Samsung Solstice A887 Review

Name: Samsung Solstice SGH-A887
Brand: Samsung

By PhoneArena Team

Updated: Aug 10, 2009, 9:52 AM

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AT&T Samsung

Introduction:

AT&T has been fortunate with being the first in the US to offer Samsung's TouchWiz UI in the form of the Eternity. To top that special recognition, they were also the first to get the AMOLED touch screen handset, the Impression, with its fancy widget driven interface. Now we enter the third round of TouchWiz goodness in the Samsung Solstice A887 – hopefully improving upon some of the builds of its predecessors. This mid-range handset may cement Samsung's prominence in the vastly crowded line of touch screen phones for AT&T.

The package contains:
Samsung Solstice
Charger
User Manual CD
Quick Start Guide

Design:

Before diving in, it's worth noting how the recently released Samsung Highlight pales in comparison to the previous TouchWiz devices for T-Mobile. Fortunately for AT&T customers, the Solstice beats out the Highlight with its slightly better looks and build quality. The slate look is the customary form factor we've seen from the manufacturer with its rounded edges. The front outer casing is a plastic material that has a metallic finish to it while the rear has that fake leather texture. That material provides for a decent grip thanks to the soft touch feel of it. We were careful in touching the screen because the plastic layer protecting it did not leave us with a sense of durability. It retains similar dimensions with the Eternity except that it's skinnier. You'll almost think you're touching air because it weighs (3.3 oz) like almost nothing in your hand. We definitely like how the workmanship is an improvement over the Eternity.

You can compare the Samsung Solstice A887 with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

Samsung reduced the size of the screen versus the two previous TouchWiz device on AT&T. It's not a bad thing to say, but the 3” LCD screen still managed to impress us with its luminance. The 262k colors it is able to display will easily provide some eye candy on its own. Reading text will be of no problem with its 240 x 400 pixel resolution – making it clear and legible, Just like the Highlight, it fails when viewing it in direct sunlight. It loses its sparkle and you'll find yourself having to use your other hand to shade it from sunlight.

The button placements are almost identical to what is found on the Highlight except for the lock/unlock key found by itself on the top edge. There are three buttons on the front which are the send, end, and back/clear keys. They are large enough for anyone to press and have that really good button feel. The volume rocker is on the left side with the camera button, quick menu key, and proprietary charging/USB port located on the right edge. The 2-megapixel camera with a self-portrait mirror is a step down from the Eternity and located in the rear along with the speaker phone. The spring loading microSD slot is accessed by removing the back cover – also revealing the battery and SIM card slot.

Samsung Solstice A887 360 Degrees View:

Software and Features

We noticed the somewhat slower performance of the TouchWiz UI on the Highlight. That wasn't the case with the Solstice's quicker speeds; especially noticeable in the menu transition effects. It's the same exact interface we've seen with the Eternity and Impression. The only widget that stood as being new was the Facebook one – which launches the browser to the web site. Placing widgets, some being useful, on the home screen will give you a personalized look. Although the speed was faster on the Samsung Solstice A887, it's the same old interface we've seen on the Eternity. We just would've liked to see something a little more fresh as opposed to the same interface we've seen previously..

Creating contacts is a simple procedure that anyone can accomplish. It offers more information to be inputted than other basic handsets – phone numbers, email addresses, home address, ringtones, and screen names can all be saved. Memory won't be an issue because the Solstice will retain up to 2,000 contacts.

Depending on the user, touch screen phones can be just as swift when it comes to text messaging. The virtual QWERTY is responsive with vibrations accompanying each press. There's also a handwriting tool that we found quite frustrating because it does not accurately register what is written on screen. Finally, you can use the dialing pad for a more traditional way. Sending an MMS is integrated with the SMS application and allows for images, sounds, and videos to be sent.

The Instant messaging client allows for AIM, Windows Live Messenger, and Yahoo Messenger to be used. In addition, the email application offers users a variety of popular providers like Windows Live Hotmail, Yahoo, and AOL to use. It's the typical Mobile Email app we've seen for AT&T and there isn't an option to manually input specific providers.

