Review: Samsung Galaxy Exhilarate for AT&T
Apps
Of the 53 apps preinstalled on the Samsung Exhilarate, 9 of them belong to AT&T and 7 belong to Samsung. The rest are balanced between native Android apps and a handful of third-party apps, such as QuickOffice and Amazon Kindle. About one-quarter of the preinstalled apps can be deleted if you want to, but you're stuck with the majority of them. Even so, there's plenty of room on the Exhilarate so that you won't have to worry about running out of room to store additional apps.
Bluetooth
Bluetooth works as expected on the Exhilarate. I had no trouble connecting it to other devices, including both mono and stereo headsets. The quality was fine and conversations were easy to hear. Bluetooth worked exceptionally well in my car, where I could really crank up the volume. Music sent to stereo Bluetooth headphones sounded excellent and was free of playback or stuttering problems.
Clock
The lock screen clock behaves just as on other Samsung TouchWiz phones. It's placed on the lock screen in large, white numbers. Owners can choose to position the lock screen clock at the top, middle, or bottom of the display. As I've opined before, however, I wish the font were thicker or bolder to make the time stand out against the background better. Indoors you'll have no problem reading it, but it's hard to check the time outside.
GPS
As with most Android devices coming from AT&T, the Exhilarate includes Google's navigation services in addition to AT&T's. You probably know the drill here. Google Maps, Places, Navigation, and Latitude all work really well. Maps, in particular, has become quite powerful with newer offline features and 3D maps for certain cities. It performed well on the Exhilarate. The AT&T Navigator app, which runs an additional $10 per month, does a fantastic job of routing directions from Point A to Point B, but is far less social than Google's services. Either way, you won't be led astray.
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