Samsung Illusion Review

Introduction and Design:

Even though it has been several months since Verizon introduced its first 4G LTE smartphone, the HTC ThunderBolt, not everyone lives in a 4G area or wants to drop a few hundred on a new smartphone. Enter the Samsung Illusion, as it is under $80 with contract, yet has a modest set of features for the budget conscious consumer.

The Samsung Illusion is compact and fits comfortably in the hand, thanks to it only being 0.47” thick and weighing 4.02 oz. It has a minimalistic appearance with black plastic used throughout and a nice grip texture on the back, and also feels well-made and should withstand day-to-day use.



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

On the front of the Illusion is a 3.5” TFT display that has an HVGA resolution (320x480 pixels). Even though we usually prefer a larger display, the one on the Illusion allows the phone to be more compact, yet the screen still produces nice looking images and sharp text. The only caveat being it is difficult to view in bright sun light.


Below the display are the four capacitive buttons for accessing the menus, home, back, and search. We find it interesting that the backlight on these can be set for 1.5 seconds, 6 seconds, always on or off – instead of being synced to the display’s backlight timer. On the left side of the device is the volume rocker and microSD memory card slot that comes with a 2GB card pre-installed. Up on top is the 3.5mm headset jack, on the right side is the power/lock key, and on the bottom is the microUSB port. Both the 3MP camera and external speaker are on the back.