mac-pro so all i really want and need is call and text. The phone is well made,STURDY and
has very useful basic features. VERY LOUD RING FOR OUTSIDE USE, LARGE KEY PAD for dial anCons: NONE, WOULD BE NICE TO SEE RUGGED FIELD VERSION.
Summary: BASIC USEFUL FEATURES, EASY TO NAVIGATE, VERY STURDY, SMALL FOR SHIRT-PANTS POCKET CARRY, VERY LOUD RING ALERTS SETTING. GOOD CALL QUALITY. BEST PHONE I HAD IN YEARS.
Summary: BASIC USEFUL FEATURES, EASY TO NAVIGATE, VERY STURDY, SMALL FOR SHIRT-PANTS POCKET CARRY, VERY LOUD RING ALERTS SETTING. GOOD CALL QUALITY. BEST PHONE I HAD IN YEARS.
2 out of 2 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Perfect Phone
by wbukovsky493 on April 2, 2011
Pros: Large key board for texting, cant stand the little qwerty keyboards or touch screens. Great camera quality. Internet is decent. Great clear call quality. Never a dropped call. Always works. Long battery life, I only charge it every 2 or 3 days, I mostly t
Cons: Im still waiting for a flip phone thats Mil-Spec, come on T-Mobile get us a version of AT&t's Samsung Rugby.
Summary: Cant go wrong with this phone. Reliable and simple to use. If you cant figure out this phone you better go get a rotary phone.
Summary: Cant go wrong with this phone. Reliable and simple to use. If you cant figure out this phone you better go get a rotary phone.
2 out of 2 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Basic flip-phone, cannot customize
by stephank1982 on April 15, 2011
Pros: Multiple alarm settings, nice memory status menu, like clock on outside of phone
Cons: T9 is forced as default, cannot change default text input mode. Cannot remove menu icons you do not need or web2go option on main display, only way to re-display clock on outside of phone is to re-open, the clock is nice but difficult to access.
Summary: Mainly returning this phone because I hate T9 and this phone makes it so I have to switch to ABC every time I text something and I cannot change the ...
Summary: Mainly returning this phone because I hate T9 and this phone makes it so I have to switch to ABC every time I text something and I cannot change the default text input mode. Also, things like web2go cannot be removed from the main display or menu options. Internet access on a flip phone w/ small screen was cool back in the 1990s, were not buying a flip for web access anymore so leave it off the menu Samsung. Any phone that forces technology on you and doesn't give you the option to disable it is not a phone for me.
1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
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My Favorite Flip phone
by Moneyman53 on March 4, 2011
Pros: Micro SD card, Micro USB, 2 Megapixel camera, T-Mobile contacts back up, speakerphone, customizable, Google Maps, bluetooth, 3G
Cons: No IM software, Shared headphone/charger jack
Summary: The Samsung T259 is a good flip phone. There are many advantages of this phone, for example it is a 3G phone, it uses micro usb, has a microSD card ...
Summary: The Samsung T259 is a good flip phone. There are many advantages of this phone, for example it is a 3G phone, it uses micro usb, has a microSD card slot, customizable, and it uses T-Mobile back up service for your contacts. The speakerphone on it is pretty good, the battery life is also pretty good. There is a 2 megapixel camera, you could take pictures and capture videos. This phone also features bluetooth, and it also has Google maps, but this requires data.
Some cons are you know when you are going through the menu and there is that beep sound, that beep sound could get annoying so I changed it to melody, I wish they added more sounds instead of just 2 options. Also this isn't really a bother for me, but on this phone there is no IM software at all. Also the shared headphone/charger jack, I don't like that.
Overall I love this phone and I'm glad I purchased it.1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Worse cell phone I've owned
by gmt3010 on May 2, 2012
Pros: Looks pretty
Cons: Poor quality all the way around
Summary: I'm blown away at CNET's good rating and the other glowing comments. From the start this phone had a problems with my voicemail messages breaking up. Try to ...
Summary: I'm blown away at CNET's good rating and the other glowing comments. From the start this phone had a problems with my voicemail messages breaking up. Try to get someone's message when the phone audio is breaking up. This happened with the three tmbile sent me.
Same for listening to any recorded greeting. Audio breaks up. I added a 2 GB mini card to the phone, just to try to get that to stop. I charged it every night, and recycled it, but still it would drop calls. I live in Tampa, Fla. It should not do that.
