Review: Samsung Strive
Browser
The Strive uses Access' NetFront browser. The main AT&T portal is a mish-mash of the usual weather, news and sports links. One thing I liked is that it automatically located me and offered the local weather report without any further input required. It offers local search and Yahoo search. No baked-in Google search here.
Despite the Strive's HSDPA radio, it struggled hard to load web sites. Loading mobile web sites was mostly painful. Once the pages are fully loaded, they become easier to interact with.
The thing that infuriated me the most is this: If you load a web site from the open internet, there's no way to navigate to another web site without returning to the AT&T portal. The only way to call up an actual address bar to type in a URL is to go back to ATT.net. That's a killer flaw right there. You can, however, go to your bookmarks and view your browsing history to navigate to other pages.
I'm not a fan of the Strive's web browsing abilities.
Customize
The Strive lets users customize it about the same as any other basic feature phone. Ringtones, alerts, wallpapers, shortcuts, etc., can all be adjusted to suit individual tastes.
My favorite is the ability to personalize the Shortcuts menu and load it with the apps or actions I like to use most often.
Another nice touch is that the Settings menu lets you adjust pretty much every single application from one control center. Rather than having to actually open the camera app, browser app, music app all separately to make adjustments, the controls for them have been lumped together in one spot. Efficient.
The Strive also offers four separate ringer profiles, which can be adjusted at will for different settings.
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Samsung Strive A687
