Mobility Digest » 4G

Interview with Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore & Nokia’s Kevin Shields at CES 2012

Murani Lewis — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:50:26 +0000

WPCentral has conducted an extensive and rich interview with Joe Beliore (Microsoft) and Kevin Shields (Nokia). Topics covered are Lumia 900 design process, LTE importance, Windows Phone optimization for users, Carrier support and the push coming. If you haven’t viewed it yet it is truly a must see. This will be an interview that at the end of the year will be used as a reference.

Many thanks to WPCentral for such a great interview.

AT&T 4G LTE live in 11 more markets

Doug Smith — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 18:55:35 +0000

AT&T customers in the New York City metro area, Austin, Chapel Hill, Los Angeles, Oakland, Orlando, Phoenix, Raleigh, San Diego, San Francisco and San Jose markets are going to be seeing some 4G LTE goodness today as AT&T just went live in their neck of the woods! Bring the magic number up to 26 total markets for a coverage of 74 million consumers and AT&T is starting to gain some ground on Verizon who still holds a sizable lead in the LTE race. New York, the source of many of our own writers distress (1, 2) have long been the victim of the overly saturated network resulting in dropped calls, slow connection speeds, and general misery all around. It will be interesting to see how LTE compares to other markets in New York, and if the network there will support the demand placed upon it.

If you are using a 4G LTE hot rod from AT&T and live in one of these areas, drop a comment and let us know how it is working for you!

AT&T Rolls Out 4G LTE to Customers in 11 More Markets

AT&T 4G LTE Now Available in 26 Markets Including NYC Metro, San Francisco, Los Angeles. AT&T’s Blazing Fast 4G Speeds, Device Lineup, Apps Will Make for Best Customer Mobile Broadband Experience
San Francisco, California, January 05, 2012

AT&T* customers are now enjoying blazing fast 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution) speeds in 11 more markets, including New York City metro area, San Francisco and Los Angeles. This addition makes AT&T 4G LTE available in a total of 26 markets to 74 million consumers. John Stankey, President and Chief Executive Officer—AT&T Business Solutions, provided an update at Citi’s 22nd Annual Global Entertainment, Media and Telecommunications Conference in San Francisco.

New markets where AT&T 4G LTE is now available are: New York City metro area, Austin, Chapel Hill, Los Angeles, Oakland, Orlando, Phoenix, Raleigh, San Diego, San Francisco and San Jose.

The expansion adds to 15 AT&T 4G LTE markets launched in 2011: Athens, Ga.; Atlanta; Baltimore; Boston; Charlotte; Chicago; Dallas-Fort Worth; Houston; Indianapolis; Kansas City; Las Vegas; Oklahoma City; San Antonio; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and Washington, D.C.

“We’re building a 4G LTE network that’s blazing fast, and we offer dual layers of 4G technologies to provide customers with a more consistent speed experience,” said Stankey. “Our network, together with our unsurpassed 4G device portfolio and innovative applications, will give our customers an industry-leading mobile broadband experience.”

AT&T is the only U.S. carrier providing 4G using both HSPA+ and LTE technologies. HSPA+, when combined with enhanced backhaul, provides customers with access to 4G speeds — meaning AT&T customers get a faster and more consistent 4G experience on their compatible devices, even when outside of a 4G LTE area. Customers of other carriers that have transitioned to 4G LTE without further speed upgrades to their existing networks are likely to see a jarring drop-off in speeds when they move out of LTE coverage.

Another benefit of AT&T’s network strategy is that only AT&T’s network lets your iPhone 4S download three times faster.

AT&T’s mobile broadband service currently covers 284 million people and more than 90 percent of the population, including the top 100 U.S. markets.

AT&T expects its 4G LTE deployment to be largely complete by the end of 2013.

AT&T customers can choose from a growing lineup of 4G LTE-compatible devices, including HTC Vivid, Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket, and LG Nitro HD smartphones and HTC Jetstream and Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 tablets.

Limited 4G LTE availability in select markets. 4G speeds delivered by LTE, or HSPA+ with enhanced backhaul, where available. Deployment ongoing. Compatible device and data plan required. LTE is a trademark of ETSI. Learn more at att.com/network.

