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(More customer reviews)I got this 3 weeks ago on contract from T-Mobile for $80 with rebate. I had looked at the other premium Android-powered smartphones they had (LG G2X, Samsung Galaxy/Vibrant 4G, HTC Sensation, My Touch 4G, Sidekick 4G), but their prices turned me away to the Exhibit 4G.
Here's the run-down on the Exhibit 4G...
This is my 3rd Samsung handset and like the others it is high-quality and loaded with features. It's compact for a smartphone just 4.6 in. tall, 2.2 in. wide, and .5 in. thick, and lightweight at 125 grams. It's made almost entirely of plastic, but that's not all bad because it has great heft, and is easy, and is wel to hold thanks to a soft-touch coating on the battery cover and part of the front and sides.
Hardware-wise the Exhibit packs some features found on high-end devices. The 3.5 inch, 16 million color support 480x800 LCD capacitive touchscreen looks great and has very high pixel density. The resolution and color reproduction and saturation is very good for an LCD unit, I'd say on-par with the HTC Sensation's S-LCD display. Pictures, graphics, and videos look great. Granted, it can't go blow-for-blow with the Super AMOLED displays, but for the price you'd be hard-pressed to find a better one. It is also very sensitive and responsive to inputs.
The Exhibit has a 1 GHz ARM-A8 Cortex Hummingbird processor, 512mb of RAM, and 1 GB internal storage, expandable to 32GB by a MicroSD card. There's also b/g/n WiFi, multi-touch input, an accelerometer for UI autorotate, proximity sensor to lock the display, and an ambient-light sensor to adjust display brightness.
There are only three physical hardware buttons and they are responsive and sturdy. The up-down volume rocker on the left side, a power/lock/unlock button on the right, and a large home button on the front. Interestingly, unlike other Android phones there are just three capacitive Android keys for menu, back, and search under the screen. Another plus is that the memory and SIM card are both accessible through a spring-loaded slots. The SD card on the left side, and the SIM is just under the battery cover, so you don't need to remove the battery to access them. Way to go Samsung!
The The software feature set is also impressive for a sub-$100 smartphone. Thankfully, the Exhibit isn't loaded down with bloatware like some other handsets. You do get exclusive T-Mobile software like AppPack, T-Mobile Mall (to browse and buy T-Mobile apps), Highlight, Name ID (costs $3.99 a month), T-Mobile TV (to watch popular TV shows), and Quix Video Chat. You also get the preloaded Google Apps like Maps with Navigation, Places, Search, and other Apps like Slacker Radio, TeleNav GPS, navigation,The Exhibit is feature packed, almost bursting at the seams when it comes to software.
It runs "Gingerbread" Android 2.3.3 with Samsung's Touchwhiz interface, which is a good one. It's easy to use and I got the hang of it pretty quickly. It's well-laid out and arranged so all the functions, menus, and "Widgets" are easy to find and use. Thankfully Samsung didn't choke out and destroy the stock Android OS, so it's customizable as well.
The small-for-a-smartphone screen does make typing on the portrait keyboard a little difficult. I have ham hands and it took me a while to get used to it. the landscape keyboard is a different story though with large keys. You do get Swype input functionality though, which is useful. There is also voice text input which works pretty good!
I really like the organizer, plus you can sync your calendar and event notifications to other Android-powered phones and Gmail accounts as well as share media and files (you can't share ones you had to buy) through the AllShare app. As a plus, T-Mobile lets you allow the installation of virtually every 3rd party App on the Market.
You don't get a 5 or 8 MP camera, and you can't shoot 720P or 1080 HD video from the Exhibit. You're stuck with a 3.2 MP (2040x1536) camera and D1 (720x480) video recording, which isn't too bad. Pictures in daylight come out good. Colors are a bit soft and you don't get nearly as many details as with a 5+ MP unit, but they are good enough to print. Low light photos suffer from lots noise which destroys pretty much all fine detail, but thankfully the LED flash is very powerful, illuminating out to 10 feet, so you can take some servicable images. Thre's a front-facing camera for video calling or photos as well.
The flash is also a video light, so videos are also servicable, but only out to about 5 feet. Like all of the Samsung devices I've used, you get a good camera interface with 13 scene modes(candle light, WDR backlight, firework, text, sports, etc.), 3 shooting modes (single, panorama, burst), exposure metering, negative, monocolor, and sepia mode, image quality, adjustable color balance and saturation, exposure value, contrast, and sharpness. Most all of those are also found in the camcorder interface as well.
There's no physical camera shutter button (like most Android phones, touch to focus and shoot), digital zoom, and the shooting performance really needs improvement. It takes about 3-4 seconds to acquire focus and shap the picture, and I've noticed that shot-to-shot times are a bit slow, so don't count on it to get fast follow-up shots. If you want a phone with one of the best cameras I've ever used, get a Samsung Pixon. Probably the most well-rounded camera phone ever (even now in my opinion. I was sad to see mine go). Maybe I'm being picky, but I was spoiled by great cameras! But hey, remember this cost $80 (versus $200), so you really get a lot!
The Touchwiz media player is good and easy to use. There are 9 settings (one customizable) for equalizer, visualization, effects, and file management. Sound quality with media and calling were pretty good. It does what a phone is supposed to do and does it well with good voice quality and clarity. The earpiece and speakerphone could be more powerful though. I have to turn the volumw up high to hear callers over the speaker even indoors. Although it's adequate, the media volume could also use some improvement as I had to turn up the volume when listening to a video or song. Plug in the headphones and it's a different story. I enjoyed the sound quality and loudness.
Web browsing is very good. The Exhibit supports both 3G and HSPA+ 4G connectivity which is a theoretical 21 mbps, but I only saw 6 down and 2 up using Speed Test app running on the network with good signal strength, and about the same on WiFi. It has full Flash support as well, but sometimes pages with lots of Flash content load slow and even stall. To avoid this, you can set the Flash setting to on demand.
Battery life is great. You get a 1500 mah. Li-ion battery that gave me about 3 days with moderate use before it beeped at me. Heavy calling, camera/camcorder flash use, Web browsing, and media player useage will quickly drain the battery, but you'll still get a day and a half out of it which is impressive.
So there's the major stuff.
Pros:
Ridiculously low on-contract price
Samsung's Touchwiz interface is customizable and easy to use
High quality construction and good feel
Impressive handware and software feature set
Camera flash/video light
Android 2.3
Adjustable camera settings
Good display
No need to remove battery to access MicroSD and SIM card
4G support
Competent Web browsing
Good call clarity
Good battery life
Front-facing camera
1 Ghz processor
Cons
Smallish screen makes using portrait keyboard difficult
3.2 MP camera and subpar D1 video
Poor shooting performance
No digital zoom
No AMOLED display
No physical shutter button
Web browsing could be better
Wished it had Dolby's DNse 5.1 audio enhancement feature
Speaker phone, earpiece, and media volume could be louder
I am being a little picky here, but that's because I am, but for $80, you can't beat it. If you want a high-end phone but don't have or want to shell out $200 or more, take a look at the Exhibit. You will find most of the premium features for a very un-premium bottom shelf price. I was sold and after living with it for a few weeks, I am glad I chose the Exhibit.
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