Even though we've seen a torrent of Windows Phone 7 devices, we couldn't leave you hanging on a review of the Samsung Focus. In the last few days, a flurry of new Microsoft-powered devices have hit the market, boasting slight differences, but all looking and acting largely the same. We've taken a deep dive on the operating system itself, the Omnia 7, Optimus 7, Mozart, HD7, and Surround (phew!) -- now it's time to focus on the, er... Focus. The device itself has a lot in common with its European brother, the Omnia 7, boasting the same 4-inch Super AMOLED display, 8GB of internal storage, 1GHz CPU, and 5 megapixel camera. The device will soon go on sale in America for $199.99 on AT&T's network -- in fact, it's the only Windows Phone 7 device you'll be able to buy on the network when they go public on November 8th. But is it really worth your hard earned cash when there are so many other options in the market? Read on for the full Engadget review to find out!
Update: Just a note, the HD7 will also be available (for T-Mobile) on November 8th and we've updated the above information to reflect that.
Update 2: We had the numbers wrong on the RAM / ROM. It's 512MB and 1GB, respectively.
This review is primarily of the Samsung Focus hardware. Check out our full review of Windows Phone 7 for our thoughts on the OS.
The Focus is the thinnest WP7 phone that exists right now, and it's kind of the first thing you notice. The device measures 4.9 inches by 2.53 inches, and is a svelte 0.39 inches in thickness. It's also surprisingly light, weighing in at just over 4 ounces. That lightness, coupled with the build materials here (pretty much all plastic) give the phone a slightly cheaper feel than its AT&T counterpart, the Surround. Compared to phones like the G2 or iPhone 4, it definitely comes off as somewhat chintzy. In a way, its closest cousin is the Fascinate, which makes sense since the Focus and Omnia 7 are basically Galaxy S phones with Windows Phone 7 onboard.
On the front of the phone is that big 480 x 800 capacitive display with three capacitive buttons below (back, home, and search). Around the right side of the phone is a two step camera button and power / sleep button, up top is the headphone jack and MicroUSB port, and on the left side you'll find the volume rocker. The phone has kind of a slick quasi-metal bezel that runs around the upper portion of the seams, almost giving it a BlackBerry-ish vibe.
Compared to its brother, the Omnia 7, the Focus certainly seems lacking, and it's difficult to understand why Samsung didn't bring the solid, metal construction of the European device to US shores. All told, while the design of the handset might be reasonably handsome, it's not especially high-end. In fact, we're currently having an issue with our review unit where the plastic back isn't fully snapping into one of its fastener slots properly -- which would be extremely annoying if we'd just laid out cash for this phone. There's something lazy about the look and feel of the phone that typifies the kind of leveling-out we're seeing with touchscreen-only devices right now.
Inside you've got a 1GHz Snapdragon CPU, 512MB of RAM, 1GB of ROM, and 8GB of flash storage. The screen is Samsung's well-loved Super AMOLED (the same you find in the Galaxy S phones), and of course is capacitive multitouch. The device also has that 5 megapixel camera with LED flash, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1, and a GPS chip. We take a little issue with the fact that the device only has 8GB of storage -- Samsung has boasted about the fact that unlike other WP7 devices, the Focus has a microSD slot, but it doesn't exactly work as you'd expect.
One big gripe we have with the Focus is its tiny internal storage capacity. In this day and age, limiting users to 8GB is just not enough. We filled the onboard flash with our first sync, and we think others will have the same experience. Now weirdly, Samsung claims you can actually use the SD slot on this device (something no other OEM's are talking about -- a feature that Microsoft expressly told us would not happen). How that's done, however, ends up being a bit of a mystery.
After some experimentation, we discovered that you could indeed insert a card into the slot, completely wipe your device, and... voila! Extra space. We took our 8GB device to 22GB (well, more like 20) fairly quickly. Why the rest of the Windows Phone devices don't have this feature is a mystery to us. Of course, this is a one way street -- you can't pop the card out without wiping your device, so unless you want to do a lot of restoring, get the biggest card you can afford. One other note, our friend Michael Gartenberg said he had been having issues after adding a card -- we haven't seen any weird behavior, but we're not sure this is entirely supported, either. We'll update if we see anything funky happening.
