Comments on: Samsung Focus With Windows Phone 7 Review: Make Room For Microsoft

By: therealchiffonade

therealchiffonade — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 10:32:44 +0000

I am not impressed with a couple of features on this phone. How do you cut and paste? The synching with my hotmail makes for repeated contacts as different info is used when synching with Facebook. Where is the dictionary?????? How do I add terms? I abbreviate “breakfast” as “bfast” in texts and it comes out “beast.” No custom ringtones available? The calendar alerts are faulty – if you want the calendar alert RIGHT at the time it’s set, you can’t set it to do this. You have the choice of 1 minute before or after but NO way to have it ring exactly at the time of the appointment. The camera is unequivocally the WORST phone cam I have EVER used. You should NOT need a tripod to use a phone cam. There is a “feedback” setting BUT NO WAY TO GIVE FEEDBACK. Later versions of this phone better improve or it’s going to flop into betamax hell.

By: elektrojunge

elektrojunge — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 08:42:09 +0000

@ doug

Thanks for the info. I think weird is the appropriate word.

By: Doug Aamoth

Doug Aamoth — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 13:25:57 +0000

@elektrojunge

Yeah, it’s weird. Microsoft doesn’t allow for external microSD card slots. Any device with a microSD card slot must put it underneath the casing. The Focus’ slot is just above the battery and next to the SIM slot on the back and supports cards up to 32GB.

When you add a microSD card, Windows Phone 7 has to be power cycled and then lumps the card’s storage in with the on-board storage. So it’s not like other phones that ask you if you want to save a file to the phone’s memory or the microSD card, for instance. And you can’t just pop the card out while you’re using the phone and glean any usable data off of it, which is unfortunate.

But it is possible to add more storage. Not all WP7 phones have microSD slots, though.

By: Doug Aamoth

Doug Aamoth — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 13:15:06 +0000

@thebonafortuna

1. Yes, it’s possible. I swapped my iPhone’s SIM card out fairly often to test other phones without any issues. If you swap a regular SIM card into an iPhone, AT&T automatically adds an iPhone data plan to your account.

2. It merges duplicates automatically, which is cool. So my wife, for instance, shows up as one contact and when I open her contact info, there’s a “links” icon. When I click that icon, it shows me her “linked profiles” — one from Google and one from Facebook. If I had her as a third contact somewhere, I can link that profile to the other two manually, but the phone does a pretty good job of tying everything together.

3. Verrry interesting (I’m stroking my non-existent beard).

By: elektrojunge

elektrojunge — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 08:40:31 +0000

The interesting thing is that all information that I got on Microsoft tech events in Germany is that Windows Phone 7 does not support microSD extension slots. The Samsung Focus does (which is nice).
So what’s right?

By: thebonafortuna

thebonafortuna — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 02:42:55 +0000

I keep coming up with questions as I go, so here goes:

1. I didn’t think you could swap a SIM card out of an iPhone?

2. When the phone merged your Gmail and Facebook contacts, was there much overlap/duplication? If so, were you able to clean that up?

3. Very interesting the Focus uses the network and drops calls less frequently. Leads one to believe maybe it was, in fact, Apple who is partially responsible for all the coverage woes AT&T gets blamed for…?

Great news about the browser. It has to be a step up from what I’m stuck with. In fact, great news about the whole product. People can rag on Microsoft all they want, but in the mobile space, we’re all better off having them competing there to keep Apple honest and Android on it’s game.

By: zachwulf2

zachwulf2 — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 01:29:50 +0000

A well thought out and very informative review. It’s nice to see unbiased smart phone reviews these days.