Tech Savvy Mama

Parenting in the Digital Age

Samsung Focus Windows Phone 7: Intuitive, compact, nicely priced phone (w. giveaway)

By

If you’re looking for a new smartphone that is easy to use, right from the box, the Samsung Focus from AT&T running Windows Phone 7 is a great choice.

This skinny compact phone has a beautiful screen that feels good in your hand and is the lightest and thinnest of the Windows Phone 7 devices.

 
The clean uncluttered interface demonstrates that Microsoft has done their homework. Instead of shoe-horning XP or Windows 7 into a phone, they’ve come up with an entirely new interface designed for a mobile phone. Despite being new, it feels familiar to iPhone and Android users.

Navigation

 
It’s always nice to be able to pick up a phone and be able to get the hang of it right out of the box. The Windows 7 Phone seems was quite intuitive from the start thanks to many nice features.
 
The “start screen” features different postage-stamp icons/widgets called live tiles. The icons are direct links to applications, but the “live tile” widgets give information directly on the main screen. These include icons for a calendar, a Gmail icon with unread mail count, voicemail status, number of unread SMS messages, and an address book icon that displays a changing collage of friends’ Facebook avatars.

Windows Phone 7 Start Screen
In addition to the home screen with the tiles and icons, swipe to the left and get to an alphabetical menu of all your apps. This is where to go when running apps that aren’t on the home screen, change settings, etc. Swipe up and down to scroll though the menu. The user-interface is speedy and the scrolling is quite smooth.
 
The bottom of the phone has 3 permanent buttons. They are “go back”, a Windows icon to take you to the Start Screen, and a Search button that takes you to a Bing search screen. That’s one less button than Android phones that typically also have a “menu” button. But it’s 2 more buttons than Apple’s minimalist approach on the iPhone. I noticed that on some screens lacked a “no” or  “cancel” button. For faster navigation, use the “go-back” button on the bottom of the phone.

Screen Customization

 
Blue tiles on
start screen

The phone came with a white background and lime green accent color. When it seems that almost everyone is using black, the change to a white background is rather refreshing.  The screens flip away in pieces when starting apps or making selections from menus. It’s a neat effect that has been novel during the two months of testing but one can’t help wonder if this gets old after awhile.

 
In the theme settings screen, the phone indicates the white background will use more battery- probably because of the need to light it. For those who want to conserve battery life, it’s easy to switch the phone to more traditional black with white text if so inclined.  It’s also possible to change the colors of the tiles on the start screen from red, green, blue, to orange.

Syncing Email, Contacts, and Calendars

I set the phone up to sync with Gmail, Facebook, and a corporate Exchange server. It had no problems importing contacts and accessing my mail. It likes to keep your email accounts separate, unlike some systems such as Motorola’s “MotoBlur” which promised a universal inbox.  Personally, I like seeing Gmail under one icon and corporate email under another one.  Some phones give you both options. Windows 7 phone seems to keep them all separate. Hotmail is an icon, as is Outlook and Gmail.
 
An interesting feature of the phone is the contact list, called “People”. The address book entries contain pictures that are automatically synced from your online accounts (your email, Facebook account, and/or your corporate Exchange server). When you pull up a friend in the address book, you immediately see their picture and latest Facebook status. The normal contact info like mobile number, home number, email, and even birthday is contained below. One click on the person’s address will plot it for you on the map.  

Windows Phone 7 People feature
I synced the calendar with Exchange and it immediately pulled up a calendar from my work account. Unlike one of my Android pet peeves, Windows Phone 7 realized that a meeting location of “800-555-1212” is a phone number, not a map location. Unlike the Samsung Captivate, the Windows 7 phone was able to voice dial address book entries synced from a corporate Exchange server. Google’s voice action only wants to search Google contacts. Heaven forbid you might have some _other_ contacts that Google doesn’t know about!

Camera

The Samsung Focus includes a 5 megapixel camera with a flash. It also records 720p HD video. Users with older smartphones will be amazed at how much better the cameras on phones have gotten. The camera takes clear pictures. When taking pictures of light colored things, it seemed there was a red cloud in the middle of the pictures. Strange.

When a picture is taken, it can be shared immediately from the screen, eliminating extra navigational steps like on most other phones.   There’s also a dedicated camera button that can be used even when the phone is locked.

Windows Phone 7 Pictures Hub

 

Voice Dialing

I have always been a big fan of voice dialing on phones. Some phone vendors haven’t taken this seriously, and others are starting to catch on. Ten years ago, you had to record a name for each person manually.  Five years ago, you didn’t have to record the name, but your phone would sit there thinking about whether to call “Domino’s Pizza or “Dominic in Palo Alto.” 


The new fad is that the phone sends your voice up to the Internet where the brainpower of an entire datacenter can think about the answer and get back to you with, thankfully, the right answer. For Microsoft, it’s “powered by TellMe”, a leader in voice recognition software, and company Microsoft acquired a few years ago. They are the ones who run the 800 directory listing service. So rest assured, you’re dealing with commercial-quality speech recognition here.

Apps

The phone has an App store for downloading new apps. Two big apps that come with the phone are Microsoft Office and Netflix.  

Other apps that are necessities include:
Twitter app
  • Twitter and Facebook because a busy social media mom on the go can’t ever be out of touch with her networks
  • WordPress to manage content on sites like MyBlogalicious and ChicaLogic so I can be sure that new content is always being loaded
  • The Weather Channel for helping me plan our pool trips around the day’s thunderstorms
  • Apps for the kids that help them learn wherever we may be and keep them entertained during unexpected long waits.  My phone came preloaded with Smarty Sharky ($1.29— math for ages 3-5), Flashcards (free — interactive way to review all kinds of content), Math 4 Kids (free—math puzzles that make it fun to learn basic concepts), and Giggle Pad (free— interactive puzzle game containing songs, colors, sounds, shapes, and even fireworks).

