Review: Samsung Craft
The Samsung Craft is a phone for a museum. It should be displayed on a shelf with a placard that reads “First LTE Handset” and a sign that warns visitors not to touch. Besides its briefly unique status, there is little else to recommend this phone. The features that should best take advantage of the new, supposedly faster network technology completely fall flat. The multimedia features aren't worth a second look, and the Web browser would be more appropriate on a 1x phone like the Samsung Caliber, not an advanced phone like this one.
Even the basics fall flat. Call quality was unimpressive. Battery life was almost frightening, even without power-hungry features like Wi-Fi and GPS turned on. Messaging features ranged from an SMS app behind the times to a social networking app that was very difficult to control by touch.
If you are a MetroPCS fan for life and you've been stuck with a slower 1x phone, the Samsung Craft will undoubtedly impress. In talks with MetroPCS reps, it's clear existing customers are the target audience for this phone. The Craft offers faster networking, plus the QWERTY slider form factor, which is uncommon on MetroPCS, and other new technologies like the great AMOLED display.
Unfortunately for MetroPCS, other prepaid carriers, like Cricket and Virgin Mobile, are offering Android phones for less than the launch price of the Samsung Craft, and the LTE network hasn't yet proven it's worth over EV-DO, let alone newer networks like T-Mobile's HSPA+ and Sprint's WiMAX.
In other words, this might be an interesting phone to look at, but I would not buy one. Let's see what else MetroPCS has up their sleeves.
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Samsung Craft SCH-R900
