Samsung Stratosphere Review

Introduction:

We’ve seen Verizon release quite a few 4G LTE Android smartphones over the past couple of months, from the high-end Motorola DROID BIONIC and HTC ThunderBolt, to the entry-level Pantech Breakout. But there is one feature that all of them have been missing – a physical QWERTY keyboard. Enter the Samsung Stratosphere, which just happens to include a handy slide-out keyboard. This combination clearly targets the device to individuals that want fast data speeds, and also prefer a real keyboard as opposed to using the on-screen one.

Included in the retail package is the Samsung Stratosphere i405 smartphone, 4GB microSD memory card, 1800mAh battery, wall charger with microUSB cable, and user guides.

Design:

The overall appearance of the Samsung Stratosphere draws closely on other Samsung models, such as the last year's Fascinate, but it is a bit more refined. Even though the Stratosphere has a plastic shell, it feels more durable and less “plasticy”. Gone is the slippery battery cover on the back, as the Stratosphere has soft-touch coating with a grooved texture, which allows the phone to feel more secure in your hand.



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

On the front is a 4” WVGA 480x800 pixels resolution Super AMOLED display (not “Plus”), which seems to be what appeared on the Fascinate. Images look good on it thanks to the saturated colors, and text is clear, but it could be way better. Above the display is a 1.3MP camera for self-portraits or video chat, and at the bottom are the four touch-sensitive control buttons.

Sliding a phone open to access the QWERTY keyboard should be easy, but we found the sliding mechanism on the Samsung Stratosphere requires more pressure than most other QWERTY phones (such as the LG Enlighten and Motorola DROID 3), and we could also feel the keys rubbing on the backside of the display. But once it is open, you are treated to a keyboard with a nice 5-row layout with dedicate number keys across the top. All of the keys have a nice size, and also ample spacing that provides an excellent typing experience, which rivals that of the DROID 3. There are also a few extras, such as being able to use the homescreens in landscape mode when the keyboard is open, and there are even four keys on side on it which mimic the 4 function keys below the display. Overall, we’re quite pleased with using the keyboard, but wish that it slid open and close better.

Interface:

The Samsung Stratosphere come running Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread out of the box, which is nice, but with Ice Cream Sandwich right around the corner, it makes us wonder if the Stratosphere will eventually be updated to it. Also on board is Samsung’s TouchWiz user interface (the old version found on the Fascinate), which places four colorful icons on the bottom of the screen for accessing the phone, contacts, messaging and applications. The App Drawer is nothing out of the ordinary, as you move though it side-to-side, or you can change it to a single scrolling view. Unfortunately, the Stratosphere only has 5 home screens (instead of the standard 7), and the amount of Widgets are pretty limited, unlike the high-end Samsung Droid Charge.



Phonebook, Messaging, and Organizer:

Of the other customizations Samsung has made to the default Android interface, the most notable are in the Phonebook. Going into the Phone screen first will open up to the dial pad, but there are also tabs at the top for the call log, favorites, and contacts. Tap on one of your saved contacts, and you are taken to their respective screen, where you can view their info, message history, posting activities from Facebook and Twitter, and media (pictures).

The Android 2.3 phonebook groups all of your phone, Google, and Facebook contacts into one scrolling list. Samsung furthers this by adding the contacts from your Twitter, AIM, Windows Live, Yahoo! Messenger and Microsoft Exchange accounts. Furthermore, you can import and export contacts to the 4G SIM card. It also does a good job of linking contacts together that have the same name, but you still have the option of doing it manually. Pretty much all of the contacts’ details are visible and editable on the screen at once.


The Stratosphere supports every messaging standard you could want, including SMS, MMS and Email, and also comes pre-loaded with Verizon’s Mobile IM app for connecting you to your AIM, Windows Live, and Yahoo! buddy lists. GMail is of course a stand-alone app that replicates the web-based experience. Other Email accounts, including POP3, IMAP, Yahoo! Mail, AOL, Windows Live, Verizon.net, and Exchange are handled by the standard Email app. Naturally, we prefer using the physical QWERTY keyboard on the device when typing out long message, but the on-screen keyboard is also convenient if you just need to type someone short and quick.

We also appreciate the usefulness of the integrated Calendar, since it pulls events from your Google, Facebook and corporate Outlook/Exchange accounts. Views are separated by day, week, or month (the default tab), or you can view a list of your recent and future appointments, holidays, and birthdays. Reminders are easily set, and you can choose if the phone is to mark the event only on the handset, or sync it to the cloud with Google Calendar as well. Pushing events work quickly, so adding that party to Google Calendar or Facebook saves it to the phone instantaneously as well.



Internet and Connectivity:

Other than the physical keyboard, one of the main features of the Samsung Stratosphere is that it can use Verizon’s 4G LTE data network. First off, for standard web browsing we were able to fully load the PhoneArena.com web site (including all Flash content and ads) in about 35 seconds, compared to only 25 seconds on the Motorola DROID BIONIC and 30 seconds with the Samsung Droid Charge. While using the browser, we noticed that scrolling up and down isn’t as smooth as it should be, as some stuttering does occur and will show a gray checkerboard for a second or two while the page is rendered. There is also some delay when using the pinch-to-zoom within the browser.