Other Features

If you set a pin to lock your phone, the phone unlocks immediately after you type the password. You don’t have to hit “enter” like every other phone I’ve ever seen. Nice touch.
 

The home screen is fully customizable as are the ringtones. I found it funny that the volume was adjustable from 0 to 30. I wonder how much louder 27 is versus 25?  From the volume menu, you can quickly put the phone into vibrate mode. There didn’t seem to be a shortcut for enabling/disabling GPS, Bluetooth or Airplane mode. For many people, that’s probably not an issue. Overall, the number of changeable settings and options seems to be on the low side. The phone seems to fall between Android (fully customizable) and the iPhone (exactly the way Steve Jobs wants it).

 

Summary

The phone ran flawlessly and was quite responsive with no crashes or errors. Whether or not you’ve looked at Windows phones in the past, Windows Phone 7 is definitely worth checking out.  

 
The Samsung Focus is currently available from AT&T stores or online for $49.00 with a two year contract making it a very nice price for a fully featured smartphone.  Regular price appears to be $99 with a two year contract.

GIVEAWAY: Win a Samsung Focus Windows Phone 7 courtesy of Microsoft! Please note that this giveaway is for the device only and does not come with AT&T service.  AT&T customers can most likely use their SIM card from their current service plan but are encouraged to check with AT&T.

TO ENTER:  Leave a comment about your biggest pet peeve about your current smartphone.  Include your email or Twitter handle in your comment to be eligible to win.  Comments must be left before Sunday, July 10 at 12:00 EST.  


For extra entries, complete the above and do any of the following:
  • Tweet this daily and leave a comment with the link to your tweet: Samsung Focus @WindowsPhone 7 review & #giveaway on @TechSavvyMama! I entered 2 win here: www.TechSavvyMama.com
  • Subscribe to this blog via email and tell me you’ve done so below
  • Post the Tech Savvy Mama badge on your site and leave a link to your blog in your comment.  Here is the badge HTML: 

Fine print: Eligible comments for this giveaway must be received by Sunday, July 10 at 12:00 pm EST. Winner will selected by Random.org and contacted via email or DMed on Twitter. Winner has 24 hours to respond with a US shipping address and their phone number or another winner will be selected.  Winner acknowledges that the Samsung Focus Windows Phone 7 giveaway is for the device only and no service is part of the giveaway.  Leticia- Tech Savvy Mama and Microsoft are not responsible for items lost, damaged, or delayed during shipping.

 
Microsoft provided a Samsung Focus Windows Phone 7 and a SIM card with AT&T service for review purposes.  No compensation was received for this post or for hosting this giveaway.  All opinions are my own.  Images courtesy of Microsoft.

Thanks for reading Tech Savvy Mama through your feed!

Original post by Tech Savvy Mama
©2012

Reader Interactions

Comments

  18. ewffan says

    My biggest pet peeve with my phone is when I go to grab my phone somehow the icons move around. Really bugs me.
    sylivys at hotmail dot com

  24. bettycd says

    My kids both have Androids and love them. My pet peeve is that my phone is not ‘smart’. I’d love to enter the smartphone set.
    @bettycd

  32. Omega Doom (Alan) says

    omegadoom1 at gmail dot com

    Actually, I don’t own a smartphone. Yeah, I need to get with the times. I suppose when I get one, I hope the touchscreen is very responsive. I’ve read reviews about some phones having screens that would stick or slow to respond to users. I guess that would be a future pet peeve? 🙂

  50. Sharon says

    my biggest complaint about “my” smartphone is that I haven;t taken the plunge yet. I am still using a Razr. It would be nice to upgrade.

  55. justicecw says

    No petpeeve to share bc I have never had a smartphone. Actually I have no cell at all right now, gave mine to DH because he lost his. Funny story…he ended up finding it a couple weeks later buried in the garden. It no longer work though…lol! Thanks for the chance, justicecw@hotmail.com

  83. americanelephant says

    My biggest pet peeve is that I dont have a smartphone at all, and particularly that I dont have a Windows Phone 7 because I think the OS is sooo gorgeous, intuitive, and beautifully designed that it blows iphone & android out of the water!

    And I know that complimenting it wont make me any more likely to win, so you know this is just sincere fan-dom.

    Apple & Google basically tried to take a desktop/laptop interface, made for 15″ and bigger screens, and CRAM it into a phone — while WP7 were the only ones who realized a smartphone needs an OS designed especially FOR a phone sized screen. The resulting design is so gorgeous it makes me giddy, and puts all others to shame.

    In short: LOVE!

    @AmericnElephant on Twitter
    AElephants@live.com

  136. Anonymous says

    Oh wow! What an exciting giveaway… I could certainly use a new phone. My current smart phone is about to die, with so many issues I couldn’t even list them all. The most tiring problem is that my phone always says that I have new messages even though I have already read them.

    -Heidi

    writeme at heidimail dot com

  138. Anonymous says

    Since everybody else said battery life (Nanotechnology already has some solutions to that problem. Unfortunately, consumer technology lags by at least 10 years.), I will say the touch screen keyboard is my biggest pet peeve.

    AnonymousBlogComment@hotmail.com

  142. Drennan says

    My biggest pet peeve about my smartphone is that I don’t have one. I hope that counts!

    @Butt_head on twitter

  145. Drennan says

    Oops, I think I left my handle off that last post. I followed @TechSavvyMama on Twitter.

    @Butt_Head

  197. Anonymous says

    Are you ever going to actually follow through and give this phone away? We’ve been waiting over 2 1/2 months since the contest ended.