Samsung Caliber (MetroPCS)

• Average user rating: 2.5 stars out of 25 reviews
• My rating: 0 stars

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• 7 stars

  Solid phone with good stock feature set.

  by Bschrod on March 4, 2010

  Pros: Please read my review below

  Cons: Please read my review below.

  Summary: I bought one of the first 5 of Caliber's shipped to Mansfield Texas on February 26th. This is my first smartphone but I have used freinds Iphones and win ...

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  Summary: I bought one of the first 5 of Caliber's shipped to Mansfield Texas on February 26th. This is my first smartphone but I have used freinds Iphones and win mobile smartphones enough to make a few observations. This phone is what I would call a mid level smart phone, it has more features than some other smart phones in a neater package but it certainly not as good as an Iphone or a Motorolla Droid phone. It is however much lighter and smaller than either of those units. I haven't had it long enough to comment on the long term quality of construction but it seems very solid overall so far. Call quality has been great, text is easy to enter in the QWERTY mode, and overall phone operation is very well thought out and intuitive. This is also my first Metro PCS phone, so I cannot comment on the overall quality of thier service which so far has been fine as I travel between Arlington and Mansfield Texas daily. One caveat I have is that so far I have only been connected at the 1X CDMA speed, there is no 3g coverage in my areas of operation. This speed is fine for internet surfing, mobile email, and banking but not good for mobile video. The phone came preloaded with many useful applications including Metro PCS's navigation which works extremely well and speaks the names of streets with excellent accuracy, it works better than my one year old Garmin but it's use is limited to areas where you get Metro PCS's data coverage which limits its usefulness out of town. You also get local news and weather, a mobile email program which lets you intergrate multiple email accounts including corportate email (with permissions) and a few others I haven't tried out yet. As stated by Cnet the touchscreen interface is good, not great. It is not as refined as the Iphone but once you get used to it's quirks it is just fine, my major complaint with it is that when you try to slide your finger across the screen to view your other home screens you can often either end up simply moving a widget to the edge of the screen or activating a widget. My solution was to arrange the widgets in a way that leaves an open space all the way across each screen for your finger to track across. This has eliminated the problem for me. One other complaint about the touchscreen and widgets is that the widgets are not all the same size and shape when shown on your home screen which makes them sometimes difficult to arrange to allow the open space as I described. Battery life is good, I'm charging every other day while using internet features two to three times a day, about 30 texts per day, and 30 mins of phone time per day. I think the picture quality is actually quite good, the key is bright lighting as indoor photos taken with and without flash are much softer and with (as Cnet notes) muted colors than photos taken outdoors. Also, about the widgets, there are a number of widgets available to download at no charge from Metro PCS but a great many are simply versions of a theme, I think there were 5 or 6 different clocks. Hopefully as time goes by more and more useful widgets will be added. There is a kinda cool blood alcohol estimating widget, but it became useless after a few drinks because It's too complicated to use once inebreated. Hmm, maybe someone should make a breathalyzer phone.
  
  My bottom line-
  If you are on a budget, don't travel a lot, and aren't already committed to another carrier for the rest of your days this phone and carrier are worth a long hard look at least. This is a pretty solid phone at a reasonable price with a very affordable rate plan. I was able to switch from AT&T and go from an old Slivr phone with limited talk and text to a fully featured smart phone with unlimited service and it ended up being less expensive.
  
  The service charge is currently $50.00 per month which includes all taxes and fees, and all features are unlimited.

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  8 out of 9 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 7 stars

  A Pretty Good Phone

  by kbace on April 16, 2010

  Pros: The ability to add memory is great; I added 16GB to mine at a fraction of the cost of buying a 16GB iphone. The look and feel of the unit is slim and sleek. The functions are laid out and categorized nicely. The camera and video are great.

  Cons: The QWERTY keyboard is too small for "Man Thumbs". There aren't enough apps available. There is no "Password Keeper" app available. The battery drains too fast.

  Summary: The Caliber is a great iphone imitator. It gets the job done at a fraction of the cost. At first, I was skeptical about switching from a Blackberry Curve to ...

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  Summary: The Caliber is a great iphone imitator. It gets the job done at a fraction of the cost. At first, I was skeptical about switching from a Blackberry Curve to to the Caliber. Now that I have the Caliber, I am glad that I made the switch. The Blackberry vs. the Caliber (or any other larger-screened touch phone) seems more like a manual-shift vs. and automatic. The Caliber is an excellent choice for those who are in the MetroPCS areas and wish to have an iphone-like phone at about 1/2 the service cost. The phone quality is great and the internet speed is good. The service is far better that the AT&T service that I had with the Blackberry. The Caliber is a great phone, a very good camera and a good camcorder. It could use a few more apps and maybe a game or two.
  Overall, I am very happy with the Caliber.