Next, we used the SpeedTest.net app and were able to get downloads of 7.6 Mbps and uploads of almost 4 Mbps on the Stratosphere. This is about average to what the HTC ThunderBolt and Samsung Droid Charge would also get, though the Motorola DROID BIONIC got downloads of 9 Mbps and uploads of 6 Mbps. Naturally, you can also connect to a local Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n network as well.


It appears that the Samsung Stratosphere suffers from the same problem that plagued the Samsung Droid Charge…not being able to stay locked on a 4G signal for more than a minute or two. Both devices have the tendency of continually dropping 4G and changing over to 3G, even though we are right in the middle of a large 4G area. When this would happen, we would go into the Airplane mode, turn it on and off, which would then allow the device to pickup 4G again, though after a minute it would drop back to 3G and stay there. We’re not sure why Samsung appears to have a habitual problem with this, as other devices, such as the Motorola DROID BIONIC and HTC ThunderBolt may occasionally drop from 4G to 3G for a few seconds, but then goes right back to 4G.

Camera:

The camera software is quite robust, allowing for numerous settings and adjustments, such as the image resolution, effects, shooting modes, scene modes, ISO, and GPS tagging. Pictures that we took while using the 5MP Autofocus camera outside on a sunny day have nice detail to them, though the colors are a bit oversaturated and bright areas have the tendency to be overexposed. Inside images aren't great, as they look grainy and occasionally had trouble focusing in low-light, but the single LED flash does a good job of illuminating a dark environment.

Even though videos on the Stratosphere can only be recorded up to 720x480 resolution, they look better than some phones that can record 1280x720 videos, such as the Droid Charge, since the Stratosphere’s video has more detail and better color.

Samsung Stratosphere Sample Video:



Multimedia:

The tabs on the top of the music player allow sifting through your collection by artist, album and playlists, or display all at once. The current song keeps going in the background when the screen is locked, and you can even pull down the notification area to display the controls - not a bad idea, but we wish there was also a desktop music widget. Aside from showing the album cover while playing a selection, we like how there's an option to enable a visualization to run above it. We're happy to say that music quality from its rear speaker was more than vibrant with some serious power to make every tone extremely audible to the ear, as there is a nice selection of equalizer settings and effects to choose from.


The standard Android Gallery will show all of your pictures and videos categorized into folders for easy viewing, and with the Super AMOLED display, it does a wonderful job showing ripped videos or ones streamed from YouTube. We tested the video player with files of various resolutions and bitrates, encoded with H.264, MPEG-4, DivX and Xvid, and all of them were able to play without a problem.



Software:

There is also a selection of included apps, such as Amazon Kindle, Blockbuster, City ID, Lets Golf 2, Google Maps with Navigation, NFL Mobile, NFS Shift, Slacker, VCast Music, VCast Tones, VZ Navigator, and Verizon Video.

One app that is nice to have included is QuickOffice, as you can open or create Microsoft Excel, Word, and PowerPoint files, and also open Adobe PDF files with it.

Performance:

The 1GHz processor does a nice job of loading apps and making the phone feel quick and responsive. To help measure the devices’ performance, we first ran the Quadrant Benchmark app, which gave a score of 1400. This is far ahead of the Samsung Droid Charge’s score of 939, but is still much lower than the Motorola DROID BIONIC (2465), LG Revolution (2122), and HTC ThunderBolt (1703). Next we used the AnTuTu benchmark app, and got a mark of 2979 on the Stratosphere, which is about equal to the HTC ThunderBolt and LG Revolution.

One area that we were not impressed with on the HTC ThunderBolt was its lower than average voice quality. Thankfully, those issues are not present on the Samsung Stratosphere, as there is no background noise, and voices sound clear and natural, just like on the Droid Charge.

Signal reception was good in the South FL area (despite the issue with the device going between 4G and 3G modes) and showed 2-3 bars with -89dBm to -94dBm signal strength, and we didn’t drop any calls.

The included 1800mAh battery is rated to provide up to 8 hours of talk time or 8 days of standby time. During our testing, we were able achieve the advertised 8 hours of continuous talk time on a full charge, but under mixed daily usage, we were only able to get about 7 hours, which means if you’re a heavy user, you might need to charge it throughout the day.

Conclusion:

Currently, the Samsung Stratosphere is your only choice if you want a Verizon 4G LTE smartphone with a physical QWERTY keyboard. We like Super AMOLED display, though we wish it were the “Plus” version, and the 5-row keyboard has a nice layout and is great to use, but can feel like it is sticking when trying to open and close it. The only real issue we had with the device is with the 4G connection drops, which are also present on the Samsung Droid Charge as well. At this point, we can’t say for sure if it is a Samsung issue or a Verizon issue, but both the Motorola DROID BIONIC and HTC ThunderBolt are able to stay locked on the 4G signal better.

Software version on the reviewed unit:
Android 2.3.5
Kernel 2.6.35.7-EI2
Build Number SCH-I405.EI2

Samsung Stratosphere Video Review: