Samsung Ace Cell Phone Review
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Alfredo Padilla Published on April 29, 2008 Comment on this |
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The Samsung Ace is a powerful Windows Mobile Standard device from Sprint that is similar to the Samsung Blackjack line of phones that have been limited to AT&T until now. The ace up the sleeve, if you pardon the pun, is the support for both Sprint's CDMA network and international GSM networks. This puts it on the short list for any Sprint customer who does a lot of overseas travel, but they may be less enamored with the limited talk time, poor camera and the strange decision to leave Office Mobile off the device. The price tag is also a concern as similar handsets can be had for half the Ace's $199 cost. Do other bonuses make up for these drawbacks? Read on to find out.
| Section | The Good | The Bad |
| Tour & Design | The Ace feels durable |
The Ace is a little on the large side |
| Audio Quality | Sound sent and received was just about average |
Side tone was a little on the low side |
| Imaging | We liked the Ace's camera interface |
The quality of photos and video was pretty poor |
| Making/Receiving Calls | Dialing a number was fairly quick |
Volume was a little low |
| Messaging | The Ace includes a flexible and powerful email client |
There is no support for MMS |
| Organizer | The Ace includes powerful organizer features |
We wish there were category support in the calendar |
| Multimedia | Windows Media Player is powerful and flexible |
But it's also slow to load |
| Software | Windows Mobile Standard is a powerful and extensible OS |
For some reason Office Mobile was not included |
| Battery Life | Music playback time was solid |
Talk time and browsing time was a little on the low side |
| Connectivity | The Ace supports both CDMA and GSM networks |
No Wi-Fi |
| Hardware | Typing on the QWERTY was very fast |
The screen is small and not very bright |
| Other Features | The Ace can be used as a modem for your computer |
No GPS or push to talk |
| Value & Comparisons | The price should come down sometime soon |
$200 is too high a price right now |
[page title="Tour & Design"]
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Summary
The Samsung Ace is slightly larger than an iPhone from the front and a little thicker sporting a large QWERTY keyboard and smallish display on the front. It resembles the Blackjack that it was derived from with a few small changes like the layout of the keyboard and a more prominent D-Pad. |
Front
The front of the Samsung Ace is dominated by the QWERTY keyboard, which takes up the lower half of the device. Above this are the control keys and D-Pad and above them the 2.3 inch QVGA display. Although the display is not small for a cell phone, it does seem a bit dwarfed by the Ace's long body.
Left
On the left side of the Ace you'll find the volume rocker keys near the top and just below this the proprietary port that is used for power, data and headphones. The port is protected by a tethered cover.
Top
The top of the Ace holds the power button on the right side.
Bottom
There are no features on the bottom of the Samsung Ace.
Right
On the right side of the Samsung Ace you'll find the Micro SD slot near the top, with a tethered cover, the scroll wheel below it and a back button below that.
Back
Turning the Ace over you see the lens for the 1.3 megapixel camera near the top flanked by the self-portraite mirror and loud speaker. The lower two-thirds of the back are taken up by the cover for the battery.
Battery Out
Removing the battery cover you battery and just above it a slot for a SIM card. This is interesting as the Ace is one of the few CDMA handsets that is also equipped to run on GSM networks for global roaming.
In the Box (5.0)
The Ace ships with a reasonable selection of accessories for a smart phone. In addition to software CD and manuals you get a charger, data cable and stereo headset. Interestingly, you also receive an adaptor for UK wall outlets, a nod to the Ace's international capabilities.
Handling (6.0)
The Ace feels fairly comfortably in the hand, the plastic isn't overly slick so you probably won't find yourself dropping it too much. It also weighs less than four ounces, despite a rather large size, so it won't bother you to hold it up to your head for long periods. The controls are well placed for your thumb, as is the scroll wheel (as long as you're right handed). The phone is a bit tall and wide, so those with smaller hands may have some trouble holding it, but apart from this handling is solid.
Portability (5.5)
The Samsung Ace measures 4.6 x 2.3 x 0.47 inches and weighs in at 3.84 ounces. The weight is nice, it won't feel heavy in a pocket or bag, but the size is a little on the large side, despite being fairly thin. You'll notice this phone in a pants pocket and it may even be a bit large for smaller purses and bags.
Aesthetics (5.0)
The Ace is styled in black, with a dull finish across most of the device but a glossy finish around the screen and on the controls. Frankly we're not bowled over by the phone's looks. It isn't ugly, but it won't turn heads and doesn't impress. Professional good looks is probably the best you can say about it.
Durability (8.0)
The Samsung Ace feels well built, we detected no creaks or other worrisome sounds. We are a little concerned that the plastic may get scratched up easily, especially on the screen, but aside from that we believe the Ace will stand up well to serious use.
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Summary
The audio quality of the Samsung Ace was average for sound sent and received, with a few small issues that won't bother most people. The side tone, however, was a little on the low side, meaning you may speak louder than you should while on a call with the Ace. |
The audio quality produced by your cell phone is probably it's most important feature so we ues professional hardware and software to test it for you. To simulate the human ear we use HATS, aka Head and Torso Simulator. To analyze the quality of the sound we use Listen Inc's Soundcheck software. This is the same combination of hardware and software used by many carriers and hardware manufacturers. For more information on how we do our audio testing see this article
Sound Receive Frequency Response (8.18)
This test looks at the quality of the sound received by the Samsung Ace. The chart below shows the frequency response of the Ace with a blue line while the limits against which we test are indicated by the two red lines. You can see that the Ace generally fell within our limits but showed some interesting deviations within them. In particular at the high end of frequencies we see the sound dropping off very quickly and then bumbing back up before falling off again. This may cause high pitched voices to sound a little inconsistent, but shouldnt' be a major problem. You can see from the table below that the Ace performed right around the mid range of our comparison phones. It scored slightly higher than the average of all our phones.