3X claim based on national average iPhone 4S data speeds on AT&T’s network vs. other U.S. networks.

*AT&T products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T Inc.

LTE vs. The Incredible Shrinking Data Plan

Anthony Rock — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 20:35:20 +0000

About 45 minutes. That’s what it would take, at the low end (5Mbps) theoretical range of Verizons 4G LTE network, to burn through your allotted data. Here’s the figures.

5 Megabits = 5,242,880 bits

Total seconds in a 30 day month = 2,592,000

Maximum total of data transferred given the above = 13,589,544,960,000 bits, or just under 1.6 terabytes.

Now, you don’t have to tell me, I know the above is ridiculous and nearly everyone manages to stay underneath their data plans umbrellas. At least, they do now. From the early days of 1RXTT and Mobile Web, data plans have done nothing but go up in size and down in cost. As of late, all the major carriers have put a stranglehold on their data plans, citing cost and the top 1% who have managed to wrangle up data amounts well beyond their expectations. This goes along with typical business sense but with people already scraping the top of their data plans with their 3G phones right now, something is going to bust.

As smartphones are continuing to get bigger, better, and bad-asser, the data plans seem to be getting smaller and more restrictive. As data rates increase, screens increase, and mobile support for things like HTML5, IP6, and larger images become less frustrating on our little personal assistants, our data usage is going to follow suit and rack itself up even faster than it is. The “Evolution” part of “Long-Term Evolution” is going to guarantee that mobile transfer speeds will do nothing but go up.

Will the carriers give in and increase data rates for 4G (and beyond)? Will they continue to keep their rates the same? Will they even start charging more? Judging by my laptop (With a connection that’s been up for just a few days) being at over 100 megabytes already, without any big downloads, things are starting to feel a bit cramped in here.

What do you think? Are the carriers pushing us towards a time when our phones are going to be tethered to Wi-Fi, or will we be okay?

Mobile Musings: Captain Obvious

Murani Lewis — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 19:31:02 +0000

Mobile Musings is a weekly column where I take my thoughts on several subjects and basically think out loud.

LTE WINDOWS PHONES ARRIVING IN 2012

In a rather obvious “rumor” its astonishing to see tech bloggers reporting that LTE flavored Windows Phones would be arriving in 2012. It was already announced that the platform would be supporting LTE in 2012 and that Nokia was assertively pushing to get a LTE phone into the US market. The addition of HTC LTE Windows Phone coming in early 2012 is a plus. I’d like to remind you that moving forward the plan has already been stated that rolling releases of Windows Phones would be coming. No one big launch per year, again a middle ground between Apple and Android.

Android Activation Numbers Inflated?

I seen several friends get Android smartphones activated on Boost Mobile but without the need to have a data plan. It got me to thinking how many people activate Android phones (which Google does count in their activation numbers) that aren’t really using these smartphones as nothing more than glorified feature phones? Its not hard to outpace your competitors when you basically have a monopoly of the pay-as-you-go market. There are no iPhones or Windows Phones sold this way. Lets all be real, people love iPhones a lot more than they do Androids and with the discounted sales price of older iPhone models selling like hotcakes something just wasn’t adding up with Android continuing to dust Apple in marketshare.

Apple Releases Siri Helps Santa Advert

You really have to hand it to Apple. They have the cajones to promote features that their competitors not only possess but implement in better ways. The latest such case is the newly released Santa TV Ad for the iPhone 4S starring, you guessed it, Siri.

In case anyone wasn’t already aware Microsoft’s Windows Phone accomplishes the same “appointment review” task but in a much simpler and effective way. Simply tap the calendar on the start screen and the agenda view pops up showcasing your appointments for the day. Several friends who are iPhone lovers were sharing the Santa advert on Facebook touting the feature and it took great pleasure to show them the arrogant boasting of this feature was not just premature but wrong. Android users can you help me out and let me know how the same appointment/agenda review task gets accomplished. I’d be interested to know.

