Samsung Ace Cell Phone Review - Multimedia
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Alfredo Padilla Published on April 29, 2008 Comment on this |
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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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