Samsung Magnet a257 Review

Performance:

After testing out the phone call quality of the Samsung Magnet a257, we were surprised to find excel in that area. It had no problems retaining signal strength in the great New York City area. Callers said our voices were clear and distinct at their end, but heard a slight echo at times. The single speaker was great with listening to our callers even when set to the middle volume setting. Using the speaker phone gave similar results with callers stating that they couldn't tell we were using it. Although there was some crackling when using the speaker phone on the loudest setting, we were able to hear our conversation distinctly.

We were a little bit disappointed with the battery life of the Samsung Magnet a257. It's rated for 5 hours of talk-time and 240 hours of standby. After three days of normal use, we had only two out of five bars left on the battery indicator. Some of our suspicions can be directed towards the web browser; which requires to completely download the entire site before you can navigate. Other similar devices we've reviewed attained slightly better numbers than the Magnet.


Conclusion:

For a device aimed for messaging capabilities, it was frustrating to use the QWERTY for that aspect alone. Granted the phone has a nice look and feel, it does not function as it was intended to do. Although it works great in just being a phone, there are other similar devices available that offer better features. For example, the Pantech Slate will play videos and functions perfectly as a messaging device, although it looks cheaper. If you prefer looks over functionality, then the Samsung Magnet a257 might be the one for you.

Samsung Magnet a257 Video Review: