Today we’ll be reviewing the Samsung Galaxy Victory 4G LTE L300. This is a very interesting phone, to say the least. This device isn’t a very powerful one, however, with all of those things considered it’s probably more affordable than the more powerful ones. It’s a pretty safe bet to assume that this device will be a pretty low cost one. I am relatively sure that almost all people will be able to afford this device.
Unfortunately, this device seems to be only available for the Sprint network. However, I am positive that it will find its way to other network providers as well. If not that, you will most surely be able to find it from different shops. Same is the case with most phones that have an “area limit”. To be more exact, I’m referring to those phones that you see only available in Korea or other countries. Even those eventually make it to the whole wide world and then they can be purchased by anyone.
This device is one of those phones that can support more than one network. I do believe that if you purchase it with a contractual deal, you will have a choice either between getting it with regular GSM networks or with those more special CDMA networks. I do believe that this little choice in networks is good as it offers the user more diversity, however, one cannot help but wonder about the coverage of these particular networks. Take my country for instance: it has no support whatsoever for those networks and thus you would get no coverage whatsoever here.
SUMMARY
In this brief summary I will try to list all of the good and bad points of this device. I do this for those who just want to get a general idea about the device without actually reading the advanced technical terms. Little to no technicalities will be added here. Because of that fact, one can refer to this part as more of a guideline for the rest of the review, or a trailer if you are the movie enthusiast.
The Samsung Galaxy Victory 4G LTE L300 is quite the powerful phone. While it cannot be compared to the more powerful ones ( the ones equipped with quad-core processors and Tegra or similar motherboards ) this device is still acceptable, even by today’s standards. Hell, the fact that its hardware isn’t top notch should come as an advantage to the average user. This means that the phone won’t cost so much and that it will be more affordable for more pockets.
Since nothing good comes without its repercussions and everything has a price, so too does this phone have its own drawbacks. They aren’t all necessarily bad, some of them are acceptable and could have only used a few improvements. However, certain things do tend to stand out. There are some minor flaws to this phone that you will notice if you look closely enough.
However, other than a few minor details that can be ignored the device has no major disadvantages. With all of the so called “disadvantages” the price will only drop, making it reach a wider public. Also, those bad points can only be considered bad if you choose to have a problem with them. Otherwise, the device is decent enough overall as to run almost anything out there.
GENERAL
As I already mentioned a while ago, the Samsung Galaxy Victory 4G LTE L300 supports a wide variety of networks. First off, this device is a 4G one. That is a pretty important aspect to mention as not so many devices tend to be 4G nowadays. More and more manufacturers are adding 4G to their devices, but it’s still not as widespread as to actually replace some of the older network types. I also mentioned that you have a choice as far as the network type goes. Here is what I meant. The device has the following networks : 2G ones ( CDMA 800 and CDMA 1900, and the normal: GSM 850, GSM 900, GSM 1800 and GSM 1900 ), 3G ones ( CDMA 2000 1xEV-DO and the normal HSDPA 1700 and HSDPA 2100 ) and 4G ones ( LTe 1900 ). This device was announced in September and it set to come out during the same month.
BODY
The aspect of this device is pretty good. Besides looking gorgeous, the phone has no particular things that we should be aware of. The size of this device is pretty standard. It’s a bit smaller than I would have preferred, but on the other hand, it is now the same size as the “new and innovative” iPhone 5. The size of the body is : 121.9 x 63.5 x 12.7 mm and the weight is around : 139 grams.
DISPLAY
The Samsung Galaxy Victory 4G LTE L300 has a TFT capacitive touchscreen with approximately 16 million colors. This screen isn’t the finest of screens out there as we’ve all grown so used to the TFT quality to the point that it has actually gotten boring. One would have been much more satisfied if the screen of this phone was of a better quality, but, then again the price would have risen by a couple of thousand dollars as well, should that have happened.
The screen of this device, as I’ve already mentioned, is the same unimpressive size that the iPhone 5 screen is : 4.0 inches. I, for one, am not a very big fan of this screen size. For me a phone with a large screen is the best phone I could possibly have. Something with a 4.3 inch screen is the smallest I’m willing to use. Other than that, I would really enjoy having a Galaxy Note or something with a 5.5 inch screen. For me that screen is the perfect size, especially since I have really large hands. The resolution reached by this screen is approximately 480 x 800 pixels. The pixel density of this device is pretty good as well, the phone being able to reach a density of around 233 ppi. While most experts will agree that only 300+ ppi is the best quality, I tend to differ and claim loud and proud that this amount is enough. Anything revolving around 250 ppi is more than sufficient for a screen this size.
The Samsung Galaxy Victory 4G LTE L300 also has Multitouch on it, however, it isn’t the advanced sorts that can support more than 2 simultaneous fingers on it. Actually, come to think of it, the only ones which can support 6 or 10 simultaneous fingers on them were employed on certain Xperia phones. Perhaps that is something Sony has branded and claimed for itself. Personally I don’t really care as I’ve never actually found a use for it. One thing that I find disappointing about this screen is the fact that it has no protection whatsoever. Thus, you have to be very careful with its handling if you want to keep it whole.
SOUND
There is nothing special about the audio output of this device whatsoever. The Samsung Galaxy Victory 4G LTE L300 has no sound enhancement whatsoever installed on it, be it software-based or hardware-based. Other than that, the loudspeaker and 3.5 mm jack and also the alert types are as basic as they can get.
MEMORY
The memory of the Samsung Galaxy Victory 4G LTE L300 is more than decent enough. The device has a generous internal storage space and it also has a Micro SD card slot which can support cards of up to 32 GB. The RAM of this device is 1 GB, and while you could say that the actual maximum is 2 GB, keep in mind that the price would have risen drastically should that have happened. The internal storage space of the Samsung Galaxy Victory 4G LTE L300 is 4 GB, and while you may think that it is not generous at all, I beg to differ. I am personally using a phone with 160 MB of storage space and a 2 GB MicroSD card and I am fully satisfied with the memory. Point being, you don’t need a mobile hard disk for your phone’s storage space.
DATA CONNECTION
This being a 4G phone, it has no GPRS and EDGE. Actually, very few of those phones seem to have those two features. The connection speed of this device is : Rev.A of up to 3.1 MB/s and LTE. The WLAN of this device is a Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n with Dual-Band, Wi-Fi Hotspot and DLNA. The Bluetooth of this device is a v4.0 one with A2DP. This device also has a Micro USB v2.0 port with no MHL. That is a tad disappointing considering that it has no HDMI port either, so you can just kiss that little feature goodbye.
Also, something that I may have forgotten to mention earlier is that this is an NFC phone. What NFC ( or Near Field Communication ) does is pretty simple. It is an infrared connection of sorts that helps transfer data at blinding speeds. It has been used for a long time with magnetic NFC cards and readers, but now it has been implemented into Smartphones as well.
Here is its official description :
Near field communication (NFC) is a set of standards for smartphones and similar devices to establish radio communication with each other by touching them together or bringing them into close proximity, usually no more than a few centimetres. Present and anticipated applications include contactless transactions, data exchange, and simplified setup of more complex communications such as Wi-Fi. Communication is also possible between an NFC device and an unpowered NFC chip, called a “tag”.
NFC standards cover communications protocols and data exchange formats, and are based on existing radio-frequency identification (RFID) standards including ISO/IEC 14443 and FeliCa. The standards include ISO/IEC 18092 and those defined by the NFC Forum, which was founded in 2004 by Nokia, Philips and Sony, and now has more than 160 members. The Forum also promotes NFC and certifies device compliance.
CAMERA
The main camera of this device is a relatively good one : a 5 MP camera which can photograph at resolutions of approximately 2592 x 1944 pixels and record video in 720p HD format at who knows how many frames per second since they failed to specify. The features of this camera are : autofocus, LED flash, geo-tagging, touch focus and face detection. The Samsung Galaxy Victory 4G LTE L300 also has a secondary 1.3 MP frontal camera, however, it has no features of its own which are worth discussing.
BATTERY LIFE
The battery of this device is a fairly powerful one.. The Samsung Galaxy Victory 4G LTE L300 has a Standard Li-Ion 2100 mAh battery which can survive for up to 216 hours of stand-by time and up to 7 hours of talk-time. Altogether it may seem like quite a lot , but under stress it will falter pretty quickly.
HARDWARE
The hardware of this device isn’t one of the most powerful ones available, but it’s still strong enough to suffice for mostly any activity. This phone has a Dual-Core 1.2 GHz processor, a Qualcomm MSm8960 Snapdragon chipset and an Adreno 225 GPU. All and all not that powerful if you compare it with a Quad-Core phone, but strong enough to handle almost anything.
SOFTWARE
The Android OS version of this device isn’t the latest one, but it’s good enough to make the phone run as smooth as possible. This device has Android OS v4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich on it. The only sad part is the fact that it may never receive the update to v4.1 Jelly Bean. Even so, the phone is still pretty good.
FEATURES :
The Samsung Galaxy Victory 4G LTE L300 is packed with all sorts of features. The sensors of this device are : Accelerometer, Proximity and Compass. The messaging on this device is done via : SMS ( with Threaded View ), MMS, E-Mail, Push E-Mail and IM. The browser of this device uses HTML5 but sadly lacks any form of Adobe Flash, fact which could prove problematic should the device not support the official version. This phone has no Radio as well, but that problem can usually be solved by an app and a good internet connection. The GPS of this phone has built-in support for A-GPS. This phone also has Java through Java MIDP emulation. The only available color for this phone is Black.
Here’s a brief list of what the Samsung Galaxy Victory 4G LTE L300 can do :
- SNS integration
- Google Search, Maps, Gmail
- YouTube, Google Talk
- DivX/MP4/H.264/H.263/WMV player
- MP3/WAV/WMA/eAAC+ player
- Document viewer
- Photo viewer/editor
- Organizer
- Voice memo/dial
- Predictive text input
This concludes our little review of the Samsung Galaxy Victory 4G LTE L300. Thank you for reading this review. I hope it has been as helpful as possible. If you feel that anything is lacking from this review feel free to leave your suggestions in the comment section below for things which should be added and I will be sure to take them into consideration when writing my future projects. In the meantime, I sincerely hope you had as much fun reading my little review as I had writing it.
