Samsung Ace Cell Phone Review - Software
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Alfredo Padilla Published on April 29, 2008 Comment on this |
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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.
Overall Internet Explorer Mobile's interface is reasonably good for a mobile browser, especially compared to lower end browsers found on basic cell phones. Compared to the more modern browsers we're seeing on devices like the iPhone, Nokia N95 or even Opera Mini, which you can install on just about any phone, it's starting to lag behind. As we mentioned at the beginning of this sections Windows Mobile 6.1 should bring some nice upgrades for Internet Explorer Mobile like a page overview mode but we don't yet know if the Ace will be getting this software upgrade.
Browser Access (4.44)
It took us nine steps to go from the home screen on the Samsung Ace until we had browsed to our own web page in Internet Explorer Mobile. This is not particularly impressive, you can see from the chart below that this is slower than the average for all phones and slower than any of our comparison phones as well. The Ace was slowed down by the fact that Internet Explorer Mobile is buried in a folder in the menu and that you then have to use three key presses before you can start entering an address. Entering the address itself only counts as a single step in our test. We count steps here instead of doing a timed test because we don't want network issues effecting our score.
Gaming (5.33)
The Samsung Ace comes with the same two standard games that we see on almost all Windows Mobile devices, Bubble Breaker and Solitaire. These are reasonably fun and will kill some time on the train during a commute, but they're not going to knock your socks off. Thankfully there are a wide variety of native third party games available for Windows Mobile Standard devices like the Ace, however the lack of a Java Virtual Machine on the Ace means you can't play any Java games on the device. The controls on the Ace are not ideal for gaming, but they're not terrible either. The D-Pad is fairly responsive and doesn't cause mistaken presses although gamers might wish the soft keys were more prominent. The Ace won't replace your DS, but it'll do for some casual gaming.
Calculator (6.0)
The Ace has the standard calculator you find on Windows Mobile devices. This will let you do basic arithmetic functions (+, -, *, /) and also has memory functions and support for square roots and percentages. If you're looking for anything more you'll want to grab some third party software. Samsung has included a conversion tool and a tip calculator on the device as separate programs as well.
Alarm (7.0)
Instead of using the Windows Mobile Standard interface for alarms Samsung decided to include their own alarm program on the Ace, which can be found in the Organizer folder in the programs menu. This program allows you to set up to ten different alarms, each of which can be turned on or off. Aside from the special Wake-Up alarm all of these are the same allowing you to choose a single time that the alarm goes off, choose the tone that sounds, select from three recurrence patterns (every day, except sunday and weekdays) and set a length of time for snooze up to a maximum of ten minutes.
The Wake-Up alarm by contrast allows you to set three different alarm time and then assign one of these times to each day of the week. This way you can have one alarm that goes off Monday through Friday, another that goes off on Saturday and yet another for Sunday. You can choose one sound that is used for all three of these alarms and also set the length of the snooze. Although this is interesting functionality, we don't see this program adding significant value over the standard alarm interface, and it can be a little confusing at times.
Document Software (4.0)
Sometimes manufacturers make decisions that just don't make any sense and Samsung's decision to leave Office Mobile off the Ace is one of those. We don't want to hear about cost, there are plenty of $99 Windows Mobile devices out there that include Office Mobile and once you cross that off the list of potential reasons you're left with nothing, except frustration. As it is you're stuck with a program that will let you view Word, Excel, Powerpoint and PDF documents, but frankly it doesn't do a very good job. If you do want to add file editing back into the Ace you'll have to dish out for it by purchasing Dataviz's Documents To Go software for $29.99.
Other Software (3.0)
Aside from the software listed above the Samsung Ace does include some other software of note. The only ones we thought were worth additional points, however, was the file browser, Windows Live Search and the task manager. The file browser lets you go through files on the device just like Windows Explorer does on a desktop. It is a little limited by the fact that you can't select multiple files, but if all you want to do is find a particular file to send in a message or move to another location it comes in handy.
The task manager allows you to view all the currently running programs on the device and shut down all of them or those you want to. This can be important if the device starts slowing down because too many programs are running in the background and it also functions as a handy application switcher. You can access the task manager by pressing and holding on the home button. Windows Live Search is a local search and mapping program similar to Google Maps.
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