Texting teens take heed: the Samsung Solstice II is here! Read our full review.
Samsung Solstice II Report
If you're a texting teen or somebody looking for their first taste of touchscreen action, the Samsung Solstice II is a stellar choice. Not only is it super compact and lightweight, but it features a full capacitive touchscreen with virtual QWERTY for input that won't make you rip all of your hair out like T9 typing. The Solstice II offers a fantastic battery life, social networking tools, and customization of ringtones and notifications sounds. Although the camera was not up to snuff and voice quality left much to be desired, the feature phone is still a steal for $30 online with a two year AT&T contract.
Design
After the cavalcade of giant-screened smartphones we've seen recently, it was nice to have a little guy like the Samsung Solstice II in the house. Not only were we transported back to Nostalgia Town due to the phone's more antiquated design, but we loved transporting the little bugger to and from because of its pint-sized body and feathery weight. The phone's 3-inch 240 x 400-pixel WQVGA screen was not the most defined, but it offered a suitable viewing experience for gaming and light internet browsing. The screen is capacitive as well, meaning you don't have to press down in order for swipes and taps to take hold.
The Samsung Solstice II, along with many cheaper phones in this price range, features an impressive set of external controls. Not only do we have physical Call, End, and Back buttons that throw us back to the late 90's, but the phone's architecture also staffs an enclosed USB terminal, volume control, sliding Lock switch, Menu button, and Camera button. On the back, you'll notice that the Solstice II has a small camera lens without a flash, and it's no surprise that digital imaging is fairly lacking on this phone.
Underneath the back panel, there's a MicroSD card slot with 16GB capacity that is quite accessible, though the battery needs to be removed in order to access the SIM card. One of the main disappointments with the Solstice II is its lack of a 3.5mm audio jack, so you'll have to invest in a USB to 3.5mm audio jack adapter. All in all, the Samsung Solstice II is a great little design for any beginner.
Interface
Although Samsung's Solstice II lacks a fancy OS like Android, its interface is still packed with useful features and easy to navigate. First off, the phone is capable of 3G for high-speed data and voice, Bluetooth, Voice Dialing and Commands, and USB connectivity for mounted as a drive on a computer. One of the highlights on the Solstice II was the fact that we could edit tones and ringtones, connect our phone, and drag and drop, without any need to pay into the AT$T AppCenter. We will say that gaming is a bit antiquated on the Samsung Solstice II, and games are expensive compared to the Android Market.
Now for social networking and internet browsing, the Samsung Solstice II offers one of the most basic experiences out there, but it's not as bad as the Samsung Zeal. There's a widget called AT&T SocialNet which combines Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and other accounts with the ability to view them all at once in a Home section. Obviously, web sites will be devoid of videos and Flash content.
However, the Solstice II loves its widgets, which will give you a lot more than your internet experience. Unfortunately, the widget and application management on the Solstice II is a bit frenzied. There is a side menu bar that contains widgets and applications that can be dragged onto one of the three home screens. Widgets can be piled on top of one another, leading to a lot of pixilated clutter, so the phone's organizational tendencies are a bit jumbled.
The Samsung Solstice II is more of a messaging device than anything, offering threaded text messaging with word bubbles and a full virtual QWERTY keyboard when the phone is rotated horizontally. We recommend doing all text input with the QWERTY since the T9 text system is an abomination this day and age. For the most part, the Samsung Solstice is a great entry ramp leading to the super highway of advanced smartphones
Call Quality/Battery Life
Sadly, the Samsung Solstice II lacks significantly when it comes to call quality. Our callers sounded jumbled and intermittent, and the word "what!?" became a highly familiar conversation interjection. Fortunately, the phone's battery performance will chug along for days, and can standby for a few weeks. Battery life on these smaller, less powerful phones is awesome, and the Solstice II is no exception.
Camera
The Samsung Solstice II is short staffed in the camera department as well, sporting a 2-megapixel shooter sans flash. Videos were limited to 320 x 240 standard-resolution, and the best way we can sum up the Solstice II's camera is that it is best suited for sending via text message or email. On the bright side, the Solstice II has a slew of effects that allow the user to add frames and mosaic creations to their images. Camera controls were also impressive, and we wish higher level phones offered such a fun and robust selection. However, upper level phones like Android and the iPhone rely on Application stores to provide camera effects. Either way, the camera on the Solstice II is strictly text-worthy and nothing beyond.
We've been using the Samsung Solstice II for the past few days , and we have to say it's not all that bad, even when compared to our iPhone 3G. The Solstice II offers a capacitive touchscreen experience, plenty of widgets and applications, awesome battery life, and intuitive messaging. On the downside, it lacks in the call quality department, features a basic camera, and skims the surface of a full internet experience. But that's alright—the Samsung Solstice II serves as a great first touchscreen phone, and is ideal for teens. This phone is only $30 with a two-year contract online, but we've found it as part of a Free deal in certain locations. We recommend the Samsung Solstice II if you're in middle or high school, or just want to retrogress to the simpler life.
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