Review for Samsung Focus 2 From AT&T

 

Samsung Focus 2

The Samsung Focus 2 ($49. ninety nine with two-year contract) is Samsung's first home windows cellphone with 4G LTE.  It's a follow-up to the Samsung Focus S ($99. 99, three. 5 stars) and smaller Focus Flash ($49. 99, three. 5 stars), two of the extra well-liked cell telephones to grace Microsoft's newest cellular platform.  however moderately than advance the design in any way, Samsung seems to have fused the 2 together, rounded the perimeters off, and known as it a day.  It's a high-quality choice, however there are definitely extra tempting choices.Here's more about Samsung Focus 2.

Samsung Focus 2 Design, Screen, and name Quality

The Focus 2 is actually a bit of white shiny plastic, albeit with a chrome accent band round the perimeters and a glass display screen.  It's simply four-tenths of an inch thick, and it weighs four. three ounces, which is on the skinny and mildweight facet for a telephone with these specs.  It feels fairly good in hand, contemplating it's fabricated from plastic and never a classier substance.  The bundled black USB cable and energy adapter look a bit odd when plugged into an all-white telephone.

The 4-inch, 800-by-480-pixel tremendous AMOLED display is customary fare for home windows telephones.  It seems to be sharp and colorful, with deep blacks, good brightness, and decent-if-not-spectacular viewing angles.  Three brightly lit contact buttons sit beneath the display.  Typing on the on-screen QWERTY keyboard is simple and fast, and that i nonetheless love the little key click on sound on home windows telephones.

the main focus 2 is a quad-band EDGE (850/900/1800/1900 MHz), tri-band HSPA+ 21 (850/1900/2100 MHz), and single-band LTE (700MHz) gadget with 802. 11b/g/n Wi-Fi.  right here in ny City, LTE speeds had been on the low aspect of excellent in our tests, averaging eight to 10Mbps down and 1. three to 1. 6Mbps up.

name high quality was blended.  Voices sounded tremendous within the earpiece, with lots of obtainable acquire and a sharp, shiny tone.  Transmissions via the mic had been much less clear, though, and sounded excessively computerized.  That said, the telephone did a pleasant job of suppressing exterior sounds on a loud avenue.  Reception was strong.  Calls sounded high-quality by a Jawbone period Bluetooth headset ($129, four stars), and voice dialing labored completely.  The speakerphone is sort of loud and simply usable outdoors, though it sounds a tad harsh.  Battery life was high quality at 6 hours and 10 minutes of speak time.

Samsung Focus 2 Hardware, Apps, and Multimedia

Underneath the hood, you'll discover a single-core Qualcomm MSM8255 1. 4GHz processor and 512MB RAM.  As a correct home windows telephone 7. 5 (Mango) handset, the main target 2 ought to have no downside working any of the 80,000+ third-party apps within the home windows market.  Unfortunately, Microsoft has left it unclear whether or not all telephones will get upgrades to home windows telephone eight (Apollo) later this yr.

Like all home windows Phones, the main target 2 is enjoyable to use, with its sliding tile interface, clean animations, and clearly labeled icons.  Desktop webpages seemed sharp in web Explorer in our tests, however there's no approach to pressure WebKit pages to look the approach they do mechanically on Android telephones and iPhones—you both get archaic WAP or the total desktop website.  AT&T preloads its ordinary bloatware, together with the U-verse cellular television app, and AT&T Navigator, which delivers voice-enabled turn-by-turn GPS instructions and real-time site visitors alerts for $9. ninety nine monthly.

There's 6. 18GB of free inner storage and no reminiscence card slot.  that would get somewhat cramped after some time.  A standard-size three. 5mm headcellphone jack sits on the highest fringe of the cellphone.  Music tracks sounded clear via Plantronics BackBeat Go Bluetooth headphones ($99. 99, four stars), and the inventory home windows cellphone music participant is a pleasure to make use of.  MP4 and DivX movies performed easily in full display screen mode, however one H. 264 check file i take advantage of stuttered extra typically than typical.  There's no Xvid assist.  I had no drawback transferring music and movies between the cellphone and my Lenovo laptop computer utilizing Zune software, apart from a slight driver hiccup throughout the preliminary set up.

Samsung Focus 2 digicam and Conclusions

The 5-megapixel digicam gives 720p audio recording, and consists of an LED flash.  There's additionally a front-facing VGA digital camera for video chats.  take a look at pictures appeared superb for this class of digital camera.  outside check photographs have been colorful, however the sky grew to become all white.  Indoor pictures lacked sharpness, although.  Recorded 1280-by-720-pixel (720p) and 640-by-480-pixel (VGA) movies appeared sharp and clean at 30 frames per second.  There's no picture stabilization, however the main target 2 adjusts to altering lighting extra easily than andifferent telephones I've examined.

the main focus 2's largest downside is Nokia—specifically, the stellar Lumia 900 ($49. 99, four stars), a home windows telephone with a bigger and extra vibrant screen, 16GB of inside storage, and a slimmer and classier design, all for a similar worth because the main target 2.  We're additionally extra assured Microsoft will ship an Apollo replace to the Lumia 900, given the company's tight relationship with Nokia.

when you have extra cash to spend and aren't dedicated to home windows Phone, our present Editors' alternative on AT&T is the HTC One X ($199. 99, four. 5 stars), which presents quicker LTE speeds, a dual-core processor, a stunning four. 7-inch high-definition display, and the most recent model of Android, though it's a considerably bigger telephone.  Finally, for those who need one thing small however powerful, the Apple iPhone 4S ($199. 99, four stars) has the most effective multimedia and third-party apps you may get, though it lacks LTE information speeds and has a smaller (if sharper) three. 5-inch display.  each the iPhone and One X supply 1080p video recording and have superior cameras too.

Benchmarks

Continuous discuss time: 6 hours 10 minutes

Samsung Focus 2 Pictures Below.

Posted in: ATandT