Today we shall be looking at the Samsung I405 Stratosphere. This is a pretty awesome phone, if you can call it that. I’m saying this since there are many voices which state that a 4G device isn’t necessarily a phone since it can’t work in normal GSM networks. While on most times I agree, I also know that this is because of the area I live in. Someone like me, who has only been in areas in which there is nothing but GSM can’t actually say that this device is a phone. But thinking outside the box, thinking that there are countries which have Verizon and AT&T providers, you actually get to make a lot of sense of this device, thus finding reason in calling it a phone.
But enough about that, let’s begin this little review.
GENERAL
In this part of the review we shall be looking at the more general aspects of the Samsung I405 Stratosphere. You can find here the networks supported by the Samsung I405 Stratosphere, as well as the release and the announcement date. The Samsung I405 Stratosphere supports the following networks : CDMA 800 / 1900 as 2G networks, CDMA 2000 1xEV-DO as 3G networks, LTE 700 MHz Class 13 as 4G networks. The Samsung I405 Stratosphere was announced in October 2011 and was made available later that same month.
BODY
In this part of the review we shall be examining the aspect of the Samsung I405 Stratosphere. You can find here details about the size and weight of the Samsung I405 Stratosphere, any distinguishable traits and so on. The Samsung I405 Stratosphere is around 126 x 65 x 14 mm big and weighs around 164 grams. A distinguishable trait of this device is the QWERTY keyboard it has. The slide-able part of the phone is a main reason why this device is so thick and weighs so much. Also, another distinguishable feature of the Samsung I405 Stratosphere is the fact that it has Touch-Sensitive controls instead of frontal buttons.
DISPLAY
In this part of the review we shall be looking at the display of the Samsung I405 Stratosphere. You can find details here about the type of screen, the size, the resolution and pixel density, as well as the existence of any distinguishable features regarding the screen. The screen type of the Samsung I405 Stratosphere is a Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen with approximately 16 million colors. The screen per say is around 4.0 inches big and it can support a resolution of approximately 480 x 800 pixels. The pixel density of this screen is around 233 ppi, which is more than enough in my opinion. The Samsung I405 Stratosphere also has Multitouch and a TouchWiz UI installed on it, should you choose to activate it.
SOUND
Moving on to the sound part of the Samsung I405 Stratosphere’s review. Here you can find information about the alert types, the loudspeaker and 3.5 mm jack and if there are means of sound enhancement, they can also be found here. Now the sound of the Samsung I405 Stratosphere is pretty basic, with no features to stand out from the crowd. It’s pretty default if you are to consider it by today’s standards. The alert types are vibration, MP3 and WAV ringtones. The Samsung I405 Stratosphere also has a loudspeaker and a 3.5 mm jack. However, as mentioned before, this device doesn’t have any way to upgrade or enhance its sound.
MEMORY
Moving on to the memory part of the Samsung I405 Stratosphere’s review. Things that can be found in this part are information about the RAM and the internal storage space, as well as whether or not there is a possibility of expanding said storage space. The internal storage space of the Samsung I405 Stratosphere is around 4 GB. That isn’t actually such a problem since it’s already bigger than what I require, plus you get another 4 GB worth of MicroSD card upon purchasing this device. You still want more, you know the drill : any MicroSD card up to 32 GB works. The RAM of this device isn’t actually that phenomenal. It’s half-decent though, spinning at 512 MB.
DATA CONNECTION
In this part of the review we shall focus more on the data connectivity of this device. The things which will be featured in this part are the GPRS and EDGE, the speed of the device, the WLAN and Bluetooth and USB connection. The Samsung I405 Stratosphere doesn’t have GPRS or EDGE, unfortunately, so nothing to say about those. Its speed isn’t so great either, being a Rev. A which goes up to 3.1 MB/s. The WLAN of the Samsung I405 Stratosphere is a Wi-Fi 802.11 a/ b/g/n with both DLNA and Wi-Fi hotspot. The Samsung I405 Stratosphere’s Bluetooth is a Bluetooth v3.0 with A2DP. The connection between the Samsung I405 Stratosphere and the PC can be done via this device’s MicroUSB v2.0 port.
CAMERA
This part of the review will be oriented towards the camera of the Samsung I405 Stratosphere. Things which will be featured here are the main and secondary camera, their features and their capabilities. The main camera of the Samsung I405 Stratosphere is a 5 MP one, capable of photographing at around 2592 x 1944 pixels and has the following features : autofocus, LED flash and geo-tagging. The camera is also capable of recording video in VGA quality with who knows h0w many frames per second. Also, the Samsung I405 Stratosphere has a secondary 1.3 MP camera.
BATTERY LIFE
This part of the review is oriented towards the battery of the Samsung I405 Stratosphere, since we know that battery life is of a great importance. Things focused upon here are the type of battery and the time it can function under certain circumstances. The type of battery of the Samsung I405 Stratosphere is a standard Li-Ion 1800 mAh battery. It is capable of functioning for around 212 hours of stand-by time and up to 8 hours of talk time.
HARDWARE
In this part of the review we shall be looking at the hardware components of the Samsung I405 Stratosphere. Things featured here or focused upon depending on how you want to look at it are the processor, the graphics card and the mother board, if they exist. This is not the case of the Samsung I405 Stratosphere since it only has a processor. The others are either non-existent or are too weak to even mention in the official specs. The processor of the Samsung I405 Stratosphere is a 1 GHz processor, which isn’t half bad actually. For the year in which this phone came out it was quite a good one, but comparing it to the processors of today it stands no chance. Actually, few single-core processors stand a chance of making it big in today’s market, since it has long been cornered by dual or quad core processors.
SOFTWARE
In this part of the review we shall be focusing on the operating system of the Samsung I405 Stratosphere. We shall see here what the version of the OS is and whether or not there is a possibility of upgrading. The Samsung I405 Stratosphere has Android OS v2.3 Gingerbread on it. It isn’t the best, but at the time it seemed adequate. It doesn’t have an official update to 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, however you can upgrade to that version unofficially. Heck, I have a friend with a Galaxy 3 and he put ICS on it. I can’t guarantee the phone will run good if you do this, however. Do it at your own risk.
FEATURES
In this part of the review we shall be focusing more on the general aspects of the Samsung I405 Stratosphere. We shall see here the features of the device, as well as its capabilities. The Samsung I405 Stratosphere’s sensors are as following : accelerometer, proximity and compass. The messaging on the Samsung I405 Stratosphere can be done via : SMS ( with threaded view ), MMS, E-Mail and Push Mail, IM and even RSS. The browser of the Samsung I405 Stratosphere functions with HTML and supports Adobe Flash as well. This device doesn’t have a Radio, but I’ve mentioned on so many occasions how that can be fixed. The Samsung I405 Stratosphere also has a GPS with A-GPS support and Java via Java MIDP emulation. Also, the colors available for the Samsung I405 Stratosphere are as limited to only one : Noble Black.
Here is a brief list of what the Samsung I405 Stratosphere can do :
- SNS integration
- MP4/DivX/XviD/H.264/H.263 player
- MP3/WAV/WMA/eAAC+ player
- Organizer
- Image/video editor
- Document viewer
- Google Search, Maps, Gmail, YouTube, Calendar, Google Talk, Picasa integration
- Voice memo/dial
- Predictive text input
This concludes our little review of the Samsung I405 Stratosphere. If you feel that anything is lacking from this review feel free to leave your suggestion for things which should be added in the comment section below.
If you would like to purchase this phone I can provide you with a good link. Just click : HERE.