| Cell Phone | Samsung Ace | BlackBerry Pearl 8130 (on Verizon) | Nokia N82 (on AT&T) |
| Score | 8.18 | 9.28 |
7.60 |
| Received Sound Frequency Response Graph |  |
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| Cell Phone | Apple iPhone (on AT&T) | Samsung Blackjack II (on AT&T) | HTC Touch (on Sprint) |
| Score | 9.17 | 8.42 | 7.44 |
| Received Sound Frequency Response Graph |  |
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Sound Send Frequency Response (7.78)
The chart below shows the frequency response of sound sent by the Samsung Ace. As with the chart above the blue line indicates the Ace's performance while the two red lines are the limits against which we test. You can see that the Ace doesn't have any major deviations from our limits but does cross the lines in a few places. In particular it's a little to low at the lower end of the frequencies and then peaks to high at the higher end of the frequencies. This means that lower voices may be harder to hear while higher pitched voices will be exaggerated. The deviations are not large, however, so the impact will be limited. You can see below that several of our comparison phones put up worse scores in this test than the Ace. Overall the Ace is slightly above average in terms of audio sent by the phone.
| Cell Phone | Samsung Ace | BlackBerry Pearl 8130 (on Verizon) | Nokia N82 (on AT&T) |
| Score | 7.78 | 8.66 |
6.50 |
| Sound Sent Frequency Response Graph |  |
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| Cell Phone | Apple iPhone (on AT&T) | Samsung Blackjack II (on AT&T) | HTC Touch (on Sprint) |
| Score | 7.58 | 7.02 | 6.56 |
| Sound Sent Frequency Response Graph |  |
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Handset Side Tone (6.68)
Side tone is the small amount of your own voice that is piped back into your ear by cell phones so you can judge how loudly you are speaking. Ideally we'd like to see side tone come in at just about -18 decibels. The Samsung Ace's side tone measured -21.32 decibels, lower than we would have liked. What this means practicallly is that you while talking on the Ace you may feel that you aren't speaking loudly enough. If people on the other end of the call complain that you speak to loudly this is probably the reason. You can see below that the Ace put up the worse side tone score amongst our comparison phones.
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Summary
The Samsung Ace's camera was unimpressive, posting poor scores in our tests of still image quality and poor video despite an impressive video resolution score. We did like the interface of the camera, but interfac doesn't get you very far if the quality of what you're capturing isn't good.
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Resolution (0.9)
To test the resolution of the 1.3 megapixel camera on the Samsung Ace we took photos of an industry standard resolution chat and ran the photos through Imatest software. Imatest produces a score called line widths per picture height (lw/ph), which measures how many alternating black and white lines can be discerned before they start running together. The Ace did not perform very well in our tests, scoring 449 lw/ph horizontal and 674 lw/ph vertical. You can see below that this is by far the worst score put up amongst our comparison phones. We wouldn't expect photos taken by the Ace's camera to look particularly good once you blow them up beyond a cell phone screen.
| Cell Phone | Samsung Ace | BlackBerry Pearl 8130 | Nokia N82 |
| Score | 0.90 | 4.27 | 7.59 |
| lw/ph horizontal/vertical | 449/674 | 980/450 |
1307/1288 |
| Image of Resolution Chart |  |
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| Cell Phone | Apple iPhone | Samsung Blackjack II | HTC Touch |
| Score | 4.18 | 2.45 | 3.56 |
| lw/ph horizontal/vertical | 970/879 |
742/894 | 895/1082 |
| Image of Resolution Chart |  |
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Color (2.04)
To test the color produced by the Ace we take photos of the industry standard GretagMacbeth color chart. This chart displays twenty-four different colors and we use the Imatest software to compare the colors captured by the Ace's camera to the original chart colors. Below you can see the chart produced by Imatest.
Imatest also produces a second chart, which shows you how significant deviations from the ideal color are. Below you can see that the ideal color is represented by a square while the camera's color is marked by a circle. The long lines between the two indicate that the Ace does not do a good job reproducing colors. We saw significant error in almost every color.
Most telling is that whites are off significantly, indicating that this may be primarily a white balance issues. You may be able to get better color capture with the Ace if you fiddle with the white balance settings a little. You can see from the table below that the Ace put up the worst score amongst our comparison phones, combined with the poor resolution score this pretty much nails the Ace's camera as poor.
| Cell Phone | Samsung Ace | BlackBerry Pearl 8130 | Nokia N82 |
| Score | 2.04 | 5.13 | 5.45 |
| Color Checker Chart |  |
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| Cell Phone | Apple iPhone | Samsung Blackjack II | HTC Touch |
| Score | 5.22 | 2.62 | 2.23 |
| Color Checker Chart |  |
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Noise (1.42)
To test noise we use Imatest to judge the noise produced from photos of the GretagMacbeth color chart at four different lighting levels. We consider both the total noise produced at each lighting level and the consistency across lighting levels. The Ace performed reasonalby well in this test, for a cell phone. It's noise war relatively low at all lighting levels and fairly consistent across lighting levels. You can see from the chart below that the Ace performed better than our average phone, although you'll also notice that this still isn't very good. The reality is that no cell phone camera does well in this test because of the extremely small sensors used.
Live Preview (6.0)
The Ace's live preview does a relatively good job, with a few small drawbacks. On the good side we like that it uses the entire display. It also does a good job showing you what you're going to end up with and displays colors accurately. What isn't so good is what happens when you pan the phone around. You end up with a lot of trailing and blurring, which could give you trouble if you're trying to frame something quickly. This isn't a major issue if you're holding the phone still, however. Overall we think the large size and accuracy outweigh the issue with blurring while panning.
Unlocked Standby to First Shot (5.0)
The Samsung Ace took 4.0 seconds to take a photo starting from the home screen unlocked. Although we should note that this entails hitting the capture button before you can see anything on the screen, so you're guessing about the framing. If you wait for the live preview to appear it takes more like 5.6 seconds. You can see below that the four second time, which we are scoring with, is right about average. Amongst our comparison phones we did see some better performers, however, including the iPhone and HTC Touch, both of which performed significantly better than the Ace. The reality is even at four seconds you probably won't be able to grab a spurt of the moment shot with the Ace, a dedicated point and shoot camera is almost always going to be faster. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.
