Samsung Rant Review

Introduction:

The LG Rumor has been a wildly popular phone for Sprint, and when we reviewed it last year we liked what we saw overall.  However, it had some glaring omissions and was rightfully pigeonholed as a teenager’s phone.  Unlike its V-themed big brothers on Verizon, the Rumor was simply a low end phone with a QWERTY keyboard.  That one defining feature sure was popular though, and until now nobody has stepped up and made a feature QWERTY dumbphone.  Enter Samsung, who has taken the side-slide form-factor to the next level with the Rant.  On paper it delivers everything the Rumor was lacking, most notably 3G but also a higher resolution camera, Sprint TV and a four row keyboard.  Will the Rant hit the sweet spot that the Rumor missed?

Included in the box you will find:

Design:

The Rant is very similar in design to the Rumor, with a large display atop a traditional keypad and a side-slide QWERTY keyboard.  It is noticeably different in the hand though, as the Rant weighs .8oz more and is a bit larger overall.



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

The 2.1” display is unfortunately only 176x220 pixels, not QVGA, but it is 262K colors and as usual the Samsung panel looks wonderful.  We had no issues using the phone in direct sunlight.  Just above is the earpiece, and to the left of that a small status LED.  Below it is an oval cluster of keys, including the five-way directional pad, right and left softkeys, speakerphone, back as well as send and end.  The d-pad, speakerphone and back keys are raised, whereas the soft and phone keys are flush with the display, though not seamlessly so.  Below that is a traditional dialpad, with raised hard plastic keys.  The keys are all a bit small and cramped, but the combination of raised and flush on the cluster make them easy enough to use, and all but the largest fingers shouldn’t have trouble navigating the keypad.  To the left of the display are two soft keys for use when the phone is slid open.


The keyboardslides out to the left, opposite of the Rumor.  It features four rows of keys, not three, which affords the Rant room for more, larger keys.  The top three are laid out in the traditional QWERTY format, with an end/back key at the end of the second row.  The third row starts with a function key and ends with arrow up and ok.  The bottom row is free for the space bar, remaining directional arrows, and other punctuation and shortcut keys.  Unlike LG’s four row QWERTY phones for Verizon, the Rant does not have a separate row for numbers, instead accessing them as a function option.  We prefer Samsung’s layout, as it is truer to a real keyboard and allows for more keys.



We were able to type on it fast and accurately, but we constantly found ourselves checking for mistakes.  We weren’t making them, but something about the feel of the keys gave us that impression.  The keys themselves are rubbery and flat with very shallow travel, and need to be pressed a bit harder than normal.  It works- well actually- but the feel is just a bit off.  We’d imagine that with more time and once the keypad is broken in it will feel better.

The back of the phone is entirely covered by the battery door, and the user has two options.  A flat, soft touch back is installed but the Rant also ships with another door that has a fashion design on it.  We have the black version, so we’re not sure if the pattern is the same on the red and Best Buy exclusive purple versions.  There is a tiny 2 megapixel camera and self shot mirror, and next to that is the speaker cutout.

The left side of the phone has a covered 2.5mm headphone jack and silver volume rocker.  On the right is a covered microUSB charging/data port and towards the bottom a silver camera shortcut key; on the top corner is a lanyard loop.  The microSD slot is near the bottom on the right side, though the battery door has to be removed to access it.  At least it’s not under the battery.


The Rant has a unique feel in the hand, definitely much more solid than the Rumor.  The slide has a better feel, offering both more resistance but better spring when engaged.  Though both are a chunky 18mm thick, the Rant feels thicker due to the noticeable weight difference.  That it is taller and wider allows the keyboard to be bigger, a worthy trade off.  Overall the best word we can use to describe the Rant is “solid,” though the bigger size and increased weight may be a turn off for some.

Samsung Rant 360 Degrees View:

Interface:

The Rant, along with the Samsung Highnote and LG Lotus, marks the launch of Sprint’s new One Click UI.  We love it.  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 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.

Phonebook and Organizer:

The Rant can hold 600 phonebook entries with up to seven numbers and three emails each, as well as a slot for a URL, IM name and memo.  It is fairly standard, but easy to use and entries can be assigned a unique ringer and caller ID picture.  It would be nice if we could store more personal info such as dates and addresses, like Motorola phones allow.  Voice dialing is handled by the always wonderful Nuance VoiceSignal, though it appears the VoiceSignal name might be going away.


PIM features are as you would expect for a basic phone.   You’ll find a basic alarm clock, calculator, calendar, memo pad and world clock.  There’s not much else to say about these items, other than they’re there.

Messaging:

There is some big news in the messaging front, however.  For the first time in a dumbphone- and we have no idea why it took this long- texts are displayed as a threaded conversation.  It's not a new feature, and has been appearing on smart and feature phones for a few years now, but this is the first time it's appeared on a regular old phone and we really applaud Sprint for making this move first, delayed as it is.  The only oddity is that messages are shown from newest to oldest, making it backward to any other threaded SMS we've ever seen.  Similar to the Rumor, the Rant brings up a messaging menu when slid open that asks the user what kind of message they want to send.

It is preloaded with Sprint Mobile Email and the Sprint IM client. The email program has the likes of Gmail, Yahoo and others preconfigured, and users can configure their own personal accounts including Exchange mail. The IM app supports AIM, Live and Yahoo Messenger. Unlike the Rumor there is no direct link to Facebook, though given that Sprint has been featuring it and My Space in their phones quite often we wouldn’t be surprised to see one or both of them show up as tile options.

Mutltimedia:

The Rant picks up where the Rumor fell short by being an EVDO phone, which means it supports the likes of Sprint TV, Music and Radio, all while allowing for much faster web browsing. It has the new look Sprint TV we saw on the Eclipse, but beyond that there is nothing new in these applications. The Rant can hold up to 16GB of music via its microSD expansion slot. Music actually sounded pretty good from the single speaker, though since its backwards facing it is muffled when set down. Still, as evidenced by the preloaded Jazz Bar ringtone, the quality was good even at the highest levels.

Results from the 2MP camera were surprisingly good. Color representation was accurate and there was minimal graining on indoor shots. Lines were a bit soft, but even on tree shots the leaves looked more than acceptable. We try to keep our expectations low for all but the highest end camera phones, but for a $50 phone the Rant took excellent pictures.

Performance:

The Rant was an impressive performer.  Callers rated us at 9/10, saying that we sounded very good and natural.  We found call quality to be equally good on our end as well, with the caller sounding natural though just slightly distant.  Battery life was also stellar.  Samsung rates the phone at a well above average 5.6 hours of talk time, and we were able to replicate these findings.  CDMA has come a long way in battery efficiency and the dumbphones are now going toe-to-toe with GSM battery life.

Conclusion:

We really like what we’ve seen in the Rant, and the One Click UI has a lot to do with it.   A good interface will go a long way to making even a bad phone look good, but the Rant is certainly not a bad phone.  Its size is on the large side, but that allows for a bigger keypad that we think users will enjoy.  The build quality, as always from Samsung, is top notch.  The camera was a pleasant surprise, and with support for 16GB of music the Rant can most definitely make due as a music player.  It not only gives us advanced features, but most importantly performed well as a phone with great battery life.  The size will turn some users off, but overall the Rant is a great phone that immediately becomes the best value Sprint offers.