Samsung Brightside Review

Introduction:

Oh smartphones, it’s very easy for us to be jaded by them nowadays, especially when companies pump them out of the factories at a prolific rate. In hindsight, we realize why they’re so prevalent in our society, but for those who still long for yesterday’s feature phones, there’s the Samsung Brightside for Verizon here to the rescue for those who primarily text. Well, at $99.99 on-contract after a $50 mail-in-rebate, it’s already shaping out to be a hard sell.

Design:

Quite indicative of any other low-end feature phone, there’s nothing pretty to look at with the Samsung Brightside. Yes, it’s lightweight (4.3 oz) and somewhat compact for a QWERTY handset, but its cheap plastic body doesn’t instill a sense of durability. Despite taking some design cues from the Samsung Droid Charge, which is evident by the camera’s pentagonal shape, the handset’s design is forgettable.



You can compare the Samsung Brightside with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.


Seriously, we traveled back in time with this one. Why you ask? Well, taking a peek at its 3.1” QVGA (240 x 320) display is evidence enough to believe it. Indeed, it’s not big with details, but even worse, its bland colors combined its exceptionally poor viewing angles make it a nightmare to view outdoors. At first, we thought we were playing around with a resistive display, but it’s in fact a capacitive one.


Luckily, its landscape sliding keyboard is usable enough for our fingers to comfortably type – even despite its flush appearance. Donning average sized rectangular buttons, we do like the responsiveness they exhibit.

Lastly, a 3.2-megapixel camera is found in the rear, while removing the back cover gives us access to its 1,000 mAh battery and microSD card slot.