Samsung Focus S review

The deluge of Mango devices isn’t over yet. Hot at the heels of the Lumia 800 , the Titan , Radar and the wallet-friendly Focus Flash comes the Samsung Focus S . There is not a variety of mystery to Sammy’s flagship Windows Phone 7.5 handset. It isn’t terribly different from lots of its cousins packing Microsoft’s mobile OS and, rather than size, there doesn’t appear anything separating it from its little brother, the Flash. What, then — with the exception of a couple of Galaxy S design touches — does the Flash offer your high-end smartphone dollar? And are those differentiators enough to make it the clear choice when purchasing for WP7 device — especially when considering the $150 premium AT&T is looking for, over the surprisingly satisfying Flash. Head on past the break to determine.

Hardware

If you have ever held a Galaxy S II it’s essential immediately feel at home with the point of interest S. They’re both cut from a similar cloth (or sheet of plastic, because it were). The bigger of Samsung’s Windows Phone 7 devices is a completely synthetic affair. The sides of the handset are the identical glossy black polymer that has come to define the Korean manufacturer’s products over the past few years. Thankfully, the corporate has continued its recent trend of using textured, matte battery plates that, while not any further robust than their high-sheen counterparts, feel quite a lot nicer. That pleasant feeling disappears the instant it’s essential remove that rear covering, however. The seemingly flimsy plastic is equal to that found at the GSII. It’s proven fairly resilient, however it bends dramatically as you pry it from the rear by sliding your fingernail underneath the head right-hand corner.

At the left side of the device is the amount rocker, a comparatively clicky bar that does not appear to travel much in either direction. Moving to the best edge you can find the facility button and the dedicated, dual-stage camera key that positively runs circles around that at the Flash. Though the initial press to focus could stand to place up a bit more resistance, the shutter stage provides just the correct quantity of feedback without causing you to jostle the telephone. Around back you will discover the first camera — an eight megapixel affair with an LED flash — while front face houses a 1.3MP cam. You’ve also got a couple of ports at the Focus S, a three.5mm headphone jack along the pinnacle and the all-important micro-USB connector along the ground.

The 4.3-inch 2 Super AMOLED Plus 2 display here’s the identical exact panel you could find on a few of its 3 Galaxy S II 3 cousins and it’s every piece as gorgeous. The blacks are so deep they appear to soak up all nearby light and matter. And the colours are so vivid the hues can only be described as surreal. Even at its lowest brightness setting the screen is perfectly visible in direct sunlight and, when cranked to the max, not even the foremost glaring of desert days will be enough to scrub this panel out. Sure, you are able to complain that the screen is solely 800 x 480, but with a panel of this caliber you’d just be nitpicking. Metro’s beauty shines through despite its shortcomings within the pixel department and we’re sure many people would gladly trade a couple of lines of resolution to prevent the marginally off-kilter colors of a 4 PenTile 4 matrix. Below the screen are the trio of capacitive buttons which are removed from the worst we’ve ever used, but had similar issues with sensitivity because the Flash — simply brushing your thumb within the general area of the hunt key was enough to launch Bing and interrupt whatever you were doing.

Performance and battery life

Underneath the hood of the focal point S is similar 1.4GHz, single-core Snapdragon and 512MB of RAM present in the point of interest Flash and Nokia’s Lumia 800 — so don’t expect any performance miracles. That being said, it isn’t like there’s anything wrong with how Mango hums along on those devices. WP7 simply doesn’t need the facility of twin-core at this stage of the sport to stick responsive. When put to the test using WP Bench the point of interest S averaged 91.54, putting it right according to Flash which pulled a 92.15 and well just before the Lumia 800 which scored an 86. It couldn’t quite keep pace with the additional 100MHz of the Titan though, which hit 96. SunSpider didn’t ensue any surprises either. The 6,914ms was, again, only a slightly behind its little brother, the Flash, which finished the benchmark in 6,842ms. That was enough to maintain it prior to the Lumia though, which took took an incredibly long 7,200ms at the same test.

