Samsung Galaxy Avant (MetroPCS) - Afroman's Twist

[flibberdipper]

Avant on by Travis McClelland, on Flickr

 

INTRO

Since I still had a flip phone (eeeeewwww) my mom and stepdad decided to get themselves, my sister, and myself new phones. I had to choose between the LG F60 and the Samsung Galaxy Avant. I didn’t really do much research on the F60 since it only came with up to 8GB of built-in storage. So, I told my mom to order the Avant for both my sister and myself, and honestly… Not bad for $100 IMO.

 

Oh, and just for a little info on my SIII I used to bench against: It’s the Verizon model (I535) with the dual core CPU and 1.5GB of RAM.

 

SPECS

CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 (4 Cortex-A7 28nm cores @ 1.2GHz)

GPU: Qualcomm Adreno 305 @ 405MHz

RAM: 1.5GB

STORAGE: 16GB ROM, expandable with MicroSD cards up to 64GB

SCREEN: 4.5” 540x960 TFT capacitive touchscreen (245PPI)

BATTERY: 2100mAh Li-ion

CONNECTIVITY: GSM, HSPA, LTE, 802.11b/g/n, BT 4.0

CAMERAS (R/F): 5MP and 720p video/VGA

SOFTWARE: Android 4.4.2 “Kit Kat”

 

GENERAL PERFORMANCE

Overall it seems to be pretty snappy. TouchWiz is pretty snappy (unless you open a larger app/game and you’re low on RAM. Then it takes a few seconds to display all your crap. The “performance” of the camera when it’s actually in camera mode is less than stellar (I can only describe it as low framerate), but other than that there aren’t really any complaints. The score in AnTuTu was 17918 (Galaxy SIII scored 18817), and the HTML5 test comparison is below.

AnTuTu HTML5 by Travis McClelland, on Flickr

 

GAMING PERFORMANCE

Performance overall on this phone isn’t terrible, but it certainly isn’t the best. I don’t really have any demanding games installed (because I’m broke and I don’t really play a ton of games on my phone), but for the ones that I do play (Clash of Clans, Tapped Out, and Earn to Die 2) it does well, with only minor stutters when shit gets real (in Earn to Die 2 for example). Here are the 3DMark scores, again with my SIII for comparison.

 

 

MULTITASKING PERFORMANCE

Again, not really bad. For some reason the OS on this phone is really bloated (on a fresh boot it idles around 850MB), but multitasking is usually pretty fluid. Again, if you’re playing a game or doing something that likes RAM, it will take a few to get its bearings and get you to where you want, whether it be the recent apps menu or the home screen.

 

SCREEN

The screen on this phone is mediocre. One one hand, the color shift isn’t horrible, but the colors are washed out. The screen really is not all that bright, and therefore is not very good for outdoor use, but the backlight can make it really dark at the same time. The screen is also plastic from the sounds of it, and doesn’t feel that solid. This is further emphasized by a pressure point in the upper left of my screen when I press moderately hard on the screen. Continuing on with the growing list of bad, there is no ambient light sensor. Granted, I do not use auto brightness on anything, but it is a feature I’m sure some will want. To wrap up this good-bad-good sandwich, the screen is fairly sensitive to your touch, which is a godsend, and I was able to confirm that it is at least a 10-point multitouch display. The only reason I didn’t try more is that I ran out of fingers and screen.

 

BATTERY

The Avant comes with a 2100mAh battery which is the same as what my SII had. So moving over to this phone really was not a huge deal for me in terms of battery life. I’m able to make it through a good portion of the day without having to run to an outlet (6:30 AM to 5PM). Now, since this is summer and I just sit at home 90% of the day, I’ll use my school experiences. I was normally on it for about 3-4 hours, either listening to Pandora or playing a game. After I got out of school (3PM) I normally had anywhere from 40% to 20% left, depending on what I did throughout the day. Not bad, but not good either.

 

CAMERA

Mother of god these things are bad. I expected a bit more from them and I was let down. Oh well. Spec-wise, the rear is a 5MP shooter with 720p video and an LED for illumination. For selfies, you’re stuck with a cruddy VGA camera and something like 640x480 video if my memory serves me correctly. For the picture comparison, the colors seem to be a bit more realistic on the Avant compared to the really oversaturated colors on the SIII. The front camera also seems to have a bit of blur (vignette style, as I like to think) for some odd reason. Regretfully, I had to do these pictures later at night when the sun was no longer right above me, so they will be a tad bit darker than I had wanted, and as a result the colors and everything will suffer on both devices. For this comparison, both phones had their cameras set to the highest levels for both pictures and video. The pics/videos for the Avant are first, so if you are only interested in those you don’t really have to wait.

 

 

LOOKS

This phone steals HEAVILY from the S5, with the chrome edges and chrome around the home button, the window switcher, and the back button. Not that this is a bad thing or anything, since it doesn’t look bad. However, I HATE the back of this phone. It’s a rubberized plastic, and while it does feel decent to the touch, it is butt ugly IMO. It looks like a fridge. End of story.

 

Avant by Travis McClelland, on Flickr

 

BUILT-IN SPEAKERS

Starting with the earpiece: Using this app, I listened to a few songs (Over and Over, Centuries, and It’s All Over). It actually sounds pretty darn good. There is a decent amount of low end, but it is a little tinny at the same time. Volume-wise, it is a bit on the quiet side. Compared to the SIII, it is both quieter and a touch tinnier.

 

Moving to the rear speaker, it is a touch tinnier and a decent amount quieter compared to the trusty old SIII. Not really much to say there.

 

BUILD QUALITY

It’s built like a Galaxy, what can I say. When compared to my SIII, the old phone does feel a bit better in the hand, due to it being a smidge larger, having a glass screen, as well as being a tiny bit thinner. Other than my few little nitpickings, it does feel like a pretty solid phone. If it had a glass screen of some sort, I think it would feel quite a bit better.

 

OPERATING SYSTEM/SOFTWARE

This phone came out of the box with Samsung’s updated version of 4.4.2 “Kit Kat.” Unlike my SIII, the Avant has the more S4-like software, with the newer TouchWiz, settings panel, so on and so forth, blah blah blah. I REALLY hope Samsung at least pushes Lollipop to these phones, however I highly doubt that will happen due to this being a lower end phone. Which is really a darn shame, since the S4 got it, and this phone came out AFTER the S4 (a whole YEAR if I recall correctly).

 

CONCLUSION

When it comes down to it, this is a budget phone, with budget people in mind. What do I mean by that? It means someone who comes in expecting a cheap phone where the manufacturer had to come some corners to get it into that budget space. This is my first walk in the smartphone park, and I thought coming from a 3-4 year old flagship to a 1 year old budget phone would at least be a very slight upgrade. And in some ways I was right. The ROM is faster, the software is better, and it can actually be used as a cell phone and not a glorified mini tablet. But, where it’s an upgrade in those areas, it’s a downgrade in almost every other way. The screen is worse, the hardware in general is worse, and the camera sucks donkey balls. I honestly expected a tad bit more from this phone (especially the camera), however, now that I’m not a smartphone virgin and I actually know a bit more about phones, I’m more than okay with this phone.

 

IS IT WORTH IT?

Depending on what carrier you’re getting the phone from and your budget… Yes. If it was small like what my mom and stepdad’s was, and you had to go with MetroPCS, it’s definitely one of the best ones. When compared to the F60 which was our other option, this phone is a FAR better deal. So… Yeah. I guess that wraps up this long review.

 

Mostly full album of pictures here (includes re-unboxing pictures): https://flic.kr/s/aHsk8wbTFY

[Tim Drake]

TL;DR but fucking damn, that is beautifully laid out!

 

Keep it up!

[Tedster]

TL;DR but fucking damn, that is beautifully laid out!

 

Keep it up!

This.

Also I saw the Avant in a newspaper ad a few days ago. I'm going to read through this - or at least a good chunk - and see what the phone's like. I looked it up on GSMArena and its specs don't seem particularly amazing or anything.

[flibberdipper]

TL;DR but fucking damn, that is beautifully laid out!

 

Keep it up!

Heh, thanks. I still have to make the reviews for my Latitude E4300 (aka Latitude with Attitude/Lattitude) and my S2340M. I'm not doing a review on the SIII for that reason. Kill me.

 

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