Samsung Vitality (Cricket Wireless) Review | Samsung Vitality (Cricket Wireless) Price, Features and Complete Review

The great: The Samsung Vitality is an Android 2. 3 Gingerbread device having a good size touch screen and Cricket's signature Muve Songs music-access plan.

The bad: Low audio and speakerphone volume allow it to be harder to talk. The Muve Music microSD card simply leaves little space for photos and video. Battery life can also be rather poor.

The bottom line: The Samsung Vitality is really a competitive midrange Android smartphone that complements Muve Music's possible.

Last January, Cricket Wireless' bold leap with Muve Songs brought Cricket customers music downloads, ringtones, ringback tones, along with other music tools, along with the prepaid carrier's all-inclusive speak, text, and Internet plan. The experimental plan was great theoretically, but it debuted on the chunky and unremarkable Samsung Suede, as well as ran into launch delays.

All that makes the 2nd Muve Music phone a welcome sight. The Samsung Vigor, which sports Android 2. 3 Gingerbread, is the to begin Cricket's Muve Music smartphones. Although the Suede was an authentic design that included a dedicated Muve Music hardware switch on its face, here Cricket and Samsung repurposed the actual Samsung Admire, originally for MetroPCS, by turning the camera button about the phone's right spine into a convenience key that commences the Muve Music interface.

At this stage in the actual Muve Music story, Cricket sorely needed to introduce a competitive Android device to entice new clients to its music plan. The Samsung Vitality isn't flawless at all, but it is worthy of Muve's package deal. The actual Samsung Vitality costs $199. 99 with an instant $20 refund, but without a contract. Cricket's Muve Music plan for Android phones costs $65 monthly for unlimited access to music, talk, text, and Web.

Design

The Vitality is an almost identical rebrand from the Samsung Admire for MetroPCS. It has a fairly standard smartphone design with rounded ends; it isn't nearly as rectangular as numerous of today's Android handsets and there's a ribbed texture round the edges that adds some visual and tactile interest. From 4. 6 inches tall by 2. 4 inches broad by 0. 5 inch thick, the Vitality fits easily right into a pocket. It's a tad heavier than it looks from 4. 14 ounces, but it won't weigh you lower. The plastic skin doesn't feel entirely sturdy, so we'd be mindful not to drop it repeatedly on a hard area.

The 3. 5-inch HVGA screen takes up most from the front of the phone. Though its resolution is fairly average, it's still bright with vivid colors and razor-sharp graphics. You get five home screens, which you may customize in usual Android fashion with shortcut icons, widgets, as well as folders. Of course, you get the Google search club, but we're disappointed that the stock-Android Vitality doesn't provide a shortcut on the home screen for turning on functions like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Fortunately, the phone runs Google android 2. 3 Gingerbread, which offers a number of user friendliness upgrades. Read our Samsung Nexus S review for a complete analysis of Gingerbread.

The virtual keyboard counts Swype being an option, though you don't have to use it. The default keyboard is comparable as on other Android phones, though it may feel a little cramped if you're accustomed to using a phone having a larger display. Because there are only four rows associated with keys, each letter shares space with either a number or perhaps a punctuation mark. Alternatively, there's a second keyboard for simply numbers and symbols. The dial pad has a standard design too, and both had a responsive and accurate touch user interface.

Below the display are four raised physical keys for that menu, back, home, and search. The accessible volume rocker sits about the left spine above the microSD card slot, and the ability control and dedicated Muve Music button sit on the best spine (you can also access Muve from a shortcut icon about the Vitality's home screen). On the bottom of the phone may be the Micro-USB port, which is used for both the charger along with a USB cable. We were glad to see a regular 3. 5mm headset jack up top. On the back from the phone are the camera lens for the 3. 2-megapixel camera along with a small speaker.

Muve Music

The music features and platform are unchanged in the Samsung Suede. We encourage you to read our complete Muve Music review here. In addition to understanding the actual phone's music features and tools--including the music download storefront, the actual MyDJ radio app, and Shazam music ID--it's essential to understand that Muve won't let you download music over Wi-Fi, only over the phone's data connection (you'll still have the ability to play downloaded music, however). Toggling back and forth to be able to download new songs and ringtones isn't as convenient as we want.

Most importantly, Cricket isn't selling you songs with Muve; it's renting you use of digital files. So long as you pay your payment, you can use all the phone's functions, from text messaging to playing tunes. Skip a payment, and suspend your own head-bopping, too. In addition, the microSD card holds the actual tracks, but the music files aren't transferable to every other device. Muve Music takes up 3GB of the 4GB that include the preinstalled card (there's room for about 3, 000 Muve Songs downloads), but you can purchase a Muve Music card with 8GB total storage if you want 2GB of storage for your own discretion, like pictures and videos. Without the Muve-formatted microSD card, Muve will not work.