In case you're wondering about any GPS issues with this device along the lines of troubles folks were having with the Galaxy S line, have no fear. Location services were fast and accurate -- particularly when it came to mapping. Turn-by-turn worked like a charm (see the software selection below), and Bing pulled up our location quickly and accurately.
Finally -- that display. The screen on the Focus is the same Super AMOLED you've seen on all of the company's recent smartphones, and it does look stunning. As with other OLED screens, we find the colors to be fairly oversaturated, but that doesn't necessarily detract from the crispness and clearness of the Focus' display. Text and images just pop like crazy here, and even when zooming around or playing fast-paced games, the screen always looks tremendously sharp. Daylight viewing was fairly good here as well, though it's not quite as bright as LCD competitors we've tested. We'd love to see Samsung work out the color balance issue, but there's nothing here that's a deal breaker.
We were a bit worried about how the Focus would fare when it came to battery life -- Windows Phone 7 does quite a bit of pushing and pulling of data over the network (like those SkyDrive photo syncs). Luckily, in our testing the device actually came out looking pretty good, though it wasn't completely without issue. On heavy days of calling, emailing, gaming, and browsing, we were able to make it into the evening without needing a charge -- but there's no way you're getting away without plugging this phone in while you sleep. The device made it through most of our heavy days, but once it dips into the danger zone of 10-15 percent battery life, you need to get it to some power ASAP, as it seems to drain quickly when it comes to the end of its juice. Overall, battery life was good but not great -- we're sure Microsoft is still putting efforts into optimization, but we're glad that at least right now the Focus has a substantial 1500mAh unit inside.
The audio quality on the Focus is frighteningly good. For up-to-the-ear phone calls, the earpiece was loud and crystal clear, and the speakerphone was not only great for voice calls, but made listening to music from the phone nearly tolerable. Both the earpiece and speaker had an even quality that made long calls -- even at pretty loud levels -- reasonably pleasant.
Calls came through loud and clear, and in our testing we didn't have many issues with drops or interference.
The Focus has an excellent, excellent camera. In fact, given its relative ease of use, we were surprised with how good our results were. As with lots of the other Windows Phone 7 devices, the camera software is no frills but super fast, and getting into the application and snapping pictures is an extremely breezy affair. As we said before, the camera has a 5 megapixel sensor with an auto focus lens. We were able to get pretty tight macro shots, and focusing happens fairly painlessly using the two-step, dedicated camera button. Low light settings gave us a little more trouble when trying to capture sans flash, but we were able to get some nice shots if we kept our hands steady.
On the video front, the Focus is definitely capable of shooting some quality 720p clips. We thought that the 24fps video on the device looked quite sharp next to its nearest neighbors, and even though there are certainly stability issues when walking and shooting, the Focus lends a certain filmic quality to its video that we really liked. We did experience what looked like a drop in frame rate while grabbing some video (you can see in the video below), but it wasn't consistent (though it was troubling). Luckily, unlike our experience with the Omnia 7, the Focus didn't seem to step the aperture quite as severely when moving between light ranges.
As we said in the intro, this is really a review of the hardware -- look at our full Windows Phone 7 review to see what the software is all about. While Samsung didn't do much in the way of customization, the company does include its "Now" application which consists of three panels with weather, news, and stock information. It's actually one of the better designed WP7 apps we've seen, though it doesn't utilize a live tile, which seems like a total no-brainer for something like this. Also, it didn't seem to update on its own, forcing a manual refresh each time we opened it.
Since this is an AT&T device, it's also loaded with some of the carrier's apps. Normally that would be a bad thing, but the company has actually been fairly responsible in this area, providing at least a couple of applications that add real utility to the phone.
The first of those apps is AT&T Navigator, which is powered by TeleNav's software. As a pure GPS app, we thought this was pretty outstanding on the phone. It provides traffic info and has a clean, uncluttered interface that makes getting where you need to go straightforward. Compared to something like TomTom's mobile app for the iPhone, this is light years ahead in ease of use. There are a couple of nagging issues, though. Firstly, when you're using the nav in landscape mode, you can't use any of the settings or route controls -- you have to turn the device into portrait mode. That's fine if you're out for a walk, but in a car (if you've got the thing in a mount), that's kind of a pain. Also, if you need to leave the app for any reason while you're navigating, when you reopen and resume your trip, it has to recalculate the route each time.