Third party software is in abundance on the Highlight – some of the apps are useful while others you may never use. Some of these include Mobile Banking, MobiTV, MobiVJ, My-Cast Weather, Where, and XM Radio to name a few. For people on the go, AT&T Navigator is loaded for location based services and should get you to a destination in a timely manner. As usual, standard tools like the calculator, world clock, timer, stopwatch, and alarms are all available at your disposal.

The 2-megapixel camera on the Samsung Solstice A887 is by far the lowest on any TouchWiz device we've seen. Alhough it doesn't pack a punch in the numbers department, it did produce mediocre outdoor images that were taken in good lighting conditions. It does lack fine detail and looks more like a painting when you view the pictures up close. Colors were on the neutral side while indoor shots were fuzzy. The interface is a facsimile of what is found on the Highlight of course – so there are two columns of icons to change the settings.

No surprise with video quality on this one – pixelated like no other and blurry when moving the camera to pan on something. Two resolutions are available with 320 x 240 being the maximum; so detail will be at a minimum. Audio was decent enough to make distinctions between two voices, but lacked depth in their tones. The Solstice is a video share enabled device, but we were unable to test out that feature. In the end, it's best to take videos for MMS use.

There is a slight layout change on the music player for the Solstice, but still clearly resembles the one we viewed on the Highlight. All the functions are there as well as useful information like reverse, play/pause, forward, repeat, and shuffle. We had to almost cover our ears when playing a song on the loudest setting because it was screechy sounding. It was definitely more pleasing to hear it on a middle setting – at least it was endurable at that level.

Watching videos was a breeze for the Solstice – results were similar to previous TouchWiz devices. Movie trailers we used in MPEG4 320x240 and H.264 320x136 format played smoothly without any noticeable lag. There isn't an option to switch screen orientations so it will only play in landscape – nothing found in the menu settings to change that. Sound from the videos produced similar results to what we experienced with playing music. The screeching sounds are prominent again when it's on the loudest volume and lacks any vibrancy.

Taking the handset to other countries for voice calls won't be an issue with it's quad-band GSM capability (850/900/18000/1900 Mhz). For data use, the dual-band UMTS device (850/1900 Mhz) will get 3G speeds in the US.

Complex web sites loaded up in a good amount of time over 3G connections with scrolling still an issue. It doesn't have that smooth feel to it when you're trying to get to the bottom of a page. The one thing that the Samsung Solstice A887 had that was missing on the Highlight was a page overview option. It's actually a minimap loads up as your begin to scroll extensively. The browser works well for a device not engineered as a smartphone.

There is 189MB of shared memory available if you plan on saving media directly on the device. To support that, it can accept microSD cards of up to 16GB in capacity.

Performance:

We definitely saw a better performance in phone call quality over the Samsung Highlight for T-Mobile. Voices sounded clear and distinct; so there was no repetition needed. On the other end, callers were able to hear our voices with the exception of our words sounding somewhat distant. For the speakerphone, we truly had a difficult time hearing through the tiny speakers. Granted that there was no crackling, it was too low for conversations.

During our testing, the Solstice held up well in retaining signal strength with solid bars at any given time in the Philadelphia area. The Samsung Solstice A887 was not plagued by any service issues or dropped calls.

As we stated earlier, the Solstice is a lighter phone because of its battery. After 4 days of use and having the screen set to its brightest, we only had one bar left on it – a far cry from the Highlight's 8 days. The use of a smaller sized battery definitely justifies its lack of longevity when comparing to the Highlight. Samsung has it rated for 5 hours of talk and 250 hours of standby.

Conclusion:

So, what's the deal with the Samsung Solstice A887 being inferior to the current alternatives already available while also being more costly in price? T-Mobile already got it in the form of the Highlight and the same now goes for AT&T. To be honest, we'd say the overall better phone between the two is the Solstice. Its faster performance, improved phone call quality, and eclectic offering of applications make it the better of the two. Although the Solstice may not be the blinding light its name expects to be, it does target the correct audience and holds well on its own as a versatile messaging device for the younger crowd.

Samsung Solstice A887 Video Review: