Gadgetory

when a nexus s and a samsung focus love each other very much you get something that looks like this the achieve odyssey for Verizon Wireless is Samsung's first windows phone 8 device for the United States I'm Michael Fisher this is pocket now let's review it the TV Odyssey is a mid-range offering available now on verizon wireless for fifty dollars on contract for the full text of our quick review including benchmarks photos and more visit us at pocket now calm and follow us in the links down in the description but like its higher-end sibling the achieve s the odyssey isn't necessarily going to turn heads across the room but close up it's a fairly attractive device it's 11 millimeter thickness is substantial relative to its 125 gram weight but it doesn't feel too tight in the hand and it's medium sized means the power standby and volume keys are always within easy reach the display though is disappointing it's 4 inch 480 x 800 resolution is typical for the mid-range but for some reason pixels are especially visible on this Super AMOLED panel and color reproduction is off it's a serviceable display but no more than that the ateam Odyssey doesn't lag too far behind in the spec sheet it packs the familiar Qualcomm Snapdragon s4 plus at 1.5 gigahertz backed up by a gig of ram there's only eight gigs of on-board storage available but that's augmented by up to 64 gigs of microsd expansion and the 2100 milliamp hour battery is also removable for quick swapping the primary shooter is a 5 megapixel module the odyssey packs plenty of horsepower under the hood especially for the price it's just a question of how willing you are to deal with a lackluster display and the typically oversized verizon branding that determines whether you can live with this phone for a two-year contract period the atif odyssey we tested was running one of the latest builds of Windows Phone 8 and it delivered the consistent near 121 responsiveness and the stability and reliability we've come to expect from Windows Phone Samsung's suite of custom apps is still pretty anemic compared to Nokia's but there are a few new tight here so at least it's growing some titles from other OEMs have also been made available across the entire Windows Phone 8 line up and Nokia Drive beta worked just fine on the Odyssey it only got us lost in suburban America once now Verizon has loaded the Odyssey with some bloatware but it's not much and most of it is pretty useful out of the box there's an NFL mobile app for fans of the pigskin VZ navigator paid service which we found pretty useful in a past review and Microsoft's excellent data sense utility which we've also reviewed positively again you can find those right upset pocket now calm all told on the software side Samsung is still doing a fair job on Windows Phone 8 it's custom app selection isn't the best but it's also not the worst and it's still growing testing the achieve Odyssey in the urban Greater Boston and rural eastern Long Island service areas gave us the chance to see how the device performed on both LTE and CDMA data networks reception was good with the device averaging higher LTE speeds than were used to seeing from verizon but 3g performance was quite slow voice calls were clear over the ear piece but as usual the speakerphone needs much higher gain in phone calling mode to be useful on our end the noise cancellation was pretty inconsistent but color said we sounded about average as long as we were in quiet conditions the camera was the big surprise with the achieve Odyssey we weren't expecting much from the 5 megapixel shooter on the back but despite the lower resolution the unit delivered results that were on par with the achieve s in our earlier comparison meaning the results are also on par with the very good galaxy s3 and Galaxy Note 2 cameras at least in terms of color saturation white balance and so on how long you'll be able to take those shots before the battery gives up is as always dependent on your usage the odyssey's battery is about average in terms of capacity and its performance in that regard followed with moderate usage it should last you a full day the achieve odyssey is yet another installment in the increasingly long line of good mid-range windows phone 8 devices it's not the bomb blast we were hoping for from Samsung's first wp8 device for the US but fifty dollars on contract on America's largest carrier it's a solid value if you can put up with the lackluster display and the ho-hum physical design this is a good windows phone for your money we give it a solid seven out of ten folks don't forget to check out our a team odyssey versus a TS comparison video check out the written review at pocketnow.com and be sure to follow us in the links in the description below once again i'm michael fisher for pocket now thanks for watching we'll see you next time but out of here yeah i mean i can't i can't hear a damn thing you're saying because you're invisible and imaginary that's it's not good no no this is me being confused and lost in the wilderness I'm a performer you