Hardware:
The Phone itself is light in the and feel solid in the hand. The back cover feel flimsy but I dont think that it will ve a long term issue unless you plan to open it often. All buttons are well placed as well as ports.
Display:
The display is gorgous, I can't compare it hand to hand with a IPhone or another top of the line Android but I can say that it does the job well, but glare is a issue
Sound:
Sound is accurate however a small popping sound appear from time to time when listening through headphones (tried it with many headphones). From what I have observe those popping sounds appear whenever a new connection to a network through Wifi is attempted.
Battery:
Battery life is great on this phone. On light use, a little browsing, a few calls and text, you get two days of use. With heavy using: 2-3 hours of gaming, 5-7 hours of music listening, web browsing, full notification and sync and a few calls I went to bed with 20% of battery remaining! Great battery life.
Camera:
The camera is responsive, a click of a physical shutter away, easy to use and work well in most conditions. Low light pictures are average, better than my old Galaxy S but not as great as what I see from the Nokia or the IPhone. Colors are a little oversaturated, the blues and reds are really too intense.
Here are some samples that I took around:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/114486866740131536619/albums/5828164249505426849
Conversion from Android:
I had some trouble importing a few contacts for no obvious reasons, appart from that Google Calendar and mail is well integrated in Microsoft's OS.
BOTTOM LINE
Strong suit:
- Social Network integration
- Lucious Screen
- Excelent battery
- SD card slot + 16 gigs on the phone
- Powerfull processor
- Excelent network connectivity
- Good sound
Weak suit:
- No windows 7 drivers be warned!
- No google services
- No navigation out of the box
- Less apps than other platforms
Overall: 7.5/10 but potentially a 8.5-9/10 if MS and Samsung clean it's act as all flaws are software flaws.
The Breakdown
-
Design
8
-
Display
8
-
Camera(s)
7
-
Reception / call quality
9
-
Performance
9
-
Software
6
-
Battery life
10
-
Ecosystem
7