Shot to Shot Time (6.0)
Shot to shot time measures how quickly you can take a series of photos in a row. If available we use a phone's burst mode for this test. The Samsung Ace does have a burst mode and using it we were able to take six shots in three seconds, which works out to 2.0 frames per second (fps). This is a very good score, but it does come at a price in that photos captured with burst mode are take at 640 x 480 resolution instead of the full 1280 x 960. This means they probably aren't good for anything but looking at on the small screen of a cell phone. If you want to capture a series of photos at full resolution you'll have to do it manually, which takes significantly more time. As you can see from the table below the Ace's performance using burst mode was twice as fast as average and amongst our comparison phones only the Samsung Blackjack II edged it out, albeit barely. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.
Shutter to Shot Time (6.06)
Shutter to shot time is the amount of time that passes from the point at which you press the capture button until the image is actually taken. On the Samsung Ace this took 0.33 seconds, which is pretty good. You can see below that this is faster than average and only the HTC Touch amongst our comparison phones did better. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.
Interface (7.5)
We liked the camera interface on the Samsung Ace. The entire screen is taken up by the viewfinder with white labels at the top and bottom of the screen showing you what the soft keys do and key information about the photo you're taking. Hitting the left soft key will let you review the photos you've already captured while the right soft key opens the menu system. The menus are arranged in a very camera-like fashion. It is a tabbed interface that drops down from the top of the screen.
Moving left or right lets you move between the tabs while up/down lets you choose the item you want from the current selection. We like that the menus are also translucent so you can still see what's in your frame while you navigate them. We like that the interface lets you get at just about any setting you want easily without taking up too much of the screen or changing the interface entireley when you enter the menu system. Too bad the camera's performance isn't as good as the menu system.
Photo Album Software Internal (6.0)
The Ace uses the same Pictures & Videos software to manage your photos that all Windows Mobile devices do. This software presents you with your photos in thumbnail view with folders showing up next to photos. You can create folders and move photos around from within the software. One small annoyance is that if you store some photos on the device and some on the memory card you will have to navigate between the two instead of the software grabbing all of the photos from both locations.
Photos can be sent via email or beamed via Bluetooth from within the software and you cal also print them via Bluetooth from the software. You can also save photos to a contact or set it as your home screen. You can play a simple slide show but you don't have any control over things like how long each photo is shown for or what transitions are used. Although we think Pictures & Videos is fairly functional album software we would have liked to see some more options and better overall management of photos.
Manual Control (0.0)
The Samsung Ace's camera does not offer any manual control options.
Zoom (1.0)
The Samsung Ace offers a digital zoom, which unlike many phones is available at the maximum resolution. Simply press up/down on the D-Pad to zoom in or out. Digital zoom basically just crops and enlarges what you're seeing unlike true optical zoom, so it isn't worth very much. As such we only award a single point for it.
Focus (0.0)
The Samsung Ace's camera is fixed focus, which means what you see on the display is what you get. We don't award any points for fixed focus cameras, reserving points instead for more advanced auto-focus cameras.
Flash (0.0)
The Ace does not have a flash.
Metering (2.0)
The Ace offers no true metering options, which allow you to control from which point or points in the scene light is judged. It does however offer you brightness settings, with five levels, which you control by pressing left/right on the D-Pad.
White Balance (2.0)
The Ace offers users the typical set of pre-set white balance settings including Daylight, Cloudy, Tungsten and Flourescent. We recommend you experiment with them as we have serious concerns about the Ace's auto white balance as we mentioned in the Color section above.
Image Handling (5.0)
The Pictures & Videos software on the Ace does a good job with image handling options. Unlike most phones where you're lucky if you can change the file's name this software allows you to rotate, crop and apply an auto-correct to photos. The auto-correct function in particular is significantly better than what most cell phones offer.
Video Quality (3.0)
The Samsung Ace captures video at a maximum resolution of 320 x 240 pixels and 15 frames per second. We were not particularly impressed by the test video we captured. We saw significant artifacting and blurring in the video, once you blow it up past it's original resolution it looks pretty bad. We wouldn't recommend depending on the Ace for video you want to show people on anything but a cell phone screen. We've seen worse but at this resolution we've seen a lot better from other phones like the Samsung Blackjack II.
Video Resolution (8.35)
In contrast to our impression of video quality above the Samsung Ace did very well in our video resolution test. To do this test we take video of the same industry standard resolution chart we use for the stills resolution test. We then run frames from this video through Imatest to produce a line widths per picture height (lw/ph) score. The Samsung ace scored 283 lw/ph horizontal and 295 lw/ph vertical, a very good score for cell phones. You can see below that only the Nokia N82 and it's VGA video capture performed better in this test than the Ace. We imagine that if all you did was take video of stationary objects without moving the camera the final product will match this score, but it seems that any motion either panning the camera or in the scene significantly reduces the quality of the video.
| Cell Phone | lw/ph horizontal/vertical | Score |
| Samsung Ace | 283/295 | 8.35 |
| BlackBerry Pearl 8130 | 171/190 | 3.25 |
| Nokia N82 | 434/461 |
20.01 |
| Apple iPhone | n/a - no video capture |
0.00 |
| Samsung Blackjack II | 233/277 | 6.72 |
| HTC Touch | 895/1082 | 4.51 |
Video Compression (2.0)
The Samsung Ace captures video in 3GP format, which is a standard for mobile video. Unfortunatley this also tends to smash the video with compression and we imagine that the use of this compression format probably has something to do with the poor quality of video captured by the Ace. We would have liked to see the option to capture in a better format like Mpeg-4.
Interface (7.5)
The video capture interface on the Samsung Ace is very similar to the photo capture, which means we like it a lot. In particular we like that video capture uses the whole screen as a viewfinder. Too often we see cell phones shrink the viewfinder for video to a small postage stamp sized window. We like that the icons on the screen are unobstrusive and that the menu system is a tabbed format that is easily navigable. The major difference is that there are just fewer options for video capture than stills capture.