Oh Woe Is RIM

In what only can be describe as Must Read PR RIM inexplicably announced during the company’s report that the first BlackBerry 10 OS based phones won’t be launching until Q3/Q4 of 2012. This comes on the heels of Microsoft making the near fatal mistake of doing the same sort of delaying of revamped platform releases. Unlike Microsoft, RIM doesn’t have signficant other cash cows to keep the boat afloat and Windows Mobile was never the main source of revenue for Microsoft either. To put this into perspective by the time RIM releases a single BB10 device Windows Phone 8 will have been launched, Apple’s iPhone 5 will have saturated the market and Android will have moved on to Quad Core behemoths. In short, RIM’s BB10 devices will arrive late, be based on specs that will be outdated at release and without any significant differentiating feature. There is a 50/50 chance RIM won’t make it to Q3 of next year.

Video Now?

This will be a weekly column released every Monday at 10am EST. I feel like a lot of my sharp wit and the flavor of the topics covered is lost in using the print only medium. So my question for you, the reader, is would you like to see a video segment included as well. Tons of graphics and really cool ideas are just waiting to be explored. Personally I hope the feedback is yes you all want video.

Thanks for tuning in to read this week’s pilot episode of Mobile Musings.

HTC Titan and Radar get panorama and burst camera update

Doug Smith — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 17:20:06 +0000

Since getting the HTC Titan a week ago there area lot of things that I have been very impressed with and one in particular is the camera. We have mentioned the Titan camera a few times already but just to refresh your memory, the camera is an 8 megapixel with a F2.2 lens and BSI sensor for awesome high resolution pictures and HD video in even poor lighting.

So if you have been loving life with your new Titan among smartphone cameras, the check the update that just rolled out for the Titan and Radar. It updates the panorama and burst modes on the camera and allows you to capture wide angle photos by taking multiple shots, three to be exact and splicing them together. Burst mode you should all be familiar with by now allows you to take a sequence of photos by just holding down the camera button.

The new update is version 1.5.0.0 (1mb) and is available in the marketplace.

[via: WPCentral.com]

T-Mobile pushing the HTC Radar

Doug Smith — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 06:54:06 +0000

Just got a heads up from Ramon over at Lifestyles Defined that T-Mobile is pushing current customers to upgrade to the HTC Radar Windows Phone device by offering them a “Guaranteed $100.00 back if you trade in ANY working phone & upgrade to the 4G HTC Radar Smartphone. TMO Stores only. Other restrictions apply.” It is great to see a carrier pushing Windows Phone and this is a great way to save $100 bucks on a new device.

Platform: Windows® Phone OS 7.5
Processor: Qualcomm® MSM8255, 1 GHz
Internal Memory: 512MB RAM, 8GB ROM
Display: 3.8-inch touchscreen with 480×800 resolution
Network: GSM/EDGE: 850/900/1800/ 1900, UMTS 1700/2100/ AWS, UMTS 2100, 1900, 850
Camera: 5-megapixel camera with F2.2 lens, LED flash, and BSI sensor (for better low-light captures). Front camera: VGA front camera. HD video recording: 720p HD
Battery: Rechargable Lithium Battery. 1,520 mAh GSM: Up to 600 minutes.
GSM: Up to 480 minutes.
Dimensions: 120 x 61.5 x 10.8mm

Are 4G and Dual Core phones hurting our environment?

Jim Szymanski — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:12:03 +0000

I originally set out to write an article about how 3G being needlessly active on phones (thanks AT&T for that) was wasting energy unnecessarily, but as I can’t actually test my theory without turning off 3G on my phone, I was stuck in a Catch 22. Turns out that when your phone is sleeping, even a weak 3G signal draws very little power. More on that in a few days.

This all got me to thinking though. How about the next best things; 4G and Dual Core Processors. What impact are they having on us all. Got to do some calculating to make my point here so I will need your undivided attention for a couple minutes.