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  5 out of 6 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 6 stars

  iphone is a corvette... caliber is a pinto

  by RickJeep on April 6, 2010

  Pros: Excellent display colors, lightweight, widgets (apps) selections, accurate GPS, web browsing, improved bluetooth. mobile banking, micro SD slot to increase memory. good battery life

  Cons: Turtle slow web browsing, limited apps selections, no games ( you have to purchase online), limited text characters( 17 words max per text), touch screen can be to sensitive, sometimes to difficult.

  Summary: If you want an iphone lite, get the caliber. If you want an iphone, get it.

  Summary: If you want an iphone lite, get the caliber. If you want an iphone, get it.

  4 out of 4 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 7 stars

  Good Phone, but more additions to it can make it great.

  by Kirutal on April 13, 2010

  Pros: Ease of use
  Very responsive touch screen
  Call quality is on par
  Texting is easy. E-mails, internet browsing & bluetooth are simpler
  Good camera
  HTML web browsing
  Easy to sync device
  Music Player is great
  Lots of features
  Navigation is great

  Cons: MetroPCS does not have 3G
  Network delays, time outs are frequent
  Phone can be a tad laggy at times
  Full based HTML websites causes phone to lag unless zoomed
  No flashlight widget/application/tool
  No wi-fi
  Phone can forget settings

  Summary: Don't expect the phone to be excellent when purchasing it with MetroPCS (I don't know if any other carrier supports this phone).
  Although the phone is a great ...

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  Summary: Don't expect the phone to be excellent when purchasing it with MetroPCS (I don't know if any other carrier supports this phone).
  Although the phone is a great touch screen, it can sometimes be a bit laggy due to either the service or the processing speed when browsing through full HTML websites.
  For a 3G phone, having MetroPCS defeats the purpose of having one.
  When adding more widgets to the widget box, it resets all widgets that I've placed on the screen.
  Widgets also don't lock on the screen.
  The phone forgets a few settings, like security based settings, which are very important.
  It has plenty of tool featuers like tip calculator, but it lacks a flashlight tool.
  The phone is in fact, easy to use, but the bluetooth is confusing to use to sync and transfer data etc. because of it being too simple and needs more explanation to work with other than flipping the pages in the phone's manual.
  Call quality is good, however, don't expect it being as great as Verizon's sparkling calls.
  The camera is good with flash, but not good with low light and when moving around. It does autofocus, but don't expect it to be as great compared to a phone with a Carl Zeiss lens.
  Finally, coming from an iPhone and Windows Mobile user, all I can say is that the iPhone is simpler to use, with a better touchscreen, but it eats my wallet, and I would vote the Samsung Caliber over any Windows Mobile based phone because of the ease of use and better responsive touchscreen with features that are useful... and besides, I don't have to see that message, "memory low" all the time.
  
  Okay, the simpler bottom line:
  - For the money, this phone is great with loads of features like using your navigation to show someone where you are (like family locator from Verizon).
  - For the service and quality, don't expect it to be better, but calls are good otherwise.
  - Oh, and coverage is very restrictive, so don't expect the phone to work any where else if you like to travel a lot.
  - For 50 bux a month with loads of unlimited features and tax included basically defeats any other phone company out there with the same features.

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  4 out of 5 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 2 stars

  terrible phone for for the price

  by phones-suck on June 1, 2010

  Pros: works ok if all you do is make calls. nice size and looks.

  Cons: Doesn't display web pages correctly, shorts out and shuts off frequently while using browser. touch screen is like playing tag when you hit the widgets they jump around and off the screen making it hard to get them back where you want them.

  Summary: Phone sucks unless your just making calls.

  Summary: Phone sucks unless your just making calls.

  3 out of 3 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 9 stars

  For being a MetroPCS, I got way more than I expected!

  by itsjustalberto on March 20, 2010

  Pros: Sleek look, very light, great easy to use menu, awesome features, fully loaded with tons of cool things and the internet is faster than any other MetroPcs phone I've had. Even youtube works well.

  Cons: Email option wasn't upgraded from the Finesse..would have loved to have a blackberry-ish email function. Instead you have to download MetroPCS email and connect account.

  Summary: Best MetroPCS phone by far. Can compete with any other phone.

  Summary: Best MetroPCS phone by far. Can compete with any other phone.