Manual Control (0.0)
There are no manual controls for video capture on the Samsung Ace.
Zoom (1.0)
As with still photos you have a digital zoom available to you when capturing video on the Samsung Ace. Given that the resolution of video is already significantly lower than a still photo the cropping and enlarging that occurs with a digital zoom is going to turn pretty bad video into even worse video fairly quickly. As such we only award a single point for digital zoom.
Editing (0.0)
The Samsung Ace does not offer users any video editing options.
Modes (2.0)
The Samsung Ace does not offer any video capture modes for MMS video, not surprising given that the phone does not support MMS. It does offer a couple of scene modes for cloudy and daylight conditions under white balance options, but nothing else.
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Summary
The Samsung Ace's keypad takes some getting used to, but is fast to dial numbers and the call features are solid. We would have liked ringtones to be a little louder, but we do like that you can use your own music files as ringtones |
Dialing Speed (6.8)
Dialing on the Samsung Ace is pretty speedy at an average of 2.94 seconds. You can see below that this is faster than average and comparable to the speed we saw from our comparison phones. We should note, however, that it will take some practice to dial a number on the Ace without errors.This is because the keypad is built into the keyboard and the buttons are small and packed tightly together. We found that when we first tried it out we would hit the wrong button fairly often. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.
Send and End Buttons (6.0)
The send and end buttons on the Samsung Ace are the largest on the device and sit on the far left and right of the control buttons. The buttons themselves are slick plastic, but they are slightly raised from the buttons that sit inside them. In combination with their large size you shouldn't have any problems hitting them when looking for them, even if going just by feel. The sheer size of the device, however, means that those with smaller hands may find themselves stretching a little to reach the buttons.
Call Management (7.0)
Call management features on the Ace are typical Windows Mobile Standard goodness. You can access a quick list of your most recent calls by hitting the send button or go to a more fully featured history by going into the start menu and launching the Call History. Here you get a list of all your calls with the option to save a number to your contacts. You can also send a text message from the history, view call timers and filter the list by missed, incoming or outgoing calls. This should provide you with all the information you need.
Startup to Call (1.79)
The Samsung Ace is very slow to start up, as is typical of Windows Mobile devices, at 55.9 seconds. You can see from the chart below that only the other two Windows Mobile devices were as slow, or slower, than the Ace. The BlackBerry Pearl, Nokia N82 and iPhone, were much faster, by comparison. The lesson here is that if you have your phone turned off and need to make a quick call be prepared to wait a minute or so. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.
Ring Volume (8.86)
To test ring volume we go through all the ringers on the phone at maximum volume and use a sound pressure meter to measure it in decibels. The Samsung Ace's maximum volume was measured at 88.6 decibels, which is pretty low. You can see from the chart below that the average cell phone comes in at 96.09 decibels and aside from the iPhone all of our comparison phones were also louder than the Ace. This leads us to worry about whether you'll be able to hear the Ace ring in a loud environment.
Ringtones (8.0)
Like all Windows Mobile Standard devices you can easily add your own ring tones to the Samsung Ace by dropping them into the My Ringtones folder. The device was able to recognize both Mp3 and WMA files, but not AAC. You can also set a voice recording made on the device's Voice Notes application as a ring tone. What you can't do is edit music files on the device to cut them down to more reasonable ring tone size.
Non Audio Alerts (7.0)
The vibrate feature on the Samsung Ace is a little strange. We had trouble feeling it in our pocket, but it is actually pretty loud. Now this may be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how unobtrusive you want the vibrate feature on your phone to be. In this case we're considering how noticeable it is and even though the vibration isn't noticeable we would notice the sound it produces. If you happen to be looking at the phone when it rings you'll probably notice it as the screen lights up nicely with information about the incoming call. Overall we would rate the non-audio alerts to be middling. In particular we've seen better vibrates on other phones like the Blackjack II and the HTC Touch.
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Summary
The Ace is a capable messaging device but we found the email client was a little slow to load. We also don't like that MMS support has been removed from the device. Those working in an Exchange Server environment will enjoy the Ace's excellent integration with that platform. |
Supported Email Services (8.0)
As a Windows Mobile Standard devices the Samsung Ace supports most email protocols including POP3 and IMAP4. The built in email client will also help you set up accounts from popular services like Gmail, AOL and Yahoo without dealing with messy stuff like server addresses. One bonus of a Windows Mobile device is that the platform also has native support for Hotmail email addresses.
Push Email (3.0)
The Samsung Ace supports push email via Microsoft's Exchange server using ActiveSync. This is native support for Microsoft's email standard and allows you to receive your email in real time, just like a BlackBerry. Unfortunately if you are using a BlackBerry server at your company the Ace won't be able to support it out of the box, but you should be able to find a client that you can install to add this support.
Multiple Email Accounts (10.0)
The Samsung Ace supports up to six different email accounts, we max out our points at five so the Ace will get maximum points here. This is a great feature for those who need to manage multiple accounts on their device. It should be noted, however, that only one of those can be an Exchange account.
HTML and Attachments (11.0)
One of the upgrades that came along with Windows Mobile 6 is support for HTML email, allowing you to view rich email messages on devices like the Samsung Ace. The support for attachments, however, was a disappointment. We were amazed to discover that unlike every other Windows Mobile 6 device we've seen the Ace does not include Microsoft's mobile Office suite. Samsung and Sprint have included a file viewer that will allow you to look at Word, Excel, Powerpoint and PDF documents, but you won't be able to edit them. We'll rant about this more in the software section, but you can bet we're not happy about this.
Email Customizations (2.0)
Like other Windows Mobile devices we've seen the email customization options are not particularly impressive. You can't change the font size, type or color for either display or composition. You also can't change the height of emails shown in the inbox. About the only thing you can do is add a signature to outgoing emails, albeit this implementation is very good with the ability to have different signatures for each account and the ability to control whether it is added to replies and forwards.
Time to a New Email Message (2.60)
The Samsung Ace is not very impressive when it comes to email speed. It took us an average of 7.68 seconds to get a new email dialogue on the screen.