People would always say I was talking too loud though the phone. People who know me laughed silly over that: I have the softest voice and everybody says "speak up."
The phone itself has a cheap, plastic feel. The first one I got through tmobile died a month shy of its year long warranty. So, they sent me another. Well that one had to be cracked in the flip part because six weeks later the top came apart from the bottom, rendering the phone with no way to see the screen. Please know, I am NOT hard on phones. All I do is use them to make calls. I don't even text.
I have used the camera, but I fumbled around to much to find the camera setting. The quality the photos was nothing special. It is user-friendly to adjust preferences, and the speaker phone works well. I got this when there were few reviews. I saw them now, nothing but unhappy people who got this through TMobile. My Nokia before this phone lasted forever, as did my Samsung t309 (had to use that until I got a new, unlocked phone. -
DO NOT BUY THIS PHONE
by caccidog on March 16, 2012
Pros: LARGE BUTTONS
LARGE EASY TO READ NUMBERS ON SCREEN
LOUD RINGCons: ONLY ONE FREE RINGTONE
MY OWN VOICE SOMETIMED ECHOED DURING CALL AND I COULD NOT HAVE A CONVERSATION
DISCONNECTED IN MIDDLE OF PHONE CALLSSummary: I ACTUALLY BOUGHT THIS PHONE BECAUSE OF CNET'S HIGH RATINGS
BUT HAD TO RETURN IT WITHIN 3 WEEKS BECAUSE OF LOST CALLS AND ECHOES. WORST CELL PHONE I EVER ...Summary: I ACTUALLY BOUGHT THIS PHONE BECAUSE OF CNET'S HIGH RATINGS
BUT HAD TO RETURN IT WITHIN 3 WEEKS BECAUSE OF LOST CALLS AND ECHOES. WORST CELL PHONE I EVER OWNED. I LIVE IN NEW YORK CITY AND SHOULD HAVE NO PROBLEMS. MY PREVIOUS OTHER T-MOBILE PREPAID PHONES WORKED GREAT OVER PAST EIGHT YEARS. -
Phone is going back to the store.
by C1111111111 on February 21, 2011
Pros: I like the ease of use, the price, and almost everything else about the phone except the one problem that is big enough to me to get rid of the phone.
Cons: Loud anoying tone that can't be turned off.
Summary: There is a very anoying loud tone that is defaulted into the phone and can't be turned off. It goes off any time you save or change something. I'...
Summary: There is a very anoying loud tone that is defaulted into the phone and can't be turned off. It goes off any time you save or change something. I've talked to support and they told me it can't be turned off. It's so anoying the phone is going back to the store this afternoon. I love everything else about the phone, but this sound is so bad, it completely overrides the positive features of the phone.
1 out of 3 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Not good for elderly
by WassII on March 10, 2011
Pros: The screen is bright enough and the numbers being dialed are large enough on the screen.
Cons: Bad instructions (including the full online manual), volume probably bad for outdoors or in places with background noise, number pad doesn't stay lit long enough.
Summary: The instructions aren't good, and the menu structure on the phone isn't so great either. My guess is that most phones have better written instructions. I've heard ...
Summary: The instructions aren't good, and the menu structure on the phone isn't so great either. My guess is that most phones have better written instructions. I've heard others complain about this too, for example, in the Start Guide, a picture supposedly shows you what the buttons are for, but it indicates that the "OK" key is for navigation when the navigation "key" is actually the silver ring around the OK key (press the left side of the ring and you navigate to the menu option to the left which could then be selected by clicking OK, etc.) There's also nothing about what the "soft" keys are for. How to use the navigation buttons should be illustrated with pictures of the screen. A newbie would read the instructions "From the Home screen, select Menu" and "Scroll to and select Settings" (from the Start Guide, page 8) and not know how to do it.
I discovered another problem...you're notified of voice mail when you open the phone, but the number it shows seems to be the number that you have to dial to listen to the voice mail, not the number of the caller. I think there's something you could press to see the number of the actual caller, so that's not a major issue. The major problem is after that one time when you're given the chance to see that you have voice mail, the phone forgets that you have voice mail. Navigating to Call history > Voice mail gives no indication of voice mail that you have waiting. So what's the purpose of the Call history > Voice mail? At least the number of the person that attempted to call is listed in on the Missed calls page.
