Samsung Gravity 3 Review

Introduction:

The Samsung Gravity 3 is- wait for it- the third Gravity phone to be released by T-Mobile in just the last year and a half, although this time around it’s got some relatives.  The Gravity 3 isn’t a big departure from the Gravity 2, offering little more than a design refresh.  Key features of this 3G messaging device remain the side-sliding QWERTY keyboard, 2 megapixel camera and microSD expansion.  Social networking is along for the ride this time, with quick access to Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.



Design:

The Samsung Gravity 3 employs a side-sliding design that has become passe these days.  The front consists of the QVGA display, a navigational cluster that includes an assignable messaging key and the standard 12-key dialpad.  The display is good for its class; the 262K colors provide some depth and in general it’s plenty readable.  Along the right side of the phone you’ll find the microUSB port and a dedicated camera key and to the left is the volume rocker.  The microSD slot is only accessible by removing the battery door, which is a bit of a pain.  The 2MP camera and single speaker sit atop the back portion of the Gravity 3.



You can compare the Samsung Gravity 3 with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

The Samsung Gravity 3 is pretty similar in size to the Gravity 2 it replaces, actually increasing in length and girth (for the ladies!).  It still manages to shed a fraction of an ounce, though we’d bet the difference is not noticeable.  The phone feels good in the hands and the textured back provides a bit of grip.  While the build quality is good and the slide mechanism smooth, the materials used could be better.  A soft touch back, for example, would go a long way to giving the Gravity 3 a higher end feel.  That said, keys have a bit of rubberyness to them and good tactile feedback.  The Gravity 3 uses essentially the same keyboard as the Gravity T which we had mixed feelings about, but a few of the key functions are located elsewhere.  The Gravity 3 has a funky soft key placement when opened: instead of along the edge of the screen or flanking the keyboard they have been brought in to bracket the spacebar.

Software and Features:

The Gravity 3 follows tradition here with a simple menu inspired by the original myFaves carousel, though it can be changed to a more conventional grid menu if the user prefers.  It runs snappy on the 184MHz processor, something the Gravity T with TouchWiz struggled to do.



The phonebook is good for a dumbphone.  It allows the user to store lots of information about a contact, including multiple phone numbers, email addresses, IM names, birthday and address info and a memo.  We were only able to activate the Nuance voice dialing using our Bluetooth headset.


As one might expect the Samsung Gravity 3 is heavy on the messaging aspect, but no moreso than any other messaging phone out there today.  SMS, MMS, IM and email are all supported, including Exchange support though we’re not sure why someone with such a basic phone would need that.  It’s still a good feature to trumpet though.  Users can create an audio postcard and the Social Buzz app is an aggregate of Twitter, Facebook and MySpace; a Friend Stream for dumbphones if you will.  The program is just a basic feed reader that allows you to quickly see your going-ons across all of your social network accounts, and you can of course update your status as well.



Camera, Multimedia and Web:

Samsung usually pleasantly surprises us with its low to mid-range camera performance, but not so with the Gravity 3.  Detail was good on images, but color reproduction wasn’t the greatest and there seemed to almost be a haze to the pictures.  There were some odd effects too, such as the sunrays visible in our medium lighting sample.  For reference the Samsung Smiley sample pictures were taken at the exact same time and didn’t produce the same effects.  Options are very basic, though it does offer panorama and mosaic modes along with smile detection.  The camcorder drops just about all of the limited options available with the camera and offers just QCIF recording, not even YouTube quality.




The Gravity 3 does not have a dedicated music player, though it will let you play individual files from the memory card.  With no headphone jack the user is reliant on Bluetooth for handsfree calling.  The Gravity 3 clocks in with v2.1+EDR and supports the HSP 1.1, HFP 1.5, OPP, FTP, A2DP, AVRC, BPP, SAP 1.1 profiles.

The Samusung Gravity 3 is a 3G phone, but the web browser is on par with what you would expect for a basic device.  It can get the job done on mobile pages but chokes up on full sites.  We attempted to load Opera Mini but the install failed, claiming that it could not connect to the internet despite the regular web browser being able to connect.

Performance and Conclusion:

Call quality was so-so with the Samsung Gravity 3.  Callers complained that we sounded overly nasally and as if we were in a cave.  They could distinctly hear a lot of background noise as well.  To us they sounded a bit quiet and the audio was very thin, though we didn’t have any real issues understanding what was being said.  Battery life is rated at 6 hours of talk time and over 16 days of standby which should be more than plenty.

There are some definite shortcomings with the Samsung Gravity 3, and in the end we were left feeling as if it was an uninspired phone.  It’s not that we expect greatness from such a basic device, but we got the impression that this phone was simply churned out of the factory with no real regard to performance or features.  It is nearly exactly like all other mid-range messaging phones with nothing to differentiate itself from the pack.

Samsung Gravity 3 Video Review