Samsung Highnote Review

Introduction:

Samsung has a pair of new devices for Sprint. We took a look at the Rant and its side-sliding QWERTY a few weeks back, and today we’ll take a look at their multimedia oriented Highnote. The dual-slider replaces the two sided UpStage in Sprint’s lineup and comes in both red and blue flavors. When slid up it reveals a fairly standard keypad, with a dedicated Driving Mode button, and sliding down lets loose the stereo speakers. As with any good music phone it comes with a 3.5mm headset jack and is also bundled with a 1GB microSD card with expansion possibilities up to 16GB.

Included in the box you’ll find:

• Li-ion battery
• AC Charger
• USB cable
• Stereo headset with microphone
• 1GB microSD card

Design:

The Highnote is cousin to the European F400, taking most of its design cues but eschewing the Bang & Olufsen amplifier. Dimensions are nearly identical; the Highnote is actually 1.5mm thinner than the GSM phone.



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

The front has been reworked, and instead of buttons on the side of the d-pad they are now incorporated into the trim ring around it. The d-pad still rotates, allowing the user to either click or simply roll across items. It moves too fast for our liking, and we’re not a fan of the button placement either. While they’re not small, they are narrow and they just don’t feel right. We think if the ring trim had contained the clickable portions of the d-pad, leaving the inner part to rotation only, and the Send, End, Back and soft keys were moved outside the result would have been much better. It’s not terrible, just not great.

Atop the cluster is a 176x220 display that is on the small side at 2”, though it fits with the size of the phone well. The display is up to Samsung’s high standards, and can be read in all lighting conditions. Still, we’ve seen Samsung move away from the gorgeous QVGA displays of the A900 and M610 and we don’t like the trend. There is a small earpiece above the display, and like the Rant a small status LED sits to the left of it. We still haven’t figured out what it is, it looks like a sensor for backlight adjustment but neither phone has that option.

The side of the top slide is trimmed in silver, which at the bottom of the phone curves into the back part. Along the left side is the 3.5mm headphone jack, volume rocker a handy Hold key and the microSD slot. On the right is the microUSB charging/data port, along with dedicated Music and Camera keys. The back is very plain, featuring only a square cutout for the 2-megapixel camera.


Sliding the phone down not only displays the stereo speakers, but also activates the multimedia menu which gives the user quick access to music, TV and games. Sliding up reveals the keypad with a traditional 12 key layout, as well as a dedicated row of buttons above it for Speakerphone, Text and Driving Mode (more on that later.) The hard plastic keys are on the small side, but they are individually raised off the brushed metal surface and, unlike Sanyos, are not slippery. They offer surprising accuracy when messaging and we think the Highnote will be a sleeper hit with T9 aficionados.

As noted, the phone comes in either a candy apple red or Kentucky Wildcat blue, the latter looking much richer in real life than in press shots. Both colors are playful, but we feel their boldness will drive away as many users as it may attract, and a more traditional white or gunmetal option would do the Highnote well. Overall the phone is designed well. Though we are not crazy about the front buttons, the quality of the phone is top notch as usual. The slide mechanism is solid and we have no qualms about its long term durability. It is definitely not as minuscule as the UpStage, but the size is good and it fits in both the hand and pocket well.

Software:

Like the Rant, the Highnote is a launch device for Sprint’s new One Click UI, which we really love.  The Highnote’s wheel isn’t the best navigation method for it though; it’s easy to quickly roll thorough but fine movements aren’t sensitive enough and there is no setting to change that.  We much preferred clicking the pad, though due to its free-wheeling nature we often found ourselves both clicking and turning at the same time.


On the homescreen the user has a “carousel” similar to HTC’s TouchFLO 3D.  Simply click to the left or right on the d-pad to navigate through the tiles, and when you pause on one it will bring up information.  For instance, if you stop on the Messaging tile a menu slides up that allows you to access voicemail, send a message and your text, picture and email inbox.  The Internet tile has a shortcut to your homepage, favorites and recent pages, allows you to enter a URL and also has a Google search box.

