Great for people sick of the gigantic smartphone era October 18, 2012

Reviewer:  Kyle "cylem"  (Brighton, MI) -

I have used quite a few smartphones in the last few years, (I probably go through like 5 a year just buying/selling on ebay). I remember when under 3 inches was still a decent size. I got an HTC diamond and it had a 2.8 inch screen and I loved it. The iphone had a upped screen when it came out to with a huge 3.5 inch. Now we have phones coming out classified as mini (Galaxy s III mini) with a 4 inch screen. The huge phone displays look great but are awkward to hold, and in the pocket. 4inch has probably been my favourite size so far, I was excited about the lg viper but the design and battery life were really bleh. I recently gave a try to the Galaxy Victory and it was fantastic but the battery life and the size of it were just to much, so i'm swapping for this.

I saw the galaxy victory and it seemed like the perfect fit. The phone is 4 inches, plenty of resolution for the size, plenty of ram, an S4 processor, decent design and decent sized battery (same one as the Galaxy S III)

So sorry for the ranting, here we go. I've put it through the tests over the day and I've had great results.

The screen looks great, It's LCD not an AMOLED but it gets the job done fine. I miss the contrast ratio when reading in the dark.

It performs really great, I put it through tests and games run great, running quadrant shows it really close to the htc one x. Really don't let the midrange category of this phone scare you off performance wise, the S4 is what is in some versions of the Galaxy S III and HTC One X, Its a S4 lite and lower clock but its not horribly far off.

Physical design while not the best, is not to bad either. The phone feels good in the had, it has a good texture and weight. I wish the power button was on the side but its not bad on the top. It has a camera button which I LOVE. Function buttons on the bottom are good though I wish there was a multitasking button (though you can just hold home to do it)

Samsung's customizations are surprisingly fairly useful, the launcher isn't to distracting, performs well and has some good shortcuts over stock. However one bad thing is that folders are a bit more difficult to make, but its like just one more step. It comes with some of Samsung's applications and enhancements which are mostly fine, I tried out the S Voice and it was pretty terrible.

battery life has been pretty awesome, it almost matches my Galaxy Nexus with extended battery (3850 mah). To give my battery use today, I was at work from like 7am - 5pm today, my service at work is terrible like 0-1 bars most of the day which wrecks batteries. I texted about 30-40 texts probably, did some ebaying, a bit of web surfing, I did like a 5 minute gps nav, played a game for like 10 minutes, checked weather a couple times. When I got home my battery said it was unplugged for 11 hours and I had 60 percent left, I used the program "easy battery saver" also, I'm not sure how much that affected the battery life though.

Camera seems to be fine, I'm not to concerned with quality on my cellphone, as long as it takes a picture and I can tell what it is, the camera button works great too.

Reasons I gave a 4: as mentioned above, some of the software (S voice) aren't to great but they aren't really needed either. The function buttons are fine but the home button for some reason has like a second delay before it does anything, which is slightly annoying. The phone has NO haptic feedback build into it, so if you need that it's a no go.

So really nothing to horrible unless you need haptic feedback, I highly recommend if you want a smaller phone on sprint.
comment if you have any questions, hope you enjoyed.

EDIT: fixed the home button lag by disabling double home button tap for s-voice :D

Unless you care about NFC, you should get the Galaxy S2 instead. February 26, 2013

Reviewer:  S. Power  (Austin, Texas, United States) -

This is not a bad phone at all. It does everything pretty well, and is a very good budget smart phone. If you care about Near Field Communication (NFC), and all the features that NFC makes possible- Google Wallet, S Beam, and whatever else that hardware can do- than this is definitely the phone for you.

If you don’t care about NFC, or don’t think that it will provide you any benefit in the lifetime of your next cell phone, than the Galaxy S2 4G is a slightly better choice, for the same price.

Both phones are great, and both cost about the same price. Foregoing NFC, by getting the Galaxy S2 instead of the Galaxy Victory, gets you the following features that to me are more valuable than NFC:

S2 has a larger screen at 4.52” vs. 4.0” for the Victory.