And how long do you recharge it? Does it beep when it's done? Do you have to unplug it as soon as it's done? Is it OK plug it into the recharger and leave it like that overnight, every night? (I know the answer to most of these questions, but not from the instructions).
The call volume was OK for me in my limited test, but I have good hearing and was in a quiet room. An elderly parent in the same environment found it barely adequate.
The keypad light doesn't stay on long enough. It lasts about 5 seconds after you open the phone if you don't press anything. Every time you press a number, you have another 5 seconds. Not good enough. Ideally, there would be a button to press when YOU'RE READY to shut off the light.
Also, I wanted to use it as a watch without opening it but it took me a while before I discovered that you have to press AND HOLD the button on the right side. This is another problem with the instructions, unless I missed something.
Updated on Mar 25, 2011
Oh, and there are two different screens that show you the time a photo was taken and one of them is an hour off. This phone is buggy.
And I couldn't find the model number of the phone through the phone. I had to use the manual.0 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Poor call quality and missing main features
by mezren on August 7, 2011
Pros: Nice-looking (until you touch it); keyboard
Cons: Poor call quality; no charging battery indicator; no new voicemail indicator; no missed calls indicator; flimsy battery cover; weak vibrator
Summary: I bought this phone (for my mother and me) because of a pretty good report on CNET. It was nice-looking too.
Call quality.
The report mentioned in Performance: "Call quality ...Summary: I bought this phone (for my mother and me) because of a pretty good report on CNET. It was nice-looking too.
Call quality.
The report mentioned in Performance: "Call quality was impressive on both ends of the line. Voices sounded consistently natural and comfortably loud, perhaps a tad muffled on our end."
I have not overlooked "a tad muffled on our end." "a tad" turned out to be a misstatement. Unless a caller had a very clear articulation, I could not understand half of what he/she was saying. In most cases I would interrupt a conversation and call from my landline.
Other features.
The external display goes off in 10 or so seconds. So in order to check for missed calls, or new voicemail, or the battery charging status you have to press a button to see this info - pretty annoying.
The solution for all these could be a flashing light like in older phones. It's especially usefully when you recharge the battery. I believe the reason Samsung removed this feature was that you can easily forget and eventually kill the battery quicker and buy a new one. This flash light does not drain the battery while in charging mode. So what's the reason?
Vibrator is very weak. If the phone is on your desk or in your bag, you don't feel anything.
It seems Samsung increased the battery life, but they did it at the expanse of main features, so no real progress in six years.
Look - decent but not flawless. It's glossy therefore pretty quickly it get's "littered" with your fingerprints forcing you to clean it every time you take it out.
Battery cover: it has so flimsy hooks which will last until you drop the phone first time then you'll need to buy a new cover. Things do fall, so why not to me make them more durable? Actually now most of electronics have this deliberately designed flaw, i.e., planned obsolescence.
We kept these phones for a week then gave up and returned them. We really need new phones (our old ones look so old) but they are superior to this one. The call quality of this phone does not come close to my old Samsung E-105. I cannot help but think about planned obsolescence. Samsung made a phone with a bunch of new features, but if you cannot talk on such a phone, who cares about the camera, the look, and other stuff?
Take what is already good and if you can improve it without worsening the call quality - fine, otherwise don't change anything.0 out of 2 users found this user opinion helpful.
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it sucks i want my blackberry back
by candacemariekersh on February 27, 2011
Pros: its small and cute fast lil guy smalll cute clean
Cons: no full keyboaed it sucks its old like omg when is it enough i dont like it it sucks
Summary: it sucks but its a good backup just hate not having a full keyboard im glad i got to use it it showed me what the truth is
Summary: it sucks but its a good backup just hate not having a full keyboard im glad i got to use it it showed me what the truth is
0 out of 3 users found this user opinion helpful.
Specifications
- Manufacturer: Samsung
- Part number: SGH-T259HBBTMB
- Description: The midnight blue flip-design is a fun, easy-to-use, flippable, affordable favorite. This 3G device offers stylish comfort at the right price. The outside screen lets you see your calls and messages, so you only flip your phone when needed to prolong battery life. The large buttons on the keypad and adjustable font sizes makes this device easy to use.