AT&T also bundled its Uverse app here, but we didn't get much of a chance to see how it works as it kept telling us we couldn't download or stream any video, instead flashing up an error message that reads "fully featured application coming soon." We're going to assume that AT&T hasn't enabled the service and just wait for the November 8th launch to see if anything changes.
Other than that, it's pretty much business as usual here. There aren't any major tweaks to any parts of the OS that will seem wildly different or unfamiliar to anyone who's seen one of the other Windows Phone 7 handsets. And that's the way Microsoft wants it.
The Focus is kind of the everyman of the Windows Phone 7 line. It doesn't really have any fancy features and isn't especially stylish... but it gets the job done. If you're in the market for a WP7 handset, here in America you don't have a huge amount of options. We prefer the Focus over the Surround (for you AT&T buyers), but there isn't such a wide amount of differences between the two that either one would be a bad choice. The Focus is thinner and sleeker to some extent, though its plasticky build leaves a lot to be desired. Still, it's a solid, comfortable phone that works exactly as you'd expect, and if you're the photo snapping type, you'll be pleasantly surprised by its prowess in that area. At the end of the day, a lot of people will find that the Focus hits the sweet spot -- for us, it just slightly misses the mark.
Update: Just a note, the HD7 will also be available (for T-Mobile) on November 8th and we've updated the above information to reflect that.
Update 2: We had the numbers wrong on the RAM / ROM. It's 512MB and 1GB, respectively.
This review is primarily of the Samsung Focus hardware. Check out our full review of Windows Phone 7 for our thoughts on the OS.
Hardware
On the front of the phone is that big 480 x 800 capacitive display with three capacitive buttons below (back, home, and search). Around the right side of the phone is a two step camera button and power / sleep button, up top is the headphone jack and MicroUSB port, and on the left side you'll find the volume rocker. The phone has kind of a slick quasi-metal bezel that runs around the upper portion of the seams, almost giving it a BlackBerry-ish vibe.
Compared to its brother, the Omnia 7, the Focus certainly seems lacking, and it's difficult to understand why Samsung didn't bring the solid, metal construction of the European device to US shores. All told, while the design of the handset might be reasonably handsome, it's not especially high-end. In fact, we're currently having an issue with our review unit where the plastic back isn't fully snapping into one of its fastener slots properly -- which would be extremely annoying if we'd just laid out cash for this phone. There's something lazy about the look and feel of the phone that typifies the kind of leveling-out we're seeing with touchscreen-only devices right now.
Internals / Storage / Display
One big gripe we have with the Focus is its tiny internal storage capacity. In this day and age, limiting users to 8GB is just not enough. We filled the onboard flash with our first sync, and we think others will have the same experience. Now weirdly, Samsung claims you can actually use the SD slot on this device (something no other OEM's are talking about -- a feature that Microsoft expressly told us would not happen). How that's done, however, ends up being a bit of a mystery.
After some experimentation, we discovered that you could indeed insert a card into the slot, completely wipe your device, and... voila! Extra space. We took our 8GB device to 22GB (well, more like 20) fairly quickly. Why the rest of the Windows Phone devices don't have this feature is a mystery to us. Of course, this is a one way street -- you can't pop the card out without wiping your device, so unless you want to do a lot of restoring, get the biggest card you can afford. One other note, our friend Michael Gartenberg said he had been having issues after adding a card -- we haven't seen any weird behavior, but we're not sure this is entirely supported, either. We'll update if we see anything funky happening.
In case you're wondering about any GPS issues with this device along the lines of troubles folks were having with the Galaxy S line, have no fear. Location services were fast and accurate -- particularly when it came to mapping. Turn-by-turn worked like a charm (see the software selection below), and Bing pulled up our location quickly and accurately.
Finally -- that display. The screen on the Focus is the same Super AMOLED you've seen on all of the company's recent smartphones, and it does look stunning. As with other OLED screens, we find the colors to be fairly oversaturated, but that doesn't necessarily detract from the crispness and clearness of the Focus' display. Text and images just pop like crazy here, and even when zooming around or playing fast-paced games, the screen always looks tremendously sharp. Daylight viewing was fairly good here as well, though it's not quite as bright as LCD competitors we've tested. We'd love to see Samsung work out the color balance issue, but there's nothing here that's a deal breaker.