A typical phone charger draws 0.2 Amps at household (US) current of 110-120V. Lets stay conservative and go with 100 Volts (low rating on charger) at 0.2 Amps which equals 20 Watts (Volts x Amps = Watts). And while everyone’s mileage may vary, for the sake of this article let’s assume it takes 3 hours to fully charge your phone. So that’s 20 Watts x 3 Hours = 60 Watt Hours or W-h. Basically the equivalent of lighting a 60W bulb for 1 Hour.
Now, let’s also assume that because of this new “advanced” technology, we need to charge our phones about 50% more often than we should. So instead of every other night, every night. Or, instead of every night, a booster shot when we get home from work. Basically comes out to an additional full charge every other day. So take 365 Days divided by 2 = 182.5 Days, x the 60 Watt Hours = 10,950 W-h. Another way to express this number would be in Kilowatt Hours (kW-h), which is Watt Hours / 1000, or 10.95 kW-h. Kilowatt hours is a standard measure of power that you will typically find on your Utility bill. With the average cost of a kW-h running about .13 cents, that equates to $1.42 in additional electricity for the pleasure of using this new technology. Not bad, but let’s take a look at the bigger picture.
It is estimated that there are currently 60 Million+ active Smartphones operating in the USA. Based on popularity, device sales and everything I have read, it wouldn’t be reaching to say that about 1/3 of those smartphone users are affected by one or more issues that contribute to energy drain. So, 20 Million smartphones x 10.95 kW-h = 219,000,000 kW-h. That’s a lot of juice.
It takes one barrel of oil, or one BOE (Barrel of Oil Equivalent which can be other forms of fuel like coal, natural gas, etc.) to produce 1,700 kW-h of energy. Ok then, 219,000,000 kW-h / 1,700 = 128,824 BOEs or barrels of oil being consumed, mostly needlessly, by our phones. Btw, that also calculates out $28,400,000 out of our pockets(20 Million x $1.42) and into the lined pockets of your local Utility company. That’s also enough energy to power about 11,000 average homes for a year.

Ok, ok. I hear you. This is such a small pittance of all the energy we use, it really does not matter. But everything starts at the beginning. I am old enough to have owned quite a few cars with big V8s with 4 barrel carburetors, and remember noting that there was no way a 4 cylinder car could ever be allowed on the highway. And what about those incandescent light bulbs that served us well for more than 100 years. They are about to go the way of the dinosaurs. For the past thirty years we have been looking for ways to reduce our energy consumption, although sometimes it turned out to not be as convenient or fun (goodby Easy Bake Oven).

Technology has made great strides in reducing energy consumption on smartphones, from efficient new displays to amazing WiFi radios, that barely use any energy at all. But it seems that each time they take one step forward, they take one (or two) steps back. I commend Microsoft for holding back on these new features until they can be implemented with minimal impact on the user experience, and ultimately our environment. Wonder of the Carriers and OEMs have any idea of the impact their half-baked implementations have on all of us, or is it all about being faster than the other guy, at any cost. I am certainly far from being a Green advocate, but I do try to do what I can each day, in my own way, to make the world a little better for our children’s children. That’s not too much to ask of anyone. Something to think about.

Samsung takes a swing at the iPhone in video ad

Doug Smith — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 16:23:53 +0000

I don’t think this is as good as the “I’m a Mac” commercials that featured a Bill Gates look a like actor and a young Steve Jobs (sorta) looking actor duking it out over who’s better. The same commercial spurred T-Mobile to jump on board as well as Virgin Mobile. The T-Mobile was pretty good mainly because Carly Foulkes was in it, but the Virgin versions were not that great. Well it looks like we have a new commercial taking a jab at Apple from Samsung! Apple has obviously been a huge thorn in Sammy’s side of late with all the tablet injunctions they managed to get Germany and Australia to place against them. So why not thumb your nose at them, flip them the bird, and generally tell them to f$%& off by making a video poking fun at the hordes of people waiting in line for an iPhone that is basically the same as last years, no 4G service, and has questionable battery life! The video has Apple customers happily standing in line signing songs and acting quite smug about it while a Samsung Galaxy S II device owner walks buy going about his business when the device catches the eye of the people standing in line with 12 hours left to go!

Great video ad I hope to see on TV and props to Sammy for having to the grapes to have a go at Apple!

HTC Titan–The gigantic Windows Phone

Rama Uppugunduri — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 06:00:12 +0000

Today I went back again to AT&T store to find out whether I could upgrade my Focus to either Focus S or HTC Titan. While I was there I had an opportunity to study both Focus S and Titan extensively. Thanks to our local AT&T Store representatives to let me play with those. HTC Titan in the display is the real device and will be going on sale in the next few days.

