Samsung Gravity SMART Review

Introduction:

Back in late 2008, the Samsung Gravity arrived on T-Mobile’s lineup presenting itself as an affordable text messaging oriented phone, but as we’ve seen over the course of the last few years, the Gravity line has evolved to adapt with the ever-changing times. Inevitable to say the least, the Gravity line is now making a push into the smartphone realm with the mid-range Samsung Gravity SMART. As its name implies, this handset boasts all of the smartphone elements that come along with Android – while still packing along that must-have physical keyboard. Priced at $69.99, it surely needs to be hot out of the gate showing how it’s more valuable than some of its closer rivals.

The package contains:

• Samsung Gravity SMART
• microUSB Cable
• Wall Charger
• 2GB microSD card
• Health & Safety and Warranty Guide
• Start Guide

Design:

Even though it’s a smartphone at heart, its look is rather very yesterday with its dated feature phone-esque design and construction. Combining a mostly plastic exterior with a soft touch back cover, it makes the handset feel relatively lightweight, but still comes off as being cheap feeling the moment we hold on to it. Overall, its design aesthetics is indeed boring and takes the route of playing it safe with its conventional approach.
 


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

Knowing that the Samsung Exhibit 4G is regarded as a mid-range device with its WVGA display, it’s undoubtedly difficult to appreciate the Gravity SMART’s smaller 3.2” HVGA (320 x 480) display. Tolerable enough to display most things, it’s not as sharp looking when displaying on-screen text – with color production on the washed out side as well. Moreover, its weak brightness output renders it almost inoperable under the sun, which requires a good shielding with your hand to visibly see.

Following after the Exhibit 4G, the Gravity SMART employs a combination of three capacitive touch keys and one physical one that acts as the home button. Being atypical of course, it takes some adjustment, but like most things, we easily get a handle very quickly.


Peeking at its sides, we find decent sized power button, microUSB port, 3.5mm headset jack, and volume rocker. Luckily, both the power button and volume rocker are pleasantly responsive when pressed.


Exposing the keyboard requires some initial force to get the mechanism to commence, but once it’s in position, we’re greeted to its 4-row landscape style keyboard. We like the fact that buttons are oval in shape, sufficient in size to accommodate most people, and they exhibit some good tactile responses when pressed, but they’re actually rather difficult to make out because they’re flat. Nonetheless, we’re able to speed type without much fluff in our rate, but it would’ve been nice to add another set of “shift” and “alt” keys to the right side of the layout to make it more convenient.


Finally, the rear is home to its 3.2-megapixel fixed focus camera with LED flash and two notches for its speakerphone. On the bottom edge, we find a notch that allows us to yank the back cover – thus, giving us access to its 1,500 mAh battery, spring activated microSD card slot, and its SIM card slot.