Battery life
We were a bit worried about how the Focus would fare when it came to battery life -- Windows Phone 7 does quite a bit of pushing and pulling of data over the network (like those SkyDrive photo syncs). Luckily, in our testing the device actually came out looking pretty good, though it wasn't completely without issue. On heavy days of calling, emailing, gaming, and browsing, we were able to make it into the evening without needing a charge -- but there's no way you're getting away without plugging this phone in while you sleep. The device made it through most of our heavy days, but once it dips into the danger zone of 10-15 percent battery life, you need to get it to some power ASAP, as it seems to drain quickly when it comes to the end of its juice. Overall, battery life was good but not great -- we're sure Microsoft is still putting efforts into optimization, but we're glad that at least right now the Focus has a substantial 1500mAh unit inside.
Phone / Speakerphone
The audio quality on the Focus is frighteningly good. For up-to-the-ear phone calls, the earpiece was loud and crystal clear, and the speakerphone was not only great for voice calls, but made listening to music from the phone nearly tolerable. Both the earpiece and speaker had an even quality that made long calls -- even at pretty loud levels -- reasonably pleasant.
Calls came through loud and clear, and in our testing we didn't have many issues with drops or interference.
Camera
On the video front, the Focus is definitely capable of shooting some quality 720p clips. We thought that the 24fps video on the device looked quite sharp next to its nearest neighbors, and even though there are certainly stability issues when walking and shooting, the Focus lends a certain filmic quality to its video that we really liked. We did experience what looked like a drop in frame rate while grabbing some video (you can see in the video below), but it wasn't consistent (though it was troubling). Luckily, unlike our experience with the Omnia 7, the Focus didn't seem to step the aperture quite as severely when moving between light ranges.
Software
Since this is an AT&T device, it's also loaded with some of the carrier's apps. Normally that would be a bad thing, but the company has actually been fairly responsible in this area, providing at least a couple of applications that add real utility to the phone.
The first of those apps is AT&T Navigator, which is powered by TeleNav's software. As a pure GPS app, we thought this was pretty outstanding on the phone. It provides traffic info and has a clean, uncluttered interface that makes getting where you need to go straightforward. Compared to something like TomTom's mobile app for the iPhone, this is light years ahead in ease of use. There are a couple of nagging issues, though. Firstly, when you're using the nav in landscape mode, you can't use any of the settings or route controls -- you have to turn the device into portrait mode. That's fine if you're out for a walk, but in a car (if you've got the thing in a mount), that's kind of a pain. Also, if you need to leave the app for any reason while you're navigating, when you reopen and resume your trip, it has to recalculate the route each time.
AT&T also bundled its Uverse app here, but we didn't get much of a chance to see how it works as it kept telling us we couldn't download or stream any video, instead flashing up an error message that reads "fully featured application coming soon." We're going to assume that AT&T hasn't enabled the service and just wait for the November 8th launch to see if anything changes.
Other than that, it's pretty much business as usual here. There aren't any major tweaks to any parts of the OS that will seem wildly different or unfamiliar to anyone who's seen one of the other Windows Phone 7 handsets. And that's the way Microsoft wants it.
Wrap-up
I have an iPhone 3gs and have no real complaints (except I've had it 18 months, it doesn't have a retina display, blah, blah)
ReplyDeleteI spent an hour at Barnes & Noble the other night talking to a guy who has an HTC Surround and I am really impressed with WP7. After doing a lot of reading, I was really leaning towards the Focus, but when I went by my local AT&T store and was comparing the Focus to my iPhone, I noticed that white on the Focus is REALLY dim compared to my iPhone. I found myself repeatedly trying to peel off the screen protector on the Focus and of course it didn’t have one.
I went into settings and set the brightness to High, but it was still very dim compared to my iPhone.
I can’t find anything else about the Focus that I don’t like, WP7 is very cool, colors on the Focus are fabulous, I like the feel of the Focus, but the dim screen is a real deal breaker.
Is there anyway to brighten up the screen, other than the one option in settings?
Is it because of the AMOLED? Vibrant colors at the cost of vibrant white?
Has anyone else noticed this?
PLEASE ANSWER - what is the phone wallpaper in the top (first) photo of the Focus? It looks awesome and I really want it!
