Focus

Remember when the tap of a magic wand made me an honorary AT&T Phone Fairy for the holidays? Well, apparently I looked good enough in the wings and tutu that they're letting me give away another touch-screen smartphone to one lucky reader. We're timing this for Valentine's Day because nothing says "I love you" like something shiny you get for free.

I was given my own Samsung Focus S plus a month of service to see how I like it. Here's what I think:

• It has two cameras. TWO CAMERAS. The front-facing one is a modest 1.3 megapixels, but the rear-facer is a smashing 8.0. For all I know, this is standard issue these days, but to me it's like living in the future. I just checked the driveway for my flying car.
• The earbuds work as an antenna so you can listen to the radio. I...how is that even possible? This is my favorite feature, in part because I haven't loaded music onto a phone or iPod in probably seven years.

• The Speech program lets you do things like text and search the web hands-free, using voice commands. You can have it read an incoming text and then dictate a reply. (Is the human race in danger of becoming overtaken by computers? I'm starting to worry, but worry has never been so fun.)
• This phone is a mighty-mighty featherweight; when I took it out of the box I couldn't believe how thin and light it was. When I realized it didn't have the battery in yet, I figured I'd been duped, but no, the battery weighs about as much as a quarter. The whole phone is under 4 oz.; my half-baked fetus weighs almost twice that.
• The Samsung Focus S is a top-of-the-line Windows phone, but...it's a Windows phone. I'm not crazy about the interface (is that what it's called? how the stuff on the screen works and is organized?), but that's such a personal thing it's hard to judge objectively. (For instance, I HAAAAATE Gmail and you probably love it. Different strokes.)
• The good news is that it comes standard with the 7.5 Mango OS, which is preloaded with essentials like Twitter and other cool stuff like photo tagging and smart maps and a to-do list app.
• It's a 4G, which as far as I understand means it's supah-fast (to use the technical term).

Does this sound like the phone for you? To win one (phone only; you have to buy your own service plan), leave a comment below at some point between right this second and Monday morning (February 13) at 9 a.m. Pacific. One entry per person, please. Random.org will help me choose the winner, and my AT&T Phone Fairy mentor Liz will send the prize out lickety-split.

For fun, here's a Valentine's Day comment prompt: If you won a Samsung Focus S, who's the first person you'd call (or text or @ or tag) to say "I love you"?

[Aaaaaaand of course comments are being screwy when I'm trying to hold a contest. Rest assured I'm getting your comments via email, even though they're not showing up here! Argh.]

wrote Leah at 2:35 PM | Comments (0)