Samsung Focus S Review

Samsung Focus S Review. The Samsung Focus S is part of a trio of new Windows Phone 7.5 Mango smartphones on ATT. The Focus S joins its smaller and more affordable little brother, the Samsung Focus Flash and the HTC Titan. The Focus S sells for $199 with contract, but right now the carrier is discounting it to $99 with contract. That's a good deal for a phone that's a near twin to the high end Android Samsung Galaxy S II. What's different?

The Galaxy S II has a 1.2GHz dual core CPU (all the rage in Android land), and the Focus S has a single core 1.4GHz CPU. Much as we pay micro-psychotic attention to specs, don't read too much into that. Not only is the Focus S extremely fast, silky fast, too fast for your grandma (or at least too fast for mine); but also Microsoft only supports single core CPUs in OS 7.5 Mango. Why? Because they found no worthwhile performance gain with dual core CPUs, so why raise handset costs? They've finely tuned their OS for single core Qualcomm Snapdragon CPUs in a similar fashion to Apple tuning the iPhone to Apple's CPUs.


Samsung's first US Windows Phone, the Samsung Focus on AT&T was a fast phone even with the first gen 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU. The Focus S is faster, and more importantly, it has improved battery life because the second gen Snapdragon CPU is much more efficient. How nice to not have to worry whether your phone will make it through the day with moderate to heavy use. It will. The Focus S has a 1650 mAh Lithium Ion battery and a power frugal 4.3" Super AMOLED Plus display. As you'd expect from a Super AMOLED Plus display, blacks are inky and colors are hyper-saturated, and there's a slight blue color tint that's noticeable on white backgrounds.

Design and Ergonomics

The good news and bad news is that the Focus S is a near dead ringer for the Samsung Galaxy S II. That's good because the phone is absurdly light and very thin, and the GS II has been extremely well received. The bad news is it feels too light (if that's possible) and it's typical Samsung plastics with not a hint of metal or high quality finishes. At 3.9 ounces, the Focus S is lighter than the smaller and cheaper Samsung Focus Flash (3.7" display), and the battery door is paper-thin. The phone is exquisitely thin at 0.33", but that thinness combined with the gloss sides makes it easy to drop. I rarely drop phones but have found myself one juggle away from disaster several times with the Focus S. Get a case with a grippy texture.

As per usual with Samsung, the power button is on the upper right side and the volume controls are almost directly across on the left hand side. Happily, Samsung dropped the volume controls just a bit lower than the power button so one doesn't accidentally press the opposing button when gripping the phone to turn it on or change volume. The 3.5mm stereo jack is up top and the micro USB port for charging and syncing with the Zune desktop client is at the bottom. The phone has dual mics for noise cancelling, with one on the top edge and one on the bottom edge. The speaker fires out the rear and has moderate volume and fullness, but it can't compete with the amazingly loud and full HTC Titan speaker that can literally fill a room.