Gadgetory

it's the fall of 2013 are you looking for a Galaxy s3 running Windows Phone no well here's one anyway I'm Michael Fisher this is PocketNow and this is the Samsung ativ s neo video review if the ative s neo seems familiar it's not your deja vu sitting in it's a variation on the theme we've seen before specifically last years at Eve s the first Windows Phone 8 device to see an official announcement but one which never made it to US carrier shelves the achieve as neo looks to remedy that as one of two devices bringing third largest US carrier Sprint back into the Windows Phone game but is it really worth your time well let's find out to justify the jab that kicked off this video will make clear right now that the ative s Neos specs are not our sore point with this phone the Windows Phone has never been about the spec race and with few exceptions it's never needed to be and like most Samsung devices the Neo goes above and beyond what many windows phones offer making its 2,000 milliamp hour battery removable and it's 16 gigs of onboard memory expandable via microSD customizations which are sadly endangered-species these days instead of the specs what burns us about the achieve s neo is a combination of its build and feature set which are nothing more than mild iterations on what we've already seen from Samsung back in January WP central printed a quote from Sprint saying the company wasn't trying to launch on six month old hardware with its return to Windows Phone but with the exception of the Snapdragon 400 inside and the substitution of LCD for AMOLED on the display and a few other details old hardware is exactly what we're getting with the achieve as neo some aspects like the reduced battery size are actually a step down if you don't care about the context the neo is fine the 4.8 inch display is 720p and looks good though we miss the deeper blacks of the AMOLED screen on its international sibling it's a bit heavier and thicker than other recent Samsung smartphones which gives it a more substantial feel in the hand and the faux chrome and the sides plays nicely with the very subtle pattern under the hyper glaze on the battery door aesthetically this phone would play fine in a boardroom at a glance it looks like pretty much any other Samsung smartphone and there aren't any color options beyond the royal blue and chrome finish if you're looking for a windows phone that will let you blend seamlessly into your surroundings this is the one for you things start looking a little better on the software side where Samsung is actually just surprisingly gone out of its way to bolster its custom software offerings after months lying fallow the Samsung zone in the Windows Store now boasts almost twenty custom titles that doesn't sound like many but for the company we've often considered the most a pathetic Windows Phone maker ever it's a big deal the additions are almost all camera centric possibly in response to Nokia's suite of special camera apps in its own section of the Windows Store everything from effects lenses to dedicated video and photo editors and even a manga camera app are here the Samsung has also brought tap and share to the Windows Phone world with a tee beam a pokey but fun feature which worked fine for sharing pictures to a Galaxy Note 2 and a moto X but not to non Samsung windows phones and the useful weather and news app Samsung now is still here which we like but the company really needs to do something about that hideously low res live tile a particularly cool addition here is the app folder a Samsung app which allows you to supplement your Start screen live tiles with folders containing apps something we've wanted to see for quite a while it's not for everyone apps contained inside the folders can't display live tile information and stock apps can't be included in folders but it's still an add-on we found quite handy just like on the HTC 8x t our ateva CEO came out of the box with a bunch of Sprint bloatware and just like on the 8x t deleting all of it didn't help much with software responsiveness something in Sprint's customizations or some interaction between Windows Phone and the new Snapdragon 400 SOC isn't doing the software any favors the atiba CEO is less responsive than its predecessor the atif s and it's less responsive than most other windows phones on the market especially when playing music in the background whether you're streaming it or it's locally stored it won't be a showstopper for everyone but it's definitely annoying especially given Windows Phones typically buttery performance elsewhere testing the achieve sto over more than a week in the Greater Boston area reminds us that some things are slow to change Samsung's voice quality is still just okay with callers telling us we sounded fine as long as we were in a quiet room once background noise came into the picture though we needed to get far away from it to continue our conversation the rear mounted speakerphone is tiny and tinny compared to what's coming from other manufacturers these days so speaker phone calls and media watching are gonna be once again ok and listening to music over earphones is similarly middle-of-the-road an equalizer called Sound alive is here which we appreciate but it really doesn't seem to do much no matter how much you fiddle with it Sprint's LTE network in Boston is still less robust than that of its competitors but it does deserve an honorable mention for performing pretty well at a recent Red Sox game with 30,000 people in the stands and the phone's battery lasts quite a bit longer than we were expecting given its reduced capacity heavy users will still want to consider carrying around an extra pack but moderate use shouldn't give you any trouble over a full day camera performance on the Neos 8 megapixel shooter isn't much to get excited about well-lit photos outdoors produce nice results but indoor pictures tend toward the gray zone of washed out blah thankfully samsung's HDR setting is there to help with this and help it does so long as you remember to take your photos in the shooting modes app instead of the standard camera viewfinder there are also enhanced settings for contrast saturation and the like as well as that ridiculous manga camera than other fun filters so taking the photos is usually a more enjoyable experience here than on a stock Windows Phone it just don't rely on it for night shots without the flash video mode features some more compression artifacts than we're used to seeing and the focus is a little slow to catch up in some situations but saturation is good and audio capture is - it's not a bad camcorder but it's far from being a great one really that's the story on the ative sto on the whole in broad terms it's almost comically average in design and execution that's not a crime but there's a small legion of Sprint customers who've been waiting for their carrier to release a fresh new take on Windows Phone since 2011 and a warmed-over helping of last year's design with an added side of compromise just isn't it it certainly beats out the 2 year old HTC arrive and the newer 8 xt but in both cases that's really not saying much if you need to be on the now network and you're interested in a Windows Phone Sprint's various discounts take this thing down to 50 bucks on contract that's a nice price for a fairly capable device but if you're looking for a truly outstanding Windows Phone experience you'll still need to look 2 carriers other than sprint and manufacturers other than Samsung we give the Samsung ativ s neo a 7 out of 10 now folks we do have some more information on the achieve s neo if you want to see how it compares against the HTC 8x T in a bit more detail we have a comparison video on that we also have our unboxing from several days back you can look at that see what comes in the box and you can check out all of our feature content all of our reviews everything we offer at pocketnow.com but before you go anywhere please drop us a like if you enjoyed the video leave us a comment down below if you have some feedback follow us on social media and thanks for watching as always we'll see you next time you