The carousel can be customized as well.  The Home tile has no popup menu by default, but the user can add “bubbles” for Finance, Horoscope, News, Sports News and/or Weather.  Everything but the home tile can be removed, though seven must be active at all times, and tiles can be rearranged to the user’s liking.  There are eight stock tiles and the user can have up to fifteen total, but right now there only six more available.  Preloaded tiles are Home, Messaging, My Account, Personalize My Phone, Shortcuts, Sprint Navigation, Google and Internet.  Others available right now are Call Log, Email, Get Stuff, Music, Text Message and Yahoo.  If left idle for a few seconds the carousel will fade and become transparent.


We particularly like seeing the Google and Yahoo options, each with links to very useful information.  The Google tile allows the user to choose four items from the following: Maps, Gmail, YouTube, News, Photos, Google SMS, Okrut, Calendar, Reader, All Products, Docs and Notebook.  This One Click UI is not only useful, but with Google App integration is also powerful and makes the users lives more seamless.  Verizon Wireless really could learn a thing or two from Sprint on how to implement a UI (or release a worthwhile phone, for that matter.)

Clicking on the Home tile brings up Sprint’s traditional 12-item menu found on all Power Vision (EVDO) phones.  It has the new visual style that launched on the Katana Eclipse, which by the way will be getting a software update for the One Click UI, and the icon layout is identical.  Submenus are a high contrast, easy to read white on black and we enjoy the font Samsung uses.  It looks like Sprint is ditching the theme option we’ve seen for a few years, but given how wonderful One Click is we’re ok with it.  The entire interface is very snappy, and there is zero menu lag.

Other features, such as the phonebook, threaded messaging and other PIM applications remain identical to the Rant.



A new feature to the Highnote is Samsung’s Driving Mode.  It is activated by pressing the car button on the keypad, and when in this mode incoming calls and messages are announced.  For messaging, it will not only tell you that the message has arrived, but also who it is from and then it will read it to you.  If it doesn’t recognize words it will spell them out, meaning phrases like “btw” and “omg” are spoken as you would read them (and yes, it will curse at you).  It does not allow for dictation, but the feature is definitely not only cool but a safety measure.

Multimedia:

The Highnote is billed as a multimedia device, but other than easier access there is nothing really new here.  It supports all of Sprint’s multimedia offerings: Sprint TV, Sprint Radio and the Sprint Music Store.  It features the same redesigned Sprint TV we first saw on the Katana Eclipse, and the Music Store is the same as well.  It serves as both a storefront and a music player, and can be quickly accessed by pressing and holding the side Music key.  When the phone is slid down the user is given quick shortcuts to Music, TV and Games.  Games, however, are most often played with the slide up so the user has access to the number pad.  Like the Rant, the 2-megapixel camera performed surprisingly well.  It will never get the accolades its big brother Instinct does, but the Highnote delivers as an all-around multimedia.


Despite ditching the Bang & Olufsen amplifier the Highnote sounded good.  There are three options for 3D sound (Dynamic, Surround and Wide) and the user can turn it off as well.  There is also an equalizer with Normal, Classic, Pop, Jazz and Rock options.  For such small speakers we were surprised how good both the lows and highs sounded.  It will not be mistaken for a high end music player, but compared to most phones on the market the Highnote performed well.

Performance:

The Highnote did not perform as well as the Rant on call quality, but it was still above average.  Callers said we sounded a bit distant, though on our end they sounded a touch closer.  They rated us an overall 7.5/10, and we would give them an 8.  Voices sounded natural and full, and if we weren’t comparing the two devices side by side it probably would have a bit higher score.  We fell short of the battery’s stated 5.8 hours of talk time, but the five hours we were able to achieve was impressive nonetheless and way above average for a CDMA device.

Conclusion:

We like the Highnote, but don’t see it doing particularly well.  At $100 it’s well worth your extra $30 to move up to the Instinct, and with the $50 Rant offering basically the same features with a QWERTY keyboard we see the Highnote kind of sitting in limbo.  We’d been hearing about the unit for almost a year before release, and feel that if Samsung and Sprint had gotten it out late last year or early this year it would have been a much more popular device.  It’s a shame too, because it really isn’t a bad phone, it just gets lost in Sprint’s lineup.