As you can see below this is way below average and significantly slower than any of our comparison phones. Even when we did the trial with the email software already running in the background it still took four seconds, not a particularly impressive time. This should give anyone who wants to use the Ace as their primary email device some pause, you're going to have to put up with some slowness, especially compared to a BlackBerry. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.
Email Usability (7.0)
We've been fans of the Windows Mobile email interface as the Blackjack II does nothing to change our minds. When you first launch the messaging program you are show a list of available accounts, including SMS. Once in an account you are taken to the inbox where you see the list of messages. You can easily move up and down the list with the D-Pad or the Scroll Wheel. Switching to another account is as easy as going left/right on the D-Pad, one of our favorite features. The right soft key opens a menu to access a variety of functions while the left soft key is assigned to delete messages.
When composing a new message you are shown the To and Subject lines with space for the body below. We like that Cc and Bcc fields are cleverly placed above the To field, so you just have to scroll up to access them. We also like the support for auto completion, so matching email addresses and contacts pop up as you enter an address or name in any field. There are a couple of problems, however. Deleting multiple emails is a chore as you can't select more than one and the folder structure is a pain to get to. Other than that the interface is solid.
Instant Messaging (0.0)
The Samsung Ace lacks any instant messaging software out of the box, not even the standard Windows Live messenger that is included on most Windows Mobile devices. You can, of course, go out and download a wide variety of different IM clients for your device, we recommend you avoid Sprint's client however as they will charge you a text message for every instant message sent or received.
MMS Support (0.0)
In what seems to be an unfortunate trend for Sprint's Windows Mobile devices the Samsung Ace lacks support for MMS, just like the HTC Touch. Windows Mobile devices are certainly capable of MMS messaging so there's no reason we can see why this feature should be removed. We've railed against the iPhone's lack of this feature and we don't understand why Sprint would follow suit and disable this feature on their smart devices. There are workarounds for sending photos and short videos to other phones using your email client, but these are kludgy and you have to know what carrier your recipient is on.
SMS Smiley Face Interpretation (0.0)
The Samsung Ace does not display smiley faces graphically and there's no easy way to insert smiley faces either.
SMS/MMS Ease of Use (7.0)
The SMS interface on the Samsung Ace is very similar to the email interface, not surprising as SMS is built into the email client. This means we generally like it with some reservations like the difficulty to access folder structures and delete multiple messages. When creating a new SMS there is a handy counter so you can see how many characters you've used and how many messages will need to be sent. We also wish that the Ace supported threaded SMS, although this may come with an update to Windows Mobile 6.1 in the near future we can't be sure.
Time to a New SMS Message (1.58)
As with email we were not impressed at how long it took to get a new text message dialogue on the screen with the Ace. 6.32 seconds is way longer than average for cell phones and the worst time by a long shot amongst our comparison phones. Once again you can cut down the time by leaving the messaging application running in the background, something you would probably do anyways, and this makes it a much more reasonable 3.4 seconds, still not great but not horrendous either. You can also get to a new SMS dialogue by pressing and holding on the messaging button found in the lower left of the QWERTY keyboard, but this actually takes half a second longer than navigating through the menus. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.
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Summary
The Ace provides users with powerful PIM applications that synchronize easily with Outlook on your computer. We found that the PIM applications were easy to use and responded fairly quickly, this phone can definitely replace a PDA. |
Synchronization (7.0)
Running Windows Mobile Standard means the Samsung Ace is very good at synchronizing information with your computer. Using Activesync with XP or Windows Mobile Device Manager with Vista you can synchronize contacts, calendars, tasks, notes, files and bookmarks with your computer.
Setting up synchronization is as easy as installing the software and plugging in your device, although you may want to take a look at this article if you have a firewall installed. Synchronization needs to happen over USB at first, but after that you can also synchronize via Bluetooth. You can synchronize with Outlook on an XP or Vista computer and also with Vista's buil in PIM applications. Unfortunately there's no out of the box support for synchronization with other software or platforms, like Eudor, Lotus Notes or a Mac. If you do have a Mac there is an excellent third party program that will allow you to synchronize with your Ace called The Missing Sync.
Alerts (7.0)
Alerts on the Samsung Ace can be set up for both calendar appointments and tasks. For tasks alerts are simple but flexible. You can set the exact time and date it goes off. For calendar appointments you have less flexibility, strangely. Here you have to choose from a list of preset times before the appointment, ranging from 1 minute to 1 week. We wonder why the flexibility of the task alert systems wasn't included, at least as an additional option, for the calendar. In either case you cannot set custom sound and vibration settings for each individual alert, instead the appropriate alert for the profile you have activated at the time it sounds will be used. When an alert sounds you have the option to view, dismiss or snooze it. One of the things we love about Windows Mobile are that you have multiple snooze options so you can decide to have it sound again in five minutes or in a day, with several intervening options. This is much better than other platforms like Symbian S60 that don't provide you with any snooze options.
Over the Air PIM Sync (2.0)
As a Windows Mobile device the Samsung Ace can synchronize calendars, contacts and tasks wirelessly with an Exchange server out of the box. This is a great feature for anyone who works in a corporate environment that uses Exchange or just has their own personal Exchange server. Those who prefer to synchronize with less business oriented services like Google or Yahoo won't be as thrilled, as the Ace doesn't have this capability out of the box. You can install additional software to get this functionality, however.
Adding Contacts (9.84)
It took us an average of 10.16 seconds to add new contact name and phone number to the address book on the Samsung Ace. This is extremely speedy, you can see from the chart below that it's more than eight seconds faster than average and beat out all of our comparison phones. In fact the only phone to come close was the Blackjack II from Samsung, which is very similar to the Ace. We were also quite pleased that this speedy time was achieved without the contacts application running in the background. If you leave it open you may find adding contacts even faster.
The most important factor in achieving this speed was that getting to a new contact interface was a two button press affair, from the home screen we just hit the right soft key to launch contacts and then the left soft key to open a new contact dialogue. Typing in the names and numbers with the QWERTY keyboard was also fairly quick. We are quite happy with the Ace's performance in this test. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.
