Samsung Focus Flash Cell Phone - Product Review

I was one of the last few holdouts who refused to get a smartphone. I was proud of my independence from the technology that most everyone had to have. To be honest, I was a little elitist about it.

That's not to say that I didn't think about it from time to time. There were many times when I wished I could check something in an e-mail that I received, or look up where I needed to be on a map. And of course, pull up my Groupons and LivingSocial discounts without having to print them out.

This summer, I was informed that my old AT&T contract was up, and that I was able to get a new phone. I went to the store convinced that I would get one of the simpler models.

However, after coyly playing around with some of the smartphones on display, I re-thought my approach to finding a phone. One of the main reasons why I didn't want to cross over to smartphones was that I didn't want to pay the monthly fees for a data plan. However, for my current plan for about 30 GB of data, I pay about $30 on top of our family plan.

The price ranges from $150-$300, depending where you buy it and what kind of contract you have. Mine was 0.99 cents from the AT&T store with my 2-year contract (though I paid the tax on the full price, which was $300).

I also like the size of the phone; the dimensions are 4.57” x 2.31” x .43”. I was looking at the Samsung Galaxy phone and thought that was a little big for what I wanted, which was to have a phone that was easy to carry in my purse and also easy to read and view items on the screen (the Focus Flash has a 3.7-inch screen). The touchscreen is also easy to use.

At first I wasn't crazy about the look and feel of the blocky Windows operating system, but shortly I found it to be a clean, simple, organized system to use. It's great that you can customize the colors - mine are pink and white.

I've had it for a little more than two months, and so far I am very happy with the product. It does basically everything I want; the applications I use the most are the actual phone, messaging, e-mail, news briefs, and maps. I was able to find apps to supplement what was already installed on the phone (including Notepad, Stopwatch, and Timer). There are a few apps that I can't get on my phone that are designed for iPhones, however, such as Yelp and OptTown.

The 5.0 megapixel camera is just fine for taking and sharing photos, though it doesn't zoom terribly far (4x). It's really easy to share photos in a text, online, on Facebook, or other ways.

There are 8 GB of memory. It's really nice to not have to delete all of my texting conversations like I would with my other phones when the memory reached capacity.

Also, with the 1.4 GHz processor speed, I've never felt like I was waiting an excessive amount of time for something to load on the phone. It's very easy and fast to download music, apps, and more.

It's been very easy to find accessories for this phone; I went on Amazon and bought a wall charger, a car charger, a screen protector, and a case for a few bucks. It's also easy to connect my phone to my Bluetooth earphone. The phone came with earphones, but any of my regular earphones plug right into the phone rather than having ones that are specially fit only where the charger goes.

Also, when you connect your phone to the computer to sync or update, you use Zune, which is simple and effective to use.

In the past month or so, I've noticed that about every week or two, the phone will freeze, or the touchscreen will shift so that if I try to press an area on the screen, it will select another area instead, and I'm not able to click on what I want. I just have to restart the phone, but it makes me nervous that I am having these problems after so short a time.

I hope this phone lasts for the rest of my contract because it's just what I need, and not too much more. I hope you enjoy yours!