	Focus S	Lumia 800	Titan	Focus Flash
WP Bench	91.54	86	96	92.15
Battery drain	4:24	2:40	3:00	3:55
SunSpider	6,914	7,200	3,500	6,842

The 1,650mAh battery isn’t quite as beefy because the packs present in another handsets within the $200 budget, nevertheless it managed to outlive a whole day of pretty heavy usage without batting a watch. We started one morning with the pack charged to the brim and, after 12 hours of texting, emailing, pulling up driving directions and playing a couple of YouTube clips, we still had 50 percent left. Sticking with a single core may not earn Windows Phones any bragging rights inside the performance department, but it surely helps keep them chugging away through the day. Our less-than-scientific testing was right in keeping with what the WP Bench battery drain test turned up too. The point of interest S took a blinding four hours and 24 minutes to kick the bucket, topping the Lumia 800 and Titan by well over an hour, or even besting its little brother by half-hour.

Camera

The most camera at the Focus S is an 8 megapixel joint with a lone LED performing flash duties. Saying that any phone takes acceptable photos outside within the daylight must be a forgone conclusion at this point, but Sammy’s shooter is barely a piece above average. Colors are crisp and just saturated enough, while offering lots of detail with little or no noise. Shots indoors with tons of natural light streaming during the windows were equally good — we wouldn’t blow them as much as poster size, but they’re greater than acceptable as casual snapshots. The camera even took surprisingly good macro pics, though not quite nearly as good because the 5 Droid RAZR 5 . Even at night images were quite crisp with decent color, though there’s some noise inside the shadows, and the identical goes for shots indoors under artificial lighting. We wouldn’t hang the shots on a gallery wall, but we were satisfied with their quality. As with its little brother, though, the flash was borderline useless — washing out anything within the foreground and casting the background into almost complete darkness. What’s strange is, that is the identical, much-lauded camera found at the Galaxy S II, yet we did not have this issue with that handset. An identical is right of the Lumia 800 and it’s practically identical forebearer, the 6 N9 6 , which leads us to believe Microsoft’s camera app isn’t quite as much as snuff.

Video capture was equally impressive. Sure, there has been lots of shaking (image stabilization can be a welcome feature here), but video was crisp and bright. That despite getting the 30-second 720p clip we captured coming in at just 54MB. Perhaps the most important surprise though, was the audio. In spite of a reasonably steady flow of cars and a mild breeze every word said from behind the camera was clear and perfectly audible.

Up to the camera impressed us, perhaps our favourite feature was the dedicated shutter button. It is a dual-stage key — a half press engages the autofocus, while depressing it completely snaps a photograph. The autofocus is slightly slow and inaccurate (especially under artificial light), however the it’s hardly an insurmountable obstacle. The button itself is nearly perfect in execution. It puts up just the correct amount of resistance, and depresses with a mild click. If Samsung put this on every handset (this exact button, not the overly recessed one at the Flash), it may become our favourite handset maker ever.

Software

There is not much new or exciting to assert in regards to the Focus S at the software front. It is a 3 Mango 3 device with the identical minimally intrusive choice of uninstallable carrier and manufacturer apps we saw at the Focus Flash. Sure, it is a bit annoying the 1st time you fan the flames of the device to be greeted by pretty healthy collection of orange tiles (which stand out lots amongst the default blue) that launch a slightly uncompelling collection of AT&T branded apps, but they’re easily dismissed. We were happy to peer that internet sharing was enabled at the Focus S, though, which lets you quickly and simply turn the handset right into a mobile hotspot for as much as five devices. You should keep your charger with you in case you plan to apply the feature for any significant amount of time, however it was simple to establish and we had no issues connecting to the handset.

Wrap-up

Honestly, we have no major complaints concerning the Samsung Focus S, but there wasn’t much that wowed us either. If you are a Windows Phone 7 fan you can find plenty to love in regards to the device. Mango hums along nicely and the Super AMOLED Plus display, despite its shortcomings within the pixel density department, perfectly highlights the stark fantastic thing about Microsoft’s mobile OS. There’s also an amazing camera with a dedicated dual-stage button and the battery life borders on epic. But, none of that changes the truth that we came away feeling underwhelmed. The build quality is mediocre at best and there will not be anything distinguishing in regards to the handset that may make us definitively say here is the Windows Phone to get. Greater than anything, though, our disappointment probably stems from the value. At $200 on a two-year contract we think a high-end experience that fits the high-end price and the main focus S simply doesn’t deliver that. Making it even tougher to recommend, is the truth that the 4 Titan might be landing on AT&T 4 any day now delivering a more robust build, faster performance and a bigger screen for a similar wad of money. The point of interest S isn’t a foul phone — removed from it — but it surely just doesn’t feel worthy of its flagship-like price ticket.

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This post is tagged: cut from the same cloth, differentiators, flagship windows, hot on the heels, korean manufacturer