Looking/Sorting/Search (5.5)
Searching for contacts on the Samsung Ace is exceedingly simple, just start typing the contact's name, first or last, and the list of contacts will automatically be filtered. You don't even need to launch the contacts application if you just want to dial a number as typing on the home screen will bring up the dial screen and immediately begin sorting through your contacts based on phone number or name. You can also search by company name, but to do that you need to change the contact view in the application to By Company.
You can also filter your contacts by category, an important feature for anyone who has to manage thousands of contacts on their device. Contacts are sorted by last name, first name and there's no way to change this, unfortunately. Overall, however, we were quite pleased with the contact sorting and search options on the Samsung Ace.
Fields (8.2)
When you create a new contact on the Samsung Ace you have the typical plethora of fields available from Windows Mobile devices, a total of forty-one. Although this is plenty of fields for most and includes arcane options like Radio Phone and Cutomer ID we do wish it was more customizable as on Symbian Series 60 devices where you can create your own custom fields.
Speed Dial/Voice tags/Voice command (5.67)
The Ace ships with Microsoft's Voice Command software and it works rather well. Simply activate the software and then press and hold the send button to activate it. Speak a contact's name and the phone will ask you if you want to call that contact. It also works via Bluetooth and is able to handle a lot of other functions like announce messages and calendar appointments. We were most pleased that it was able to handle all five of our test contact names, which are fairly diverse and often cause voice command programs to choke. Voice tags, where you train the phone to learn a name, are not supported.
Speed dials are also supported on the Samsung Ace, although it will take a little bit of poking around to figure out how to assign them. You might think the Speed Dial program found in the Accessories folder is it, but you can't assign a speed dial from here. Instead you will need to go into your contacts, then open a particular contact and then choose the Add to Speed Dial option from the right soft key menu. Speed dials can be assigned to any number between two and ninety-nine, with one of course assigned to voice mail.
Adding Calendar Items (18.25)
The Samsung Ace took an average of 5.48 seconds to add a new calendar appointment for lunch the following day with a reminder fifteen minutes before. You can see from the chart below that this is an excellent score, much better than average and only beat out by one of our comparison phones. We found that we were helped out in this test by the fact that the time and reminder for our appointment were set in the defaults, so all we had to do was enter the title.
For different appointments it will take awhile longer, but it should still be fairly speedy, certainly it's never goint to take as long as the iPhone took. We found the fastest way to launch the calendar program was to scroll down a couple of plugins on the home screen and launching it from there. We were quite happy with the Ace's performance in this test, especially for a smart phone the ability to add PIM information quickly is quite important. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.
Calendar Views (4.4)
Like other Windows Mobile Standard devices the Samsung Ace offers you three different views. The first is the Agenda view, which is actually a daily view as it only shows you the appointments for a single day. Here you see a list of appointments in chronological order with the title and time of the appointment. The best part of this view is the busy/free bar at the top of the screen that shows you what times of the day are blocked out by appointments.
The weekly view is a grid with hours on the left and days along the top with your appointments blocked out in the appropriate time. Moving left/right on the D-Pad will jump from appointment to appointment with information about the currently selected item displayed at the bottom of the screen. This is one of the better implementations of the week view that we've seen, especially compared to phones that don't show you any details about appointments in the weekly view.
Unfortunately the monthly view is less useful. Here you see the current month with indicators on days that have appointments That's about it, so it's really only useful to look up a date or quickly navigate to another day. We wonder why Microsoft didn't add a small indicator that shows you a list of appointments on the currently selected day as you have on Symbian Series 60 devices like the Nokia N82. Still, the daily and weekly views are excellent and between those two you should have no problem managing your calendar on the Samsung Ace.
Fields (10.0)
When you create a new appointment on the Ace you have a solid selection of fields to fill in. In addition to the basics like title, start/end time, and reminder you can also set busy status, location, notes, choose to make it an all-day event and set recurrence options. Recurrence is not as good as Windows Mobile Professional devices like the HTC Touch where you have almost complete control over the recurrence pattern. On the Ace and other Windows Mobile Standard devices you have to choose from relatively few recurrence options including weekly, monthly and yearly. We would have liked to see options for weekday and weekend recurrence as well. If you absolutely need to have more control over recurrence you can go out and get some third party software like Papyrus to get this capability. We also wish that support for categories was available. Aside from these niggles we were quite happy with the Ace's calendar fields.
Adding ToDo/Task (8.29)
It took us an average of 12.06 seconds to add a new task to the Samsung Ace. This is better than average and was the best time we saw amongst our comparison phones.
This despite the fact that the tasks program was buried in the menu system, so there was no quick shortct we could use from the home screen (note: we don't use the dynamically updated list of recently used programs on the Windows Mobile Standard home screen to conduct timing tests). We were quite happy with the Ace's performance in this test. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.
ToDo/Task Sorting and Prioritizing (7.0)
Tasks on the Samsung Ace can be sorted by status, priority, subject, start or due date. You can also filter you tasks by category, recent tasks, active tasks and completed tasks. This should be more than enough functionality for people looking to manage their tasks on a mobile device.
Fields (8.0)
The tasks program on older versions of Windows Mobile standard provided you with almost no fields, all you could do is create a new task with a title. Thankfully newer devices like the Ace have many more fields, which makes the task program actually usable. Now, in addition to title, you can set priority, start/due date, set reminders, sensitivity, add a note, set category and recurrence. Recurrence is of the same limited variety we saw in the calendar application, so you can only have it recur weekly, monthly or yearly. The category support is actually a little surprising since this is missing from the calendar application, but we like it so we're not going to complain.
Adding Notes (4.43)
Windows Mobile Standard as found on the Samsung Ace doesn't ship with a text notes application by default, however Samsung has nicely added a third party application to the device. Using this we were able to create a new text note in an average of 11.28 seconds, which is faster than average and faster than any of our comparison devices aside from the BlackBerry Pearl 8130.
We were quite pleased with the speed we were able to manage in this test, especially because the notes program is buried in the menu system so we had to take time to go in and launch it. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.