ReplyDeleteWhere is the wallpaper on the phone used in this review from? I'm looking for it to use on my phone. Please and thank you.
ReplyDeleteBe careful when taking a picture or video or even when handling the device when talking! You might turn it off! This device was designed by a 5 years old kid. No ergonomics, period.
ReplyDeletedont understand y people fighting here...
ReplyDeleteEven if I tell "Apple fans" about bad side of iOS, they do not even listen me and say iOS is the BEST.
Even if I tell "Android fans" about bad side of Android, they do not even listen me and say Android is the BEST.
Even if I tell "WP7 fans" about bad side of WP7 OS, they do not even listen me and say WP7 is the BEST.
If you think WP7 is the best, WP7 is the best.
If you think iOS is the best, iOS is the best.
If you think Android is the best, Android is the best.
There is no point you guys fighting here...
just use phones that you like.
They all have pros and cons and you cannot tell which one is that be
Not a bad effort by Samsung. Have had mine for a few days now. No real issues. Would have preferred the on/off switch on top rather than the side. Wish the ringer was louder. Addiding the micro chip is a bit of a hassel. It nneds a battery app, Skype and Flickr apps would be nice. Really glad to be rid of Apple.
ReplyDeleteThey've got a flickr app, though I haven't used it much. As for a skype app, that would be great, the closest thing there is so far is "Voxofon Call Abroad", apparently it can call skype, SIP, and GTalk users for free, but I haven't tried that one out yet.
ReplyDeleteOnly things that bother me about my Focus is that the 3.5mm jack is on the top (I'm used to the Zune HD's 3.5mm, on the bottom), and my camera flash for some reason doesn't work.
It's a gorgeous phone. People who know how to snap the battery cover on, snap the battery cover on. It is no more plasticky than the iPhone. It's 100 times nicer than the Surround, and it makes the LG seem heavy in an unnecessary way. This is by far the very best of the Windows 7 phones and in my capacity as a writer, I've tried all of them.
ReplyDeleteSo there. You guys never cease to amaze me.
I agree that it's a great phone. Although I'm not sure how it's "no more plasticky than the iPhone". Last time I checked, the only plastic on an iPhone 4 is the home button lol :P I guess you're referring to the iPhone 4.
ReplyDeletewow u people are retards and crybabys, androids market IS fragmented...but it isnt a problem!not as much a problem as apple has with the iphone 4,i mean even if everyone has an ''otter box'' it doesn't make up for the fact that apple put out a product that was EXTREMELY flawed. you know, that whole ''bumper'' buisness?and not to mention the big elephant in the room...AT&T! sure where i live at&T is probably the best carrier for signal....but the customer service is a 1 out of 100...all they both have strentghs and weaknesses, but all i gotta say is im going to be just fine with my samsung focus...
ReplyDeleteI just successfully upgraded my focus with a class 4 16gb sandisk micro sd I bought from Best Buy, no issues. Make sure you reset the phone first.
ReplyDeleteDick Schmoekel 2 months ago
ReplyDeleteI got my Samsung Focus yesterday as well. FANTASTIC, super clean set up (out of the box to completely functional and fully working (email, FaceBook, Twitter, Photos, etc, etc.) in less than 15 minutes. Netflix movies look fantastic. Device is super responsive, smooth, fast and clean. We have a winner!! Spread the word!!
Hey I have an iphone 4 got this phone. Dropping the iphone 4. I am amazed at the quality windows mobile 7 is. It just needs multitasking.
ReplyDeleteJust got mine today, its fantastic. Personally I like the lightness of the phone and think that the phone feels really solid despite the fact its plastic, which in the long run doesn't matter because I cover it in a gel casing, just like the one all my iphone buddies cover theirs with, cept mine has a better, larger screen, and much higher quality games. I'd give it a 9/10 and ignore the fact it doesn't display my boba fett avatar on my xbox 360 outfit correctly, surely microsoft will fix that sooner or later.
ReplyDeletePlasticky and cheap are not words I would use to describe this phone. They are words you use to describe a flip phone with unrefined edges and buttons that are shittily constructed and start popping off after 2 weeks of use. Saying that you want a thin phone with metal parts on it doesn't make all that much sense to me. Adding shiny metal phones is what caused the iP4 to have all it's stupid interference problems (yeah yeah I know it's fixed, whatever).
