Samsung Metro 3G

Stylish 3G phone that offers decent performance 

 

 

Slim, attractive design, 3G and HSDPA connectivity, comfortable keypad, decent camera quality in daylight, good loudspeaker, battery life

Small display, no camera flash, no 3.5mm headphone jack 

An addition to Samsung's Metro range of budget handsets, the Metro 3G comes with features such as 3G connectivity and built-in applications for multiple social networking services, all in its slim 11.9mm metal body. It also packs in a 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera, music player, FM radio, Bluetooth connectivity, web browser and other features like Samsung's Mobile Tracker - all at an affordable price. But is it good enough? That's what we intend to find out.

Bundle

• Samsung Metro 3G
• Battery
• Charger
• Headset
• Data Cable

 Hardware
The Samsung Metro 3G has a traditional candy bar form factor. It measures in at 115.2 x 46.7 x 11.9 mm and weighs 99.2g, which makes it a very slim and light handset. The small size makes it comfortable to hold in your hand as well as while carrying it in your pocket. The weight feels just about right and is neither too heavy nor too light.

The design of the phone is attractive and unmistakably Samsung. The diamond shaped D-pad has a pointed lower edge and the arrow shaped pattern then continues downwards on to the keypad as well. The keys are all pretty large and typing on them is fairly comfortable. However, we feel the centre select key on the D-pad is a bit too small.

The alphanumeric keypad is evenly backlit by a soft white light but the D-pad, soft-keys and especially the call/end keys have no backlight. So unless you know that all phones have the call and end buttons on the left and right side respectively, you might just press the wrong key in the dark. This might seem like a minor issue but you would understand the gravity of the problem when you find yourself ending that important call that you actually wanted to accept.

On top is the display of the phone. It measures 2.2" in size and has a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels. The quality of the display seems good when seen head-on and everything looks crisp and clear. However, the display has a rather limited viewing angle and turning the phone on the left especially causes the display to become illegible. Also, the display visibility under sunlight is quite poor. Above the display is the arrow shaped earpiece and the video call camera on the left.

Turn the phone around and you'll see the classy metal cover for the battery compartment that stretches from the top to bottom of the phone. The glossy metal does attract a lot of fingerprints though and is also susceptible to scratches. On the top you'll see the 3 megapixel camera lens with the flash left out for some reason. Beside it is the loudspeaker grille, which somehow does not get muffled even when the phone is kept on a surface. Along the sides you'll find the camera shutter key on the right and volume key on the left along with the microUSB port near the bottom. The microSD card slot has moved under the battery cover and the car is hot swappable.

Software
The Metro 3G runs the same Samsung proprietary dumbphone OS found on their low-end non-touchscreen phones. Nothing wrong with that, as it is fairly well-designed and simple to use. Most of the functions such as contacts, calendar, alarms and what have you are all present in places you will expect to find them. You can also install Java applications on the phones, such as Opera Mini or any game that you might like. There is no multitasking; you cannot even run multiple Java apps simultaneously like you can on Sony Ericsson phones.

It's not really a deal breaker, but it would have been a nice feature to have. One annoyance that I faced with the interface is that it has to give a notification message for every damn activity that you do. Select some option and it'll tell you that you have selected it. You then have to dismiss the message, as it takes half the screen and you cannot do anything else anyway. It's a frustrating feature and for some reason has been part of Samsung's non-smartphones for a long time.

 

Connectivity
The Samsung Metro 3G is a quad band GSM handset. True to its name it also supports 3G as well as HSDPA connectivity. On top of that the phone also adds GPRS/EDGE, Bluetooth v2.1 and USB connectivity. There is no Wi-Fi nor GPS. For browsing the web the Metro 3G comes with the NetFront v3.5 browser. We found web browsing on the phone average at best. The scrolling was a bit sluggish, which got worse with heavier webpages. The page loading speed too wasn't great. Of course we tried this on an EDGE connection, so if you are one of those lucky people in India with a 3G SIM card, then your experience would be much better than ours.


Multimedia

Samsung Metro 3G has a 3 megapixel camera with autofocus. There is no flash however for low light photography. The camera application is pretty basic, but you can't expect much from the phone in this price range. Even the quality is average. Photos in day light came out decent, but indoors, shots were dark due to the lack of flash and noisy as well. Video recording quality was pretty horrible, with a slow, jerky frame rate.

Music player on the Metro 3G was pretty good. It had most of the features that you would expect, including multiple equalizer presets, but no manual equalizer. Unfortunately, we could not test the audio quality of the phone, as Samsung did not ptovide us with a headset along with the review sample. Also, the phone lacks a 3.5mm headphone jack which has become a standard feature these days and even budget handsets like the Nokia 2700 Classic have one, which makes the lack of it on the Metro 3G rather inexcusable. The phone also has an FM radio, which too we could not test. We did found the loudspeaker pretty good though. It was loud and of good quality, which made the Metro 3G a good device if you intend to share your music with others.

The phone has a basic gallery for viewing images and videos on the phone. With a 2.2" display, you aren't going to view too many photos or watch full length movies anyway, so it's not much of a big deal.

Battery Life
The Samsung Metro 3G has good battery life. With moderate use, which included calls, messages and some amount of web browsing, the phone lasted for around three days on a full charge. Do keep in mind that this figure was obtained on a 2G network with little or no music playback (due to the aforementioned lack of headset provided with the phone). On a 3G network the battery life would drop down considerably.


Verdict
The market is crowded with phones that have similar features as the Metro 3G, so the phone needs to be really good if it has to stand out. Fortunately it does have a few good tricks up its sleeve. For starters it comes with those good looks that are enhanced by the solid steel back cover. The keypad is also petty comfortable, which is good for messaging and interacting over social networking websites. The phone also comes with applications built-in for several of those to get you started.

Multimedia performance was above average and the web browsing experience is pretty decent too, provided you are on a 3G network. A good battery life is a bonus as well. However, it does have its share of flaws too; such as the lack of a 3.5mm headphone jack and no camera flash, but priced at Rs. 6,669, the Samsung Metro 3G doesn't really leave a lot of room for complaints. Overall, a good stylish 3G phone with decent all-round performance. However, we would suggest you look elsewhere if multimedia performance is very important to you.