  3 out of 4 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 9 stars

  Great alternative to iPhone and other smartphones.

  by sheena_nicole on March 12, 2010

  Pros: Cool widgets like facebook, accurate GPS, google search, and myspace. Standard headphone jack (yea), lightweight, memory card slot on side, touch sensitivity is a huge improvement over samsung's predecessors. Bluetoothe, speedial. Good batery life.

  Cons: Not as advanced as an iphone. Internet is slow because of Metro PCS network. Other than that, very few bad remarks I can say about this phone. This is a big improvement over my Samsung Behold and I really like this phone. :D

  3 out of 4 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 5 stars

  Almost OK But Not Enough For Me

  by ogoj on June 7, 2010

  Pros: Reliable touch screen
  Lightweight
  Minimal accidental screen pressing, good lock controls (except for widgets that move around freely)
  Multiple alarms (something I look for)
  Expandable memory (up to 16 GB)
  Expandable stylus included

  Cons: Severely limited capacity for Contacts info (can't input addresses or other personal info), only #'s & email.
  Memo appl nice but not what I need for taking notes.
  No games or other features included. Extremely basic.

  Summary: This phone is cute & reasonably user-friendly, but I find it more useful for a teen & doesn't serve all my cellphone feature needs. I carry documents & lists ...

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  Summary: This phone is cute & reasonably user-friendly, but I find it more useful for a teen & doesn't serve all my cellphone feature needs. I carry documents & lists with me on my phone & need a program that can serve that need. The memo feature on this phone is convenient but falls short of my requirements. Because the Contacts doesn't allow address information to be inputted (which I require) I have to return this phone for something else. I do like that it's lightweight yet feels sturdy, I like the alarm & sound features & quality. But for its simplicity (which I think a younger person would better appreciate as opposed to someone who needs more) I don't think it's worth the $300 I paid MetroPCS for it. Which is a shame, because if it had what I needed I'd keep it.
  Comes with an optional retractable stylus for easier typing (for those with larger fingers) which attaches to the top corner of the phone like a charm (a little cumbersome & gets in my way). I haven't bothered trying a memory card for music/recording or the Web. Phone & camcorder features are convenient but the quality is kinda grainy for a 3.0 megapixel camera (low lighting conditions I guess). Has a flash which is just way too bright, but gives you the option to turn it on/off/auto.
  I like that none of the side buttons press accidentally the way other phones easily do (AT&T Tilt 2 I'm looking at you!).
  Honestly this is a cute phone for $100 & would be worth that price, but absolutely not for $300. I'll be getting something else that gives me those other basics I need. I'm really not asking for a lot.

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  2 out of 2 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 1 stars

  THIS FONE SUCKS & A RIP OFF!!!!!! I HATE IT!!!!!

  by shannondaniels on October 1, 2010

  Pros: NOTHING, except camera

  Cons: The touchscreen for Texting sucks. Or anytime that u need to use the touchscreen keyboard! I HATE THIS PHONE SO MUCH! WHAT A RIP OFF! Should've just payed another 200 bucks and got a IPHONE! The web takes SO FREAKEN LONG TO CONNECT OR CHANGE PAGES!

  Summary: I HATE THIS PHONE!
  IT'S CRAP I CAN'T BELIEVE I BOUGHT THIS PIECE OF SHI*T.. DON'T BUT IT! YOU'LL REGRET IT

  Summary: I HATE THIS PHONE!
  IT'S CRAP I CAN'T BELIEVE I BOUGHT THIS PIECE OF SHI*T.. DON'T BUT IT! YOU'LL REGRET IT

  2 out of 3 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 1 stars

  Don't Buy this PHONE.. It loses Contacts :(

  by OttoZro on February 22, 2011

  Pros: Good Camera, mp3 is good. GOOD Speaker,web browser-slow but works.
  ------
  Sorry not Enough Space on Cons Section :(
  The touch screen is also very flimsy and not accurate at all. The GPS is kind of NUTS TOO.. doesn't always work the way it should

  Cons: LOSES Contacts if you are sending a text and at the same time receive a text message...the phone goes crazy and turns OFF and when you restart it has LOST ALL OF YOUR CONTACTS.. this has happened to me 3 or 4 times... Also no good apps to download :(

  Summary: For the Love of GOD please don't buy this phone, spare yourself the headache and anger. I just Recently downgraded to an LG Imprint.. I'm happy :)

  Summary: For the Love of GOD please don't buy this phone, spare yourself the headache and anger. I just Recently downgraded to an LG Imprint.. I'm happy :)

  1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.

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