ReplyDeleteMy friend who has had the 3GS for quite some time (with a shit load of problems I might add) played with my phone for 30 seconds and wanted to get one (to be fair I told him the iP4 was the best phone if he was looking to get an upgrade).
I'm either really easy to please or this phone and its OS are a great combination. As with every operating system, it will receive updates to fix the problems people have with this device. No flash is my only complaint, aside from that my experience with this phone has been really intuitive.
I've had my Samsung Focus for one week now, and in my opinion, the phone nor WP7 are ready for primetime.
ReplyDeletePros:
- Superb user experience, great screen control.
- Integration created by Boxes is the best I have encountered to pull all applications together.
- Bright, clear, and eye-catching screen
- Large font and icons were very easy to see
- Integration to Outlook, Google and Yahoo were seamless and reliable
- Best calendar I have used
Cons:
- No message indicator lights, You have to wake the phone continuously to know if you have any calls, message or emails which drains on the battery.
- When receiving a call, you have to swipe the screen to get the option to accept call. Why is it so difficult to actually take a call?
- While on a call more than your set screen time, you have to wake the phone to swipe the screen to end the call.
- Accessing options while on call is very inconvenient.
- Can not control the alarm times. You will get waken up all night with message alarms if you want the phone in the same room.
- Shuts down for no reason. Received "Goodbye" message at least once daily.
- Battery time is unacceptable. 5-6 hours maximum while not using, much less if actually using the unit.
- Why is YouTube loaded if you cant even play most of the videos (no flash)?
- Once connected to bluetooth, you can not send the call back to handset (only options: speaker, mute, hold, add call)
- Landscape only available in some applications (ex. Facebook)
- Very limited applications. The applications that are available are not integrated and must be started (for example GoVoice for Google Voice only provides messages if you open the app and wait to load).
- Not for medium to large hands, the keyboard is very small and the majority of messages needed corrections
- Must use sidebar button to take pictures, which is nearly unusable with a thin phone skin
- The "Windows Certified" microSD card is a bunch of BS, card not swappable and must buy specific models that no one can seem to get a list of.
- Bluetooth will not discover my Jawbone ICON. It work's fine for my Kenwood car stereo.
- "no msg indicator light": that is the case with most smartphones!
ReplyDelete- you have to remember that this only v1 of WP7 and there are a lot of things that can be improved! I'm pretty sure MS is listening very carefully to early users' feedback, and they will address most issues in next update.
- if your phone shuts off by itself, and it only lasts 6 hours, then there's obviously something wrong with your device / battery! have it checked.
- most apps are v1 too, so expect updates too..
- I don't think the keyboard is smaller than that of the iPhone!
- microSD is not swappable by design! MS have stated this from the start. That's why the cards are hidden away on all WP7 phones (except for Samsung)
I just bought this phone and really like it. It has a great display, it's responsive, and the WP7 interface is a nice change from iOS, which was running reeeeeallllly slow on my iPhone 3G.
ReplyDeleteQuestion: Has anyone found a good case for this phone? AT&T wanted to charge me $29.99 for a piece of crap 'Body Glove' case. (I didn't even know that brand was still making products of any kind, much less mobile phone cases).
I'm thinking of getting an Invisible Shield for now, but I'd like something with some shock absorption; any ideas??
Everyone shut up about Android Fragmentation! It's not even close to being Google fault. The reason phones are coming out with older versions is because of the manufacturer either deliberately putting an older version on a phone (Ericsson with X10, X10 Mini, X8), or manufacturer not making the update fast enough (Motorola with Cliq and Backflip). Plus there is a point to the iOS fragmentation claim. Why can't Apple update their products all at the same time, the iPad is still running 3.2 with everything running 4.0/4.1. Also, why can't Apple give all their iOS products all the features of the OS? Jailbroken iPhone 3Gs (Plural 3G not 3G[S]) and 2nd Gen iPod Touchs can "multi task" and use home screen wallpaper's just fine with Apple saying the hardware can't handle it. Go find a forum or a post that talks about this stuff, not a post that has nothing to do with it.
ReplyDeleteThat's the problem with Open source, once it gets released it's like viral. You get mutations of all sorts.
ReplyDeleteno video review segment? come on josh..
ReplyDeleteHmm just got the FOCUS and is there a way to turn off 3g?
ReplyDelete