Note Interface (5.0)
The notes application on the Samsung Ace shows you a list of your notes when launched. The left soft key is assigned to create new notes while the right soft key opens a menu that allow syou to delete, send or sort your notes. The sort options are particularly nice as you can choose from sorting by name, date or size, either ascending or descending. We also like that you can take a note and send it via SMS or Email directly from the program. Search and categorization features would have been nice, but if you really need these you can go out and get a third party notes application. Overall we found the software interface to be solid, easy to use and with a good selection of options.
Note Formatting (0.0)
Unfortunately there are no formatting options when creating a note so you can't bold, italicize or underline text.
Voice Memo (4.0)
The voice memo application on the Samsung Ace is exceedingly simple. When launched you see a list of your notes, named Recording1, Recording2, etc. To record a new note simply hit the left soft key and it starts recording with no time limit. The right soft key opens a menu where you can delete notes, rename them or set them as a ringtone. It does the job, but certainly anyone who takes a lot of voice notes and needs more organization options will find it lacking.
[page title="Multimedia"]
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Summary
The Samsung Ace uses Windows Media Player Mobile for both music and video playback and it does a solid job. The software is well organized and customizable and easily synchronizes with the desktop version. It also supports Microsoft's DRM for both music and video. It is a little slow to load videos and we would have liked better support for streaming audio and video, but otherwise it should do fine. If you need a more powerful piece of multimedia software you can purchase Coreplayer, which can handle just about everything under the sun. |
Accessing Music Software (4.50)
It took an average of 4.44 seconds to get a song playing on the Samsung Ace. You can see below that this is better than average and also better than any of our comparison phones except the iPhone.
Although a decent score for a cell phone we have to point out that dedicated music players like the iPod can often get a song playing within one or two seconds, something to consider if you want to use your cell phone as your main music device. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.
Dedicated Music Controls (0.0)
The Samsung Ace doesn't have any dedicated music controls. Even the volume keys won't control music volume when it is playing in the background. That means that any change you want to make, skipping to the next song, adjusting volume or play/pause, will require you to open Windows Media Player Mobile.
Music Software Functionality and Organization (6.2)
Windows Media Player Mobile is a pretty solid music playback solution. Playlists are supported, albeit only those synchronized over from Windows Media Player on your desktop. You can't just drop a standard .pls or .m3u file on the device and have it recognized. You can create playlists on the device, however, and edit existing ones. Tags were recognized for our test Mp3 and WMA files, but not for our test AAC file. You can sort music by title, artist, albume or genre and you can also rate music and have those ratings sync back to Windows Media Player on your desktop. Unfortunately there's no search feature in the software, something we really like about the S60 music player on phones like the Nokia N82.
Album art is supported for WMA files only, and you will need to have the software scan your device for music, it won't just automatically show up. Another annoyance is that it divides your music into two libraries. One of items on the device and another for items on the memory card. This is annoying and unnecessary. Music can be played in the background, and as long as Windows Media Player is one of your most recently used programs you can quickly get to it from the list of recent items on the home screen. Otherwise you'll need to go in through the start menu or the task manager. There is no equalizer available on the software. Overall we feel like the software provides solid functionality, especially if you're using it in conjunction with Windows Media Player on your computer. If you're an iTunes or Winamp user things might not work as smoothly.
Online Song Downloading (0.0)
The Samsung Ace does not support any direct download music services. In particular it does not support Sprint's music store, which is a shame as it's one of the few carrier stores that actually has decent prices.
Streaming (2.0)
The Ace was able to stream windows media audio but does not support streaming Mp3 or Real audio.
Podcast Support (0.0)
The Samsung Ace does not include any software to download and/or organize podcasts.
Music Sync with PC (7.0)
Synchronization with a PC is done via Windows Media Player, which provides you with excellent control over automatically synchronized playlists as well as the ability to move things over manually.
Music Formats and DRM (4.0)
The Samsung Ace is capable of playing back AAC, WMA and Mp3 files. As with all Windows Mobile devices it supports Microsoft's Playsforsure DRM, now known as Certified for Windows Vista for some unknown reason. What this means is that you will be able to play DRM protected music from a wide variety of online stores including Napster.
Music Interruption (10.0)
The Samsung Ace handles interruptions to music playback by calls reasonably well. When a call comes in the music is nicely faded out and you are given the call screen so you can see who's calling and pick it up. When the call ends the music will resume but the Ace won't automatically take you back to Windows Media Player Mobile. Instead you stay at the call screen so you can manage the call if you want. This isn't necessarily a problem but may not be the behavior people want.
Video Software Access (2.42)
The Samsung Ace was pretty slow to load a new video, taking an average of 8.26 seconds to go from the home screen until a video was playing.You can see from the chart below that this is below average for cell phones and slower than all but one of our comparison phones. The whole process, from launching Windows Media Player Mobile, to navigating to the video to actually loading it once launched were slow. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.
Video Controls (8.0)
When a video is playing in Windows Media Player your controls are pretty solid. The center button on the D-Pad controls play/pause while up/down controls volume. Left and right perform dual functions, a single press will move to the next or previous video while holding them down will fast forward or rewind. The left soft key is assigned to take you to the current playlist while the star button will let you adjust the rating. The nice thing about Windows Media Player Mobile is that these functions can also be re-assigned in the options, with additional options available that are not assigned by default but that you can assign to a button of your choosing.
Video Software & Organization (6.0)
Windows Media Player Mobile is a solid piece of software for playing back video. You can rate your videos and have that rating synchronized to the desktop version of Windows Media Player and you can watch videos in full screen mode. Video can also be played in the background if you like listening to a TV show while doing something else. The organization features are much better than what you see on a typical cell phone. You can synchronize your video playlists over as well as create and edit them on the device.
The library allows you to view videos by title or genre, although it would have been nice to see options for movies and tv shows as well. Unfortunately, as with music, there's no search feature. Still, the features that are available are significantly better than the complete lack of features found on most cell phones.