Here is my take on HTC Titan. The quality of HTC Titan is drastically improved over its predecessor model HTC HD7 or HTC HD7s. HD7 series feel like a plastic, but HTC changed this and made the phone simply superb with HTC Titan. It shows the commitment of HTC towards Windows Phone 7. The build quality, camera quality are simply superb with Titan. The only con I see in Titan is Super LCD. This is not as good as Samsung’s Super AMOLED Plus featured in Focus S. The issue is only with small print, that might not look good on bigger screen and some of the characters are not as crisp as they are on Samsung Focus S. Some of the colors, especially the darker colors, don’t look good on Super LCD when compared to Super AMOLED Plus.

I tried the basic functionality of phone – communications – phone, call quality, and texting. These are simply superb. The quality of the phone communications are improved and much better than HD7, Surround etc. HTC Windows Phones of yesteryear.

The Windows Phone 7 app ecosystem is growing day by day even though it had stalled for few days before the release of Mango, but it again picked up the pace. Zune Services, Xbox integration and Microsoft Office integration are still great. Interestingly I have seen Internet Sharing (default turned off) and SIM Applications (empty list) in the settings and other additional settings you would see are “camera modes” , “hearing aids” and “sound enhancer”. If you enable camera modes, you can set the panoramic shots and burst mode shots directly from camera app. And if you enable hearing aids, that will increase the in-call volume and sound enhancer will allow you to adjust sound for music and video playback.

Windows Phone 7 is really good in combining the email inboxes and linking contacts. You feel fluidity in touch response. System is optimized for performance that includes touch response. I have felt more comfortable responding to emails on this bigger screen.

Camera quality is not bad and is improved a lot. But I found the camera quality on HTC Titan is much better than Focus S. Interestingly I have seen this as reverse in the case of original Focus and HD7.

Phone reception, and call quality – 5 out of 5. I tried both earphone and speaker phone. The other person could hear clearly even if I speak softly and in a low voice. I could hear the same from a soft and low voice person. I give 5 out 5 for this.

Strength of the OS – 4.5 out of 5. Coming from Windows Mobile family and as an IT professional I still think the modern OSes lack Windows Mobile power. This includes Windows Phone 7 too. Windows Mobile is all about freedom and power and modern OSes like iOS, WP7 are controlled freedom and reduced power. That is my opinion. We could debate for days on this topic.

Display size – 4.5 out of 5. I felt reading and replying to emails is super easy with bigger screen with 800×480 Super LCD display and it’s definitely the quality we expect from HTC Super LCD, even though some of the font sizes are not that crispy when compared with Samsung Super AMOLED Plus, and that is expected at that size of display. 4.7” display is good and I wish HTC would bring out a Windows Phone 7 identical to its yesteryears Windows Mobile phone, aka HTC Advantage. That works like a pocket tablet.

Processor – 5 out of 5. The processor is clocked at 1.5GHz, Qualcomm Snapdragon, better than Microsoft suggested ratings. Yes, I agree Windows Phone 7 Operating System is fine tuned and doesn’t require dual core. This processor exceeds Microsoft set limit and that’s why I give 5 out of 5.

Battery life – 3.0 out of 5. HTC should have gone for better battery at least 1850 mAH, instead of 1650 mAH. But this is much better than Samsung Focus S battery.The claimed batter life is at 6 hours of talk time with 3G data and 460 hours of standby, but I seriously doubt that and I have read some reviews that battery gets discharged pretty fast once you start playing games or playing music. Of course iPhone 4S also has similar issues, but I still feel HTC should have gone for better battery given the fact that good number of Windows Phone 7 users play Xbox Games and enjoy Zune Services and also the bigger display consumes more power.

Ease of use – 5 out of 5. Windows Phone 7 with its Live Tiles is one of the best User Experience delivered from the powerhouse of Microsoft. Every Windows Phone 7 use this power and the credibility goes to Microsoft.

Form factor and weight – 4 out of 5. Even though it is bigger phone, I have felt it is lighter than HTC HD7. And the phone didn’t feel like plastic. HTC didn’t compromise on the quality of the packing, once I get hands on Nokia Lumia I will revise this, until then I mark it as good. The quality of external case didn’t feel like plastic. I feel HD7 as plastic and the case is finish not great when compared to HTC EVO 4G or 3D. But Titan’s case finish is superb and HTC engineering showed their talent in that.