General
- Product Type Cellular phone
- Form Factor Folder (flip)
- Phone Design Folder type phone
- Integrated Components GPS receiver,
Digital camera,
Digital player,
Voice recorder - Width 1.93 in
- Depth 0.68 in
- Height 3.87 in
- Weight 3.25 oz
- Body Color Midnight blue
Cellular
- Technology CDMA2000 1X
- Band WCDMA (UMTS) / GSM 850/900/1800/1900
- Mobile Broadband Generation 3G
- Service Provider T-Mobile
- Application Software Adobe Flash Lite
Messaging & Internet
- Cellular Messaging Services MMS,
SMS - Instant Messaging Services Yahoo! Messenger,
AOL Instant Messenger Service (AIM),
Google Talk,
Windows Live Messenger (MSN Messenger) - Supported Email Protocols SMTP,
POP3,
IMAP4 - Supported Social Networks and Blogs MySpace,
Twitter,
Facebook - WAP Protocol Supported WAP 2.0
- Messaging & Data Features RSS feeds,
XHTML Browser - Mobile Services Gmail
Communications
- Data Transmission GPRS,
EDGE,
HSDPA - Wireless Interface Bluetooth 2.1 EDR
- Bluetooth Profiles Serial Port Profile (SPP),
Object Push Profile (OPP),
Hands Free Profile (HFP),
Headset Profile (HSP),
Dial-up Networking Profile (DUN),
File Transfer Profile (FTP),
Basic Printing Profile (BPP),
Phonebook Access Profile (PBAP),
SIM Access Profile (SAP),
Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP),
Audio/Video Remote Control Profile (AVRCP) - Communication Features Internet browser,
Mobile Email client Phone Features
- Phone Functions Voice control,
Call timer,
Conference call,
Flight mode,
Speakerphone,
Voice dialing,
Vibrating alert - Polyphonic Ringer Yes
- Ring Tone Formats AAC,
MP3,
WMA,
MIDI - Additional Features World clock,
Software updates FOTA (Firmware Over The Air),
Intelligent typing (T9) Organizer
- Personal Information Management Synchronization with PC,
Calendar,
Calculator,
Unit conversion,
Stopwatch,
Reminder,
Currency conversion,
Alarm clock - Phone Book Entries Qty 1000
Media Player
- Supported Digital Audio Standards eAAC+,
AAC +,
WAV,
MP3,
WMA,
MIDI,
AAC - Supported Digital Video Standards MPEG-4,
H.263,
3GP,
H.264 Memory
- Bult-in Memory 80 MB
- Supported Flash Memory Cards microSDHC - up to 32 GB
Digital Camera
- Sensor Resolution 2 megapixels
- Optical Sensor Type CMOS
- Still Image Resolutions 320 x 240,
640 x 480,
1280 x 960,
1600 x 1200 - Still Image Formats JPEG
- Digital Zoom 2
- Self Timer Delay 10 sec,
2 sec,
5 sec - Special Effects Water Colour,
Negative,
Black & White,
Sepia - White Balance Automatic,
Presets - Video Recorder Resolutions 176 x 144 (QCIF),
320 x 240 (QVGA) - Features Video recording,
Multi-shots,
Smile shutter Navigation System
- GPS Navigation A-GPS receiver
- Navigation Software & Services TeleNav GPS Navigator,
Google Maps Display
- Type LCD display - Color
- Technology TFT
- Diagonal Size 2.2 in
- Display Resolution 240 x 320 pixels
- Color Depth 18-bit (262000 Colors)
- Multi-language Menu Yes
- Display Languages English,
French,
Spanish - Features Wallpaper
Display (2nd)
- Type Color
Connections
- Connector Type USB
Battery
- Technology Lithium ion
- Capacity 800 mAh
- Run Time Details Talk - up to 306 min,
Standby - up to 335 hour(s) Miscellaneous
- Compliant Standards HAC(Hearing Aid Compatible)
- Included Accessories Power adapter , Power adapter
Accessories
Manufacturer info
- Manufacturer profile
- Browse Samsung products on Shopper.com
-
- Manufacturer:Samsung
- Address:
105 Challenger Road, Ridgefield Park, NJ 07660 - Phone: 1-800-726-7864
- Fax: 1-973-601-6001


