Features
The Finesse has very similar features to the Delve except for a few services that only MetroPCS offers. You'll find a 500-contact phone book with room in each entry for five phone numbers, and an e-mail address; you can save your contacts to groups. You can also pair them with a photo for caller ID, plus one of 16 polyphonic ringtones. You can set a contact to not have a ringtone at all. Other basics include a vibrate mode, a speakerphone, text and multimedia messaging, a calendar, a notepad, an alarm clock, a world clock, a calculator, a stopwatch, a currency and unit converter, and a tip calculator.
More advanced users will appreciate the stereo Bluetooth, voice dialing and commands, e-mail, PC syncing, a voice recorder, and USB mass storage. You also get GPS with support for Metro Navigator, MetroPCS's own turn-by-turn location-based service, and support for MetroBACKUP, which lets you back up your contacts on MetroPCS's server. Another MetroPCS service is Metro411, which gives you make voice search for nearby businesses.
The Finesse also has a full HTML browser, which takes advantage of the large 3.7 inch display. We used our fingers to pan and scroll across Web pages, and the browser was actually quite responsive to the touch. Still, the browsing experience wasn't perfect. There's some lag when panning across a Web page, and there are certain Web pages that wouldn't zoom out all the way, which resulted in more scrolling and panning. Also, there's no Wi-Fi, which is a bummer with a phone like this.
The music player interface is similar to that on the Delve, as well. It supports album art, and you get playlists, shuffle and repeat modes, plus an equalizer with six preset settings. You need to have a microSD card to use the music player, but you can load music onto the phone via a USB cable. If you want, you can also send the music player to the background while you're multitasking with other parts of the phone. It has 150MB of built-in memory with a microSD card slot that can accommodate 8GB cards.
We quite like the Finesse's photo quality. Images looked sharp and the colors are bright and vibrant. The 2.0-megapixel camera takes pictures in six resolutions (1,600x1,200, 1,280x960, 1,024x768, 640x480, 320x240, plus a Picture ID size) and four quality settings. Other camera settings include exposure metering, ISO settings, a self-timer, autofocus, brightness, white balance, five color effects, multishot modes, mosaic shots, night mode, and three shutter sounds, with a silent option. There is no flash, however. The Finesse also has a built-in camcorder that can record video in either 320x240 or 176x144 resolution. You can record video for as long as 10 minutes in standard mode.
You can personalize the Finesse with a variety of wallpaper and ringtones, plus you can download more from the MetroPCS store.
Performance
We tested the Samsung Finesse in San Francisco using MetroPCS's network. Call quality was impressive. On our end, voices sounded natural and we experienced little, if any, static. On their end, callers said we sounded fine as well. There was a little bit of minor crackling, but it wasn't a big deal. Speakerphone calls went fine as well, though callers did report a bit of an echo. On our end, they sounded loud and clear, though a bit on the tinny side. For music quality, we would recommend using a stereo headset for the best performance.
The Finesse has 3G EV-DO support, though we were able to get only 1xRTT in our particular location. Still, the browsing experience wasn't too sluggish. It took around a second to load CNET.com, for example.
The Finesse has a rated battery life of 3.5 hours talk time and 12.5 days standby time. Our tests showed a talk time of 4 hours and 2 minutes. According to the FCC, the Finesse has a digital SAR rating of 1.22 watts per kilogram.
What You'll Pay
Check manufacturer's site for availability
- Set Price Alert