Video Sync with PC (7.0)
As with music you can synchronize video on the Samsung Ace using Windows Media Player on your computer. There are no options to synchronize with different software like iTunes.
Video Formats (7.0)
The Ace was able to play back all three of our test 3GP files, each encoded slightly differently, as well as our test Mpeg-4, H264 and, surprisingly, Real Media video. Not supported were Flash and Quicktime video, but despite this the Samsung Ace supports a solid selection of video types.
Video DRM (5.0)
As with audio the Samsung Ace supports Microsoft's Windows Media Player DRM for videos, which means you can purchase DRM protected videos from places like Amazon's Unboxed store. iTunes DRM for videos is not supported and neither is Real's DRM.
Video Playback Smoothness (10.0)
The Samsung Ace was easily able to play all five of our test video files that are encoded at increasing bitrates. The maximum bitrate file is encoded at 768 kbps, and was handled without problems, even in full screen mode. This means you can watch reasonably high quality video on the Samsung Ace.
Online Video Downloading (0.0)
The Samsung Ace does not support any direct video download services.
Video Streaming unscored
We don't score this section because streaming mobile video is all over the map at this point, but we do try out some services to see how they are handled. Unfortunately the Samsung Ace was not able to handle streaming video from either Youtube Mobile or Zoovision's mobile page. It was able to handle streaming Windows Media video from Windowsmedia.com. In addition you can watch streaming video content from Sprint via Sprint TV, although you will have to pay for this content.
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Summary
The Samsung Ace runs Windows Mobile Standard, which is a solid operating system with a lot of functionality and the ability to be extended with native third party applications. The one glaring problem with the Ace's software is that for some reason Samsung decided to leave out Office Mobile, which allows you to edit Word and Excel files as well as view Powerpoint presentations. This software is generally incuded in the OS and we don't see any good reason why it was left out. |
OS (8.0)
The Ace runs Windows Mobile 6 Standard, the non-touchscreen flavor of Windows Mobile. This platform is fairly mature and has taken some big steps forward in the past year. Although it still lags behind the Professional version of Windows Mobile that runs on touch screen devices like the HTC Touch like the lack of copy and past functionality. Still, many of these problems can be addressed with third-party software and they tend to be relatively minor. Windows Mobile Standard isn't perfect but it does a solid job. At this point we don't know of the Ace will be updated to Windows Mobile 6.1, which adds copy & past functionality amongst other new features.
Home Screen Score (6.0)
The Samsung Ace's home screen is similar to those found on most Windows Mobile devices. It is arranged in a series of plugins that you can navigate using the D-Pad. At the top are the most recently used applications, which helps you quickly access the programs you use the most. Below this is informationa bout the carrier, date and time. Then you have a list of upcoming appointments, and a bar for messaging that shows unread Email and SMS messages. At the very top is a bar with information about signal strength, battery life and other indicators. At the bottom is a bar that shows you the two soft-key assignments, in this case the left is for the Start menu and the right is assigned to contacts. These can change, for example if you have a missed alert the right soft key will take you to that alert.
The home screen on Standard devices like the Ace is not as customizable as Professional devices like the Touch. In particular you can't turn specific plugins on or off, instead you have to choose from a variety of pre-built home screens in the settings. If you do want more customization you'll have to edit the XML of the home-screen manually. You can change the background of the home screen easily, using any photo on the phone. Aside from that there are not a lot of other customization options without third-party software.
Extensibility (4.0)
Windows Mobile Standard is an extremely extensible platform, with thousands of native third party applications available for download. Unfortunately the phone does not come quipped with a java virtual machine so you can't run java applications. There are free java virtual machines you can download if you absolutely need one, but the functionality is not there out of the box. Still, almost every type of application you might need is available as a native app so you probably won't see the need.
Customizability (3.0)
Windows Mobile Standard on the Ace is not the most customizable smart phone platform. You can change the home screen background and change the global font size, but there is no support for themes and doing things like reorganizing the application list requires you to delve into the guts of the operating system, not for the faint of heart.
OS Responsivness (7.0)
We found the Samsung Ace to be generally responsive, with a few notable exceptions. In particular it takes awhile for large programs like your calendar, email or Windows Media Player Mobile to launch when it's not running in the background. Windows Mobile Standard is a multi-tasking operating system, however, and this means you can leave these applications running in the background where they will be almost immediately accessible when you need them. It's not quite as fast as the iPhone, but is certainly more responsive than some of the slower Windows Mobile handset we've seen like the Pantech Duo.
Browser Features (8.0)
Internet Explorer Mobile on the Samsung Ace does a solid job supporting browser technologies. You can view both standard HTML pages and mobile WAP pages. There is support for frames, Javascript, pictures, cookies and encryption. What isn't supported is more advanced web technologies like Java and Flash. It also doesn't support RSS feeds or password management. These more advanced features are starting to show up on some mobile browsers like Nokia's S60 Web. Still, compared to the basic mobile browser you see on many phones Internet Explorer Mobile does a very good job.
Browsing Interface (7.0)
Where Internet Explorer Mobile falls behind a little is in the browsing interface. Although this is slated to be improved with the latest Windows Mobile 6.1 update, the Ace does not yet support advanced features like an overview mode, which you see on S60 Web or Apple's iPhone browser. Instead you have three options for viewing a web site.
You can view it in single column mode, where all content is stacked so you don't have to scroll left or right, Fit To Screen, which arranges content into columns one screen widths wide or Desktop, which displays the site just as it would appear in your browser. The problem with the latter two is that without an overview mode they are difficutl to get around as you do a lot of scrolling, especially on busy sites like the New York Times or Yahoo's home page.
You can choose from five different text sizes from the browser, which is more than you would get on most phones. History is a simple list of sites visited, with the URL shown. There's no way to save a bookmark from history, sort or filter your history, but it is saved between sessions. Bookmarks are well implemented, you can edit existing bookmarks and easilly organize them into folders. The left soft key is assigned to go back to the previous page, which is somewhat redundant since the back button does the same thing, while the right soft key opens a menu where you can access all of your other options