Samsung Katalyst Review

Performance:

With the Katalyst being slim, our concern was that reception would suffer but we are happy to report that it has strong reception. We managed to have signal almost anywhere, even to places where the majority of the handsets couldn’t. In our location where we were testing the @Home connection, we were receiving one to two bars on the GSM network but once we connected to the router, no less then four bars were seen constantly.

Sound quality was just as impressive as voices came through clearly and crisply through the earpiece but once you switch to the speakerphone, things go slightly downhill. Everything sounded somewhat muffled and hard to understand at times. The other end didn’t see as dramatic of a change and we came through loud and clear. When connected to the @Home router, sound quality improved greatly and the people on the other side thought we were using a landline.

The ringer was very quiet and muffled since it is played through the speakerphone. In quiet to moderately loud environments, we experienced no difficulty hearing a call but once in a loud area, it could not be heard unless the handset was close to our ear.

Battery life is just astounding during our single charge test. The Katalyst is rated for 5 hours of talk time but we got 8 hours and 5 minutes in our experience. When using the @Home network, it lasted for 7 hours and 36 minutes. Standby time is rated for 250 hours.


Conclusion:

So, the Katalyst may be a boring handset with so-so features but it performs great where it needs to, during usage. It has a great reception strength, strong battery life, and clear sound quality. On top of that, the Hotspot @Home service is just another perk whether or not the plan is used. So, if you want to save some money by not getting a landline but have little to no reception inside the house, definitely check out T-Mobile’s Hotspot @Home and the Katalyst will add onto that even when you’re traveling around.