This is the latest phone from Samsung to have TouchWiz 1.0 just like the Samsung Eternity, but, like the Instinct s30, it is more rounded than the Eternity. It’s got a textured pebble back which makes it easy to hold on to. The Eternity is a bit bigger and wider than the Solstice because of its square shape. The Solstice has a 3.6 inch screen where as the Eternity has a 3.2 inch but is little bit brighter. The Solstice is more expensive now than the Eternity yet has a smaller screen and a 2 mega pixel camera where as the Eternity has a 3 mega pixel camera. It is interesting to note when compared to the Samsung Jet, the case design is very much alike. The Jet is a high end imported phone which has an OLED display and a 5 mega pixel camera and runs TouchWiz 2.0. The Solstice has a 240×400 resistive touch screen display and is a quad band GSM world phone.
There’s a little bit more widgets, preinstalled, than what we’d find on the Eternity. This is good because we can’t download new widgets, although, if we had a newer phone with TouchWiz 2.0, we could. All widgets can be added or removed from the launcher bar. There’s one for our clock, Bluetooth, calculator, a launcher for the Facebook and Myspace web pages, Yahoo! Search, and Telenav. There’s a music player widget that can be dragged onto the screen so we can control our music. Also, there’s a voice command widget made by Nuance that will control various functions of the phone with our voice. There is no broadcast TV service on the phone. The phone can play locally stored MP4 videos, MP3 and AAC audio, and Windows Media formats.
To the right of the phone, there is the camera shutter button; a button for switching in between applications; and a sync port for charging, headphone use, and USB syncing. Headphones and a USB cable are not included with the phone. To listen to music we’ll need either headphones or a Bluetooth A2DP headset. At the top, there is a screen lock button, but there is no 3.5mm headphone jack. To the left of the phone, there are volume controls and a microphone. There is also a microphone at the bottom. The back has a fixed focus camera, which is 2 mega pixels and has a self portrait mirror but no flash. There is also a speakerphone. There is a MicroSD card slot which supports high capacity, although, the phone has to be rebooted every time we remove or insert a card because the slot is underneath the battery.
The NetFront browser is touch friendly and works with both web and fully HTML websites. It has support for JavaScript. We can type in URL’s via a portrait T9 keyboard or via a landscape QWERTY keyboard which has “www.” and “.com” shortcuts. We will be browsing via AT&T;’s 3G HSDPA connection. The Solstice has an average signal strength which is a little bit better than the Eternity’s. We usually won’t need to zoom in as the fonts are pretty big on the screen for its size. As we scroll, a small thumbnail preview of the whole site is displayed at the corner that tells us which part of the page we’re viewing.
Cingular Video is included with the unlimited data plan. The streaming video from this service isn’t as good in digital quality as we’ve seen on other phones on AT&T;, partly, because the video is being stretched to fit the 3 inch screen. This will cause pixelation in the video stream.
The GPS on the phone isn’t that great. When on the highway, it will receive a good GPS signal most of the time, but in some rare moments, it will lose the connection for a few seconds. If this happens when using AT&T; Navigator, it will tell us to take U-turns to get back on the right path. We can view maps in 2D or 3D and we can switch from portrait mode to landscape mode easily thanks to use of the accelerometer. AT&T; Navigator is a subscription service which we can get by itself or for half the price per month with the unlimited feature phone data plan. On other phones, AT&T; Navigator does a good job giving great directions and having up to date maps.
