Gadgetory

hey guys it's brandon minuman from pocket now calm and this is the hardware tour of the samsung propel pro now on the AT&T network in the US let's talk about the hardware on the device overall the device has a nice feel in hand except for the fact that it's completely covered in shiny chrome mirror like finish from top to bottom so it's very slippery in hand which kind of feels nice sometimes but other times it really is problematic because it can slip out your hand easily or it's a fingerprint magnet or it's prone to scratches there was actually a similar device like this released in europe with a slide down keyboard called the I 620 it didn't have this shiny coating for some reason when they bring it to the United States they chrome it up they make it extremely shiny because I guess that's what Americans like they like shiny chrome II things and so that is why we have a device that's completely covered in a mirror anyway so let's move around the device let's start at the top at the top this is not a front-facing video camera it's actually a light a light sensor which is pretty rare for non-touchscreen windows mobile devices which is good helps to regulate the backlight so that you don't use that much battery over here is the speaker over here is the 2.5 5-inch non touch screen display and it's 320 x 320 pixels this is the first windows mobile non-touchscreen device to have this resolution why does this matter I'll show you exactly why over here I've got the blackjack 2 which has a 320 x 240 display so that's 80 fewer pixels want to see the difference here I'll show you so I'll start off in the home screen and you can see immediately that you get to see more information on the home screen because of the taller screen but let's go into the start menu and again here lists are all longer you can see more of an email on the screen when your web browsing it really makes a difference so that's one of I think the best features of having that extended screen is to be able to see more on the screen at one time ok so let's move along below the Samsung logo we have two soft keys and they are very pronounced which is fantastic because you can use them quite easily without feeling for them or without having to look at them I should say because they are just very much raised if we go down we have what looks to be a d-pad but actually there's a joystick in the center and joysticks aren't terribly usable especially in this case when the joystick has a little divot in the center so if it was raised on the outside I could imagine that it would be easy to use but because it's got this divot when you're trying to use it you actually have to position your finger up here to go down and it feels weird on your finger and it's not fast it's not easy if you're flipping through a long email using this d-pad you're probably going to get a sore thumb I think this is one of the biggest problems with the propel pro is this annoying joystick now around this joystick area is actually an indicator light so if I open up the the charging port and I plug in the power cable you'll see that it will light up red like so and when it's done charging it will turn green if you have a new email it will light up purple and some other random colors as well so moving along and you can see I mean how many fingerprints it's picked up already here's the call star button the home button back and end now this device has a slider and one of the greatest parts of this slider is that it's functional so you can answer a call by opening the slider terrific you can end a call by closing the slider excellent you can also lock and unlock the device by opening the slider which will unlock the device and allow you to use it or you can close it which will lock the device after a period of time or actually it's already locked see I can't do anything this is great because you don't have to remember to keep holding down the end key unlocking your device or having to go through the annoying that seat key sequence when you want to unlock the device so that is a major major plus let's go to the side of the device over on the side we have the volume up and down rocker which is also very pronounced much like these soft keys to the right of that is the external microSD slot which is good that its external so that you don't have to take out the battery to put in a new card nothing on the bottom on this side we have the proprietary Jack for audio charging and syncing and I did not find a convert Oh jack in the box that connects to this port that allows you to listen to 3.5 millimeter audio hopefully that was an omission because that's a much-needed accessory and to the right of that is a camera button which will power the camera on the back and the camera on the back is 3.0 megapixels it's actually autofocus which is pretty rare for kind of a mid-range smartphone and it's got this fantastic brushed metal coating to it I wish they had used that on the rest of the device or other than this cheap mirror plastic that looks like junk after you've used it for a few minutes along with the third point 0 megapixel camera you have a self-portrait mayor but no flash unfortunately and finally a little note on the keyboard I'd mentioned that this keyboard may be as good as the keyboard on the q 9h because they are shaped in a similar fashion and they have raised bumps on them so you can feel for them and I still kind of hold by that except that these buttons are about thirty percent smaller than on the q 9h so if you have smallish or medium sized hands then yes this is a really really good keyboard but if you have large hands or if you're used to keys that are spaced apart like the blackjack two then you may not like it as much so that's it for the hardware tour of the samsung propel pro on AT&T overall I really like the 320 x 320 display I like the functionality of the slider I like the keyboard what I don't like is this horrible finish all over the whole device that makes it a fingerprint and scratch magnet and I also really don't like this d-pad I think that was a horrible horrible idea in terms of usability it really takes away a lot of usability and really hurts this phone a lot we'll be back with a software tour of the samsung propel pro and for more on this and other windows mobile devices be sure to follow us on twitter at twitter.com slash pocket now tweets that's it for now