Darts Samsung is a bit like the old Dodge car, with which it shares a name of model: beautiful, slow and not very capable. At first glance, darts tempting as it makes you a true Android smartphone without money in advance. But there are many better choices on T-Mobile outlets, including far superior to LG Optimus T (Fri, 4 stars).The design and call quality
The darts are 4.1 by 2.4 by 0.5 inches (DRC) and weighs 3.8 ounces. It is made entirely of plastic with a matte dark gray frame and a black front panel. The 3.1-inch capacitive touch screen plastic sport only 240 by 320 pixels. It breaks many third party applications and Android makes it more difficult to navigate Android various rollouts.
Worse, the screen is rough and has poor color accuracy and contrast viewing angle. System Fonts and Web looks too big and pixelated, and typing on the onscreen keyboard felt stiff and cramped. The DART is a quad-band EDGE (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) and dual-band HSDPA 7.2 (1700/2100 MHz) device with Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n. The Darts also work with T-Mobile software-based Wi-Fi calling, which helps in areas of low signal of T-Mobile.
Anyway, call quality was generally poor, with an agitated, severe tone of the speaker, and significant audio dropouts even when standing outside (where I usually stronger T-Mobile coverage). This is something clear reception with this phone. Callers said I sounded good, though.
Calls sounded clear through an Aliph Jawbone Bluetooth headset was ($ 129, 4 stars). Voice dialing over Bluetooth worked perfectly, without training. The speaker was just fine with the volume is not enough for outdoor use, and some distortion in the volume setting of the first two. Battery life was a little on the bottom, 7 hours and 48 minutes of talk time in EDGE mode, wait about half of 3G areas.
Applications, bugs and compatibility issues
Packs a 600MHz Qualcomm MSM7227 CPU Dart-1 with Android 2.2 (Froy). No word on when we will see an Android 2.3 update today (gingerbread) for this phone, just in case. On the plus side, free Google Maps for voice-activated navigation with turn by turn GPS, which is great in a free phone and is ideal for Android, the WebKit browser market. However, the low screen resolution and slow response of the CPU limits the amount you want to do with the phone.
Difficulty in finding a compatible third-party applications, Android Market enables QVGA display, some of the standard benchmarks do not see, for example. We also saw a number of bugs. Some of the benchmarks fell several times before running all the way through properly. Once in standby mode, the phone froze, with the exception of the four touch buttons below the screen. Were switched, but the screen remained blank. I could not do anything until you restart the phone.
The media, camera, and conclusions
Maybe use the best darts is also a music player. The size standard 3.5 mm headphone jack and easy access, side-mounted microSD card slot is welcome. Samsung launches a 2 GB microSD card to get you started, and there's 134MB of internal memory free as well. The music sounded clean and powerful Modus Samsung Bluetooth headset HM6450 ($ 99, 4 stars). Samsung soft music was not very responsive on this handset, but it was still easy to navigate and has shown great thumbnails of album art. Standalone video files played without problems, at least when transcoded on the phone (bottom) native resolution, none of my other test files would cue up.
The 3 megapixel camera has no flash or autofocus. Test photos were a disappointment, with a considerable granulation in the rooms well-lit interior, and overexposed shots outdoors with blown highlights and the characteristic size just average. Videos captured maxed only 320 by 240 pixels and 14 frames per second, but they were visible in a pinch.
Two years ago, I could make a case for a low-end phone such as Android darts, especially with T-Mobile are reasonably priced data plans. But the competition is simply too steep now and you can get something much better, even to free up the front. LG Optimus T is equipped with a high-resolution display that is compatible with several third party applications, standard definition (640 x 480 pixels) video recording, longer battery life and an overall feel more comfortable in daily use. I can not think of one reason to buy darts Optimus T. Text heavy on a budget might prefer the Slide myTouch 3G ($ 49, 3.5 stars), which has a sliding QWERTY keyboard a better screen and better sound quality. If you need something that is cheap in the contract, try Nokia C3-01 Touch and Type (3.5 stars), which is not a smartphone, but offers a better camera and better sound quality for only $ 139 unlocked from Newegg.com.
Benchmarks
Talk Time: 7 hours 48 minutes (EDGE)
