samhorowitz's Full Review: Samsung Katalyst Cell Phone
I received the Samsung Katalyst from T-Mobile as a free upgrade based on contract length etc. I have had a great experience with T-Mobile and had no problem re-upping for two more years.
Design
The phone is slightly larger and heavier than my previous Samsung flip-phone. I actually prefer the heavier weight, it gives the phone a more solid overall feel. It's a slider design, which is obviously geared more toward younger people and probably not quite as professional. I could also do without the chrome accents. The slide mechanism feels pretty solid, though. I am pretty confident that it will hold up for two years. The display is nice and large and seems to be of a pretty good quality--especially for something I didn't pay any money for.
"Extras"
The phone has bluetooth, but my headset doesn't work too well so I can't vouch for how well bluetooth calls work. My wife says her phone and headset do a great job. I have heard that the bluetooth feature is scaled-back and that file sharing is disabled, but have not tested that feature.
The camera is average, no flash. If I had wanted a better camera, I would have bought a camera.
Megatones and polyphonic ringtones are generic, but there is a nice variety available for download if you're into that kind of thing.
Cellular Calls
I get good signal everywhere that T-Mobile says they have coverage. I don't drop many calls and since most of my calls are to other cellular customers you never know whose phone was at fault. Volume is just fine and I rarely have it turned all the way up.
Making calls is nice and easy and I find the interface pretty intuitive. I like that the address book is really a lite contact manager and allows you to group multiple numbers under each name.
T-Mobile Hotspot@Home Calls
Until now, features-wise this phone doesn't offer a compelling reason to go buy it. The key is the Hotspot@Home feature offered by T-Mobile. Essentially it allows you to connect to an 802.11 wi-fi network to make and receive phone calls in lieu of using a cellular tower. By default, it uses your plan minutes the same as it would over-the-tower, but T-mobile offers various plan add-ons that allow for unlimited wi-fi minutes. The phone is able to connect to any T-Mobile Hotspot (airports, what they used to offer at Starbucks, etc.). You cannot surf the web over your wi-fi connection and unlimited calling from a Hotspot does not include text/picture messaging.
My office at work is located in an interior room of an hold house surrounded by trees. It's difficult to get good cell reception in that particular room, but now I just connect to our wireless router. My wife and I are moving in a couple of months, and this guarantees that we'll have good coverage at home--even if the nearest cell tower offers weak a weak signal. Since we don't have a landline phone, this is extremely important to us.
We use WEP encryption at work and WPA2 at home, and it handles both easily. The phone automatically connects to saved networks as long as they offer a better signal strength than the nearest tower, but you can force it to connect to the wi-fi even when a good tower is available. If you place a call while on wi-fi and walk away, it transitions to the tower almost seamlessly (there is a slight skipping in the conversation, less than a half of a second for me most of the time). The reverse is true. I'm not precisely sure how T-Mobile calculates airtime usage in these cases, however.
I am told that calls placed over the wi-fi network sound BETTER than a typical cellular phone call... more along the lines of digital home phone service. The sound quality on the handset is very good for these calls, I cannot tell a difference between tower and router calls.
Battery
I had heard that early adopters saw significantly reduced battery lives when using the wi-fi calling feature. I experienced nothing of the sort, essentially the same battery life with or without wi-fi. I don't have a test lab or anything, that's just my experience. I get about five hours of combined wi-fi and cellular talk time, which is what the manufacturer's spec is I believe.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy
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