Media Support – 5 out of 5. Phone is powered by Zune. Quality of Zune Service is awesome and better than iTunes in variety of areas. Microsoft is tying up with providers for the content regularly and I see it gets improved over the time definitely.

Longevity – 4 out of 5. I haven’t seen any newer phones until WP7 got a major refresh, Mango, after its original release last year. I foresee the same for the next year unless Nokia releases new WP7 phones regularly over the next 12 months. That puts pressure on other OEMs like HTC and Samsung and they will release newer models very quarter like they are doing for Android. Until then I think HTC Titan remains the premium model of WP7 from HTC. I see the path similar to iPhones release, which is in fact good for a lot of consumers who change phones as soon as newer model gets released.

Camera – 4.5 out of 5. With 8 megapixel rear camera with dual LED flash and capable of HD video with f/2.2 lens, Titan is one replacement for your Point and Shoot cameras. The Front Facing Camera is at 1.3 MP and it is great for video chatting. Now Microsoft has to release Skype for WP7 until then Tango comes to rescue.The camera is decent and I take out 0.5 out of it because of lack of optical zoom. The phone makers can easily put optical zoom to these lenses.

LTE and 4G – 4 out of 5. Here in my area we are still at HSPA+ and we would be getting LTE pretty soon. None of the current WP7 phones are LTE supported and there is word in the wild that Nokia would be releasing LTE WP7 phones on AT&T early next year. If that comes out to be true, then I see newer WP7 phones with LTE support from Samsung and HTC . I read some reviews that HSPA+ speeds on Focus S and Titan are good and comparable to Androids on AT&T network.

Memory and Storage – 3.5 out of 5. The phone comes with 512 MB of RAM and16 GB (only 12.48 GB will be available for user) of internal storage. Even though Focus S and HTC Titan are configured at 16 GB, the storage that is available for the user is higher in Focus S, which is 13.70 vs. Titan’s 12.48 GB. Now that is interesting. I take out 1.5 from possible 5 points for this because there is no other higher configured Titan like Titan with 32 GB internal storage and also the user allowed storage is little less than Focus S.

Connectivity – 4.5 out of 5. With Bluetooth® 2.1, Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g/n, 3.5 mm stereo audio jack, micro-USB (5-pin micro-USB 2.0), it should be really good. Though I haven’t tested any of these specs. I also haven’t tested the DLNA capabilities of the phone. I take out 0.5 from this because it doesn’t support latest Bluetooth® 3.0.

EcoSystem – 4.5 out of 5. Windows Phone 7 doesn’t allow you to side-load the apps. You have to jailbreak the phone using Chevron WP7 and thus you could load HomeBrew apps. And the current collection of Apps is 40,000+ and most of them have better quality than Android counterparts. The guidance and the strict reinforcement of guidelines when approving apps brings out good quality in the apps and Microsoft marketplace is similar to Apple AppStore Walled garden. When it comes to games, there is good number of quality Xbox games and that number is growing. I take out 0.5 from the possible 5 points because of limited number of apps when compared to iOS or Android. Of course both are matured platforms and I hope with the developer ecosystem that Microsoft has, and growing interest from developers to develop for WP7, I see this gets matured over the time.

Overall I give 4.5 out of 5 for this phone.

Dictionary.com defines titan as a “person or thing of enormous size, strength, power, influence, etc.” HTC Titan is titan of current smartphones. HTC Titan lives up to its name, and AT&T by bringing two premier Windows Phone 7 to its network proved it as premier partner and committed to the platform.

Samsung Focus S–Simply Superb

Rama Uppugunduri — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 03:56:17 +0000

Today I went back again to AT&T store to find out whether I could upgrade my Focus to either Focus S or HTC Titan. While I was there I had an opportunity to study both Focus S and Titan extensively. Thanks to our local AT&T Store representatives to let me play with those. Of course there is a Titan in the display, which is a real device, not a dummy and it will go on sale in a few days.

Here is my take on Samsung Focus S. I will cover HTC Titan in the next article. Samsung maintained the same quality that it has built into original Focus, which it released last year.

