Samsung Rant Review

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Messaging:

There is some big news in the messaging front, however.  For the first time in a dumbphone- and we have no idea why it took this long- texts are displayed as a threaded conversation.  It's not a new feature, and has been appearing on smart and feature phones for a few years now, but this is the first time it's appeared on a regular old phone and we really applaud Sprint for making this move first, delayed as it is.  The only oddity is that messages are shown from newest to oldest, making it backward to any other threaded SMS we've ever seen.  Similar to the Rumor, the Rant brings up a messaging menu when slid open that asks the user what kind of message they want to send.

It is preloaded with Sprint Mobile Email and the Sprint IM client. The email program has the likes of Gmail, Yahoo and others preconfigured, and users can configure their own personal accounts including Exchange mail. The IM app supports AIM, Live and Yahoo Messenger. Unlike the Rumor there is no direct link to Facebook, though given that Sprint has been featuring it and My Space in their phones quite often we wouldn’t be surprised to see one or both of them show up as tile options.


Mutltimedia:

The Rant picks up where the Rumor fell short by being an EVDO phone, which means it supports the likes of Sprint TV, Music and Radio, all while allowing for much faster web browsing. It has the new look Sprint TV we saw on the Eclipse, but beyond that there is nothing new in these applications. The Rant can hold up to 16GB of music via its microSD expansion slot. Music actually sounded pretty good from the single speaker, though since its backwards facing it is muffled when set down. Still, as evidenced by the preloaded Jazz Bar ringtone, the quality was good even at the highest levels.


Results from the 2MP camera were surprisingly good. Color representation was accurate and there was minimal graining on indoor shots. Lines were a bit soft, but even on tree shots the leaves looked more than acceptable. We try to keep our expectations low for all but the highest end camera phones, but for a $50 phone the Rant took excellent pictures.