Gadgetory

hey guys this is tom warren from the verge and we're looking at samsung's ative s windows phone which at first glance looks very similar to the company's s 3 and s 2 android phones looking more closely at devices obviously running Microsoft's latest Windows Phone 8 operating system and Samsung has opted for capacitive back and search buttons the company is also included a physical windows button when it's triggered it will wait the device looking at the front of this handset is a 1.9 megapixel camera there's part of a gray color scheme that wraps around the four point eight inch display size of devices a camera button at the bottom and a power one at the top and there's no volume rock on the right hand side you return to the very left of the device you can see the volume rocker the side they're moving to the bottom of the atty vests there's a microUSB port that sits at the very center the device this appears to be a common placement area for windows phone 8 at the top is a headphone jack which sits above a brushed aluminium back which at first glance looks like it's metallic but when you pry a little bit closer it's clear it's plastic once you remove the rear cover of the atty vest then you met with the familiar bendy plastic of a samsung battery killer the battery itself is removal and there's also micro-sim and microSD slots this is particularly useful if you want still photos music or movies on your device if you look more closely at the activist it becomes very clear this is a standard windows phone samsung has done very little to differentiate from the competition familiar features like the People Hub with Twitter and Facebook integration and Microsoft's new Xbox music service are a core part of the active s biol active scene Samsung really extend my cloths operating system here there's a pre-installed now app that features weather news and stocks information and a chat app for cross-platform messaging but most of the apps replicate functionality that's already baked in or is available from other popular services like evernote one note or whatsapp it just really feels like Samsung's got hardware right here but they could do a whole lot more on the software side for Windows Phone 8 moving over to the camera on the atty VES it needs to be the same 8-megapixel one that's available in the galaxy s free despite much new lenses feature sam sam hasn't opted to create its own software here and the options for shooting photos are fairly basic there's no panorama there's no burst mode or any other similar options that could be found on rival windows phones thankfully Samsung has opted for 1080p is default video resolution I found that results in daylight were fairly standard for a smartphone the pictures aren't too blurry and although it copes well in low light it's no match for Nokia's Lumia 920 the atty VES is a lot better looking and functional than I expected it might have a four point eight inch display but it's easy to use in one hand and the slimline design helps you ensure it remains that way it includes a large battery that will easily see you through a day's worth of push email calls and other moderate smartphone use competitor competition from HTC ax and Nokia's Lumia 920 there's a lot of choice and some difficult decisions to make if you're opting for a windows phone it's hard to pick between all three but colorful handsets and better software support my lure shoppers to HTC or Nokia however Samsung has a solid device here that you won't be disappointed with