I tried the basic functionality of phone – communications – phone, call quality, and texting. These are simply superb. The quality of the phone is same as the quality I see in the original Focus. The build quality didn’t go south.

Camera quality is not bad and is improved a lot. But I found the camera quality on HTC Titan better than Focus S. Interestingly I have seen this as reverse in the case of original Focus and HD7.

I noticed couple of interesting things in the Settings along with “internet sharing.” First one is “extra settings”. In the extra settings, you can set the following to On or Off.

Use auto display intensity On/Off
If the background color is set to white, automatically adjust this color to reduce power consumption On/Off
Apply this option to the touch keys on the front side such as back, start and search key. Use echo cancellation On/Off
A feature to remove echo in order to improve voice quality on a phone call. On/Off

The other interesting setting is “high fidelity position”.

Use sensor aiding On/Off
Help with pedestrian positioning, especially in areas where GPS is less accurate using other sensors such as accelerometer and compass. On/Off
Use GLONASS On/Off
When location using GPS is activated, use GLObal Navigation Satellite System at the same time to enhance location availability.

Display size – 4.5 out of 5. I felt reading and replying to emails is super easy with bigger screen with 800×480 Super AMOLED Plus display and it’s definitely the quality we expect from Samsung. 4.3” display is good and I currently own HD7, which is also of the same size but not Super AMOLED Plus though. I wish Samsung would release a 5” Windows Phone with Super AMOLED Plus screen.

Processor – 5 out of 5. The processor is clocked at 1.4GHz, Qualcomm Snapdragon, little better than Microsoft suggested ratings. Yes, I agree Windows Phone 7 Operating System is fine tuned and doesn’t require dual core. This processor exceeds Microsoft set limit and that’s why I give 5 out of 5.

Battery life – 3.5 out of 5. Samsung should have gone for better battery at least 1620 mAH, if not 1850 mAH instead of 1500 mAH. The claimed batter life is at 6.5 hours of talk time with 3G data and 250 hours of standby, but I seriously doubt that and I have read some reviews that battery gets discharged pretty fast once you start playing games or playing music. Of course iPhone 4S also has similar issues, but I still feel Samsung should have gone for better battery given the fact that good number of Windows Phone 7 users play Xbox Games and enjoy Zune Services.

Form factor and weight – 4 out of 5. Even though it is bigger phone, I have felt it is lighter than HTC HD7, which is of course of the same size. And the phone didn’t feel like plastic. Samsung didn’t compromise on the quality of the packing, once I get hands on Nokia Lumia I will revise this, until then I mark it as good.

Longevity – 4 out of 5. I haven’t seen any newer phones until WP7 got a major refresh, Mango, after its original release last year. I foresee the same for the next year unless Nokia releases new WP7 phones regularly over the next 12 months. That puts pressure on other OEMs like HTC and Samsung and they will release newer models very quarter like they are doing for Android. Until then I think Focus S remains the premium model of WP7 from Samsung. I see the path similar to iPhones release, which is in fact good for a lot of consumers who change phones as soon as newer model gets released.

Camera – 4 out of 5. With 8 megapixel rear camera LED flash and capable of HD video, Focus S is one replacement for your Point and Shoot cameras. The Front Facing Camera is at 1.3 MP and it is great for video chatting. Now Microsoft has to release Skype for WP7 until then Tango comes to rescue.The camera is decent and I take out 1 out of it because of lack of optical zoom and dual LED Flash. The phone makers can easily put optical zoom to these lenses.

Memory and Storage – 3.5 out of 5. The phone comes with 512 MB of RAM and16 GB (only 13.70 GB will be available for user) of internal storage. I take out 1.5 from possible 5 points for this because original Focus has internal microSD and using that one could easily bump the storage to 40 GB maximum and I did that by adding 32GB microSD, of course you can’t hot swap your microSD card, and once added the card becomes internal storage permanently. Which is good in many aspects. And taking out this capability from this second generation Focus devices (both Focus S and Focus Flash) is bad in my opinion.

Build Quality – 5 out of 5. Samsung maintained the build quality in Samsung Focus S. It shows the commitment of Samsung towards Windows Phone 7 platform.

Overall I give 4.5 out of 5 for this phone.