S2 has a slightly better camera. Both cameras are really good, but the specs on the S2 is 8MP vs. the 5MP on the Victory.

Battery life is supposed to be about 10 percent better on the S2. I didn’t really notice a huge difference in this area, but don’t doubt the 7 hours for Victory vs. 8.7 hours for S2 that Samsung claims.

S2 is lighter. Despite the larger screen, the S2 is slightly lighter than the Victory.

The processor is about the same, and the Victory has a newer version of Android than the S2.

Overall, I think that both of these Samsung phones are great. You should decide if you care about NFC, and if you do more than you care about these other differences, than the Victory is probably right for you. Otherwise you should look at the Galaxy S2.

Wife loves this phone October 24, 2012

Reviewer:  Anthony Fail  (Pittsburgh, PA United States) -

If you don't want to carry a giant phone, this is the phone for you. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles the Galaxy S3 has, but honestly, a lot of those features are kind of useless.

It does have LTE and S-Beam and S-Voice and runs really smoothly. My wife wanted a phone that fits in her pocket and she could not be happier with this device.

I really do not understand why Sprint isn't promoting this more. There is a large group of people who don't want a giant expensive phone and yet the sales reps at the Sprint store didn't even know they sold this device.

LOVE THIS PHONE!! January 6, 2013

Reviewer:  Thomas OVT "Thomas"  (Kentucky) -

Not too big, not too small . . .it's just right. It has everything I actually need and use plus some! The only hesitation I had was that it only has 4GB but I popped a 32GB SD card into place in less than 10 seconds and for only $10.00 (a great lightening deal the week before Christmas)and it was game on!! The battery seems to last forever and the %meter keeps me from having to guess. I haven't found a single thing I don't like. I LOVE THIS PHONE!!

amazing phone December 5, 2012

Reviewer:  amazon lover 

Love this phone great for for every one long lasting battery even thou im on it for hours on end. Almost never ever drops calls and i have droped it a ton but no damage.

Love this phone February 28, 2013

Reviewer:  Latisha 

I love this phone, I was a little scared getn this phone coming from evo to a galaxy s2!!!! This phone galaxy victory is a lot smaller and almost the same features as the galaxy s3. The battery even last a long time and I don't have to worry about bringing my charger everywhere I go......Fits right in my pocket, I'm into every new phone wen they come out, but I think I'll stick to this phone!!

Hard to get used to, coming from a Blackberry Curve December 2, 2012

Reviewer:  C. Boucher "CLB"  (Connecticut) -

I'm having a terrible time with this phone. I thought it was all cool and stuff but the fact that it is a touch screen makes it very "touchy." I don't know how the heck anyone uses these things without having tons of issues. I make a call and put it to my face and my face touches the screen. Often I lose the call or it goes to another screen. I might accidentally touch a certain part of the screen and other things happen, not on purpose.

Right now, I can't even send texts. I get error codes: 97, 34 and I think one other one. I keep getting a text from two of my family members over and over again, since yesterday evening. It kept coming every hour or two all throughout the night and then into today. I call Sprint and wait on hold forever, then my call quickly disconnects before I can even approach finding a solution. I have been trying to chat with Sprint online but they don't handle technical issues. I have to drive down to a Sprint store and get this taken care of. I don't have any other option.

Frankly, if I can go back to something with a physical keyboard, I'm going back. I just want a phone that I can rely on. I'm not looking to impress anyone. Good God, this phone is a PIA!! I'm calling people when I'm trying to simply pull up their number in order to email them, etc. I am getting accidental calls from my Mother who is also going through the same stuff. This is for the birds!

OH! And the onscreen keyboard is the absolute pits. I make typos constantly, even when I turn the phone horizontal and the screen gets wide. The only thing that makes it workable is that the word sometimes pops up and you can tap it and save yourself the trouble of trying to complete it letter by letter.

On the other hand, I love the Jaws Revenge Ap that I downloaded for free. It's very cool being the shark. That's something, right? Couldn't be 100% negative.