Samsung Exhibit II 4G (T-Mobile)

The Samsung Exhibit II 4G is a nice, if low-key update to the original model. But there's a twist: This time around, T-Mobile is promoting it in both prepaid ($199.99) and standard two-year contract versions ($29.99). Either way, if you're on a tight budget, you can get a solid Android cell phone.

Design, Call Quality, and Apps
The Exhibit II 4G measures 4.5 by 2.4 by 0.5 inches (HWD) and weighs 4 ounces. The dark blue plastic, tapered edges, and textured plastic back panel make the Exhibit II 4G comfortable to hold and talk on. It looks more like a standard slab-style touch screen phone than the previous model did, as it loses the distinctive (if ultimately pointless) pinched chin at the bottom. In exchange, it gets a bigger screen. The 3.7-inch, 480-by-800-pixel display looks sharp and bright, and the slight uptick in size makes typing more comfortable than before, especially in portrait mode.

The Exhibit II 4G is a quad-band EDGE (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) and tri-band HSPA+ 21 (850/1700/2100) device with 802.11b/g/partial-n Wi-Fi. It also supports Wi-Fi calling, which is one of our favorite T-Mobile features. Voice quality was fine overall, with a clear if somewhat hollow tone in the earpiece, decent gain for loud outdoor environments, and average reception. Transmissions through the mic sounded clear.

Calls sounded fine through a Jawbone Era Bluetooth headset ($129, 4 stars). There's no voice dialing over Bluetooth, which makes hands-free use while driving perilous. The speakerphone was fine for quiet environments but could have used more volume. Battery life was fine at 9 hours and 37 minutes of talk time, in a mix of less-demanding 2G and Wi-Fi modes.

You get a lightly modified version of Android 2.3.5 (Gingerbread), including Samsung's TouchWiz overlay. There's no word yet on an Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) update, despite Samsung's pledge at Google I/O back in May. The 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8255 CPU is a tad faster than the 1GHz Samsung Hummingbird CPU found in the first Exhibit, resulting in a roughly five percent improvement across the board in our benchmark tests. Neither single-core chip will compete with top-end handsets, but the Exhibit II 4G feels quite responsive in day-to-day use. It should also have no problem running most of the 300,000+ third-party apps in the Android Market.

Samsung Media Hub lets you rent or purchase movies and TV shows; you can also share the content on up to five compatible Samsung devices. T-Mobile also preloads its own live and on-demand TV app. There's a fair amount of bloatware, along with useful preloaded apps like Google Maps Navigation for free, voice-enabled turn-by-turn GPS directions, plus Polaris Office for basic Word and Excel file editing, Zinio Reader, and Yelp.

Multimedia, Camera, and Conclusions
The top edge holds a standard-size 3.5mm headphone jack. My 32GB SanDisk microSD card worked fine in the memory slot, which Samsung located underneath the stiff battery cover. There's also 1.02GB of free internal device storage. This is a fun media player; music tracks sounded clear through Samsung Modus HM6450 Bluetooth headphones ($99, 4 stars), and the music app works smoothly and displays large album art thumbnails. Standalone H.264 and MP4 videos played nicely in full screen mode up to 720p; 1080p files wouldn't transcode on the fly, but that's a minor issue.

The 3-megapixel auto-focus camera has an LED flash; there's also a front-facing VGA (0.3-megapixel) camera for video chats. The camera remains the Exhibit II's weak link; it's fine for throwaway photos, but they all looked overexposed, and there wasn't enough detail. Standalone videos fared better; while they maxed out at 640-by-480-pixel resolution, they played smoothly at 30 frames per second and looked reasonably balanced overall.

As long as you don't need your phone to replace your camera, the Samsung Exhibit II 4G is a solid buy. The white HTC Wildfire S (Free, 3.5 stars) offers a smaller form factor and HTC's useful Sense UI overlay, but it trails the Exhibit II 4G in overall performance. The newer LG-built T-Mobile myTouch (Free, 3.5 stars) is closer to the Exhibit II 4G, with similar specs across the board; it has a slightly better camera, but its UI isn't quite as smooth as the Exhibit II 4G's. Our favorite touch screen smartphone on T-Mobile remains the far more expensive Samsung Galaxy S II ($229.99, 4.5 stars), with its fast dual-core performance, beautiful 4.5-inch screen, HSPA+ 42 data speeds, and its powerful 8-megapixel camera with 1080p video recording. But if you're on a budget, you'll be very happy viewing this Exhibit.

Benchmarks
Continuous talk time: 9 hours 37 minutes

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