Review: Samsung Galaxy Light for T-Mobile
Media
The Light comes with the Google Play apps for purchasing and consuming music, movies, books, and magazines. The stock music and video players are also on board, and do a fine job of playing back any content you might have sideloaded onto the Light yourself. The stock YouTube app is available, too.
Samsung's Media Hub is on board, as well. The Media Hub is an alternative place through which to purchase and/or rent movies, television shows, and music. It works fine, but requires a Samsung user account. I don't think the selection is quite as good, and it's a bit less intuitive to use than the Google Play Store.
T-Mobile has crammed its own Music Hub and Live TV services onto the Light. The Music Hub offers free music streaming if that's how you (rock and) roll. T-Mobile's Live TV service cost $10 per month and lets you stream live and pre-recorded television content over the network. The selection includes programming from stations such as EPSN, Disney, and Nickelodeon. The performance of the app was mixed over T-Mobile's HSPA+ network. I didn't see a noticeable improvement when tested over LTE.
Camera
The Light includes a 5-megapixel shooter. The phone does not have a dedicated camera button, but the camera can be launched via the lock screen shortcut.
Surprisingly, Samsung ported the capable camera software from the GS4 and Note 3 to the Light. This is good news, since Samsung's camera software is fairly easy to use and lets you flex some creative muscle. It doesn't include all the features, but with shooting modes such as Beauty Face, Sound & Shot, Panorama, Sports, Night, and Auto, you still have plenty of options for customizing your shots. The modes can be accessed via a carousel that explains what each does, or through a grid of thumbnails.
The Light has some controls positioned in the upper left corner. You can customize what appears there, such as the flash or front camera button. The full settings tools need to be accessed by pressing the capacitive menu button next to the display. The settings provide a decent amount of control over the camera's behavior, such as metering, white balance, exposure, and so on.
In all, the camera performs well. It takes a second to open and is a little slower to focus than I'd like, but other than that it is fairly snappy.
Photos
The Light's camera didn't surprise me when it came time to examine the results. For a 5-megapixel camera on an inexpensive smartphone, it's nothing to complain about, but it certainly doesn't impress. Images are passable. Grain creeps in something fierce when shooting in low light. Using the Light outdoors produces the best results, but that's not surprising. Images are sharper and more colorful outside. Indoor shots often looked washed out. The flash casts a blue pall over images rather than truly helping with the exposure. I'd take a dedicated camera with me on vacation rather than use the Light to capture all my experiences.
Video
The Light is limited to recording video at a max resolution of 720p. The results are ok, provided you have good lighting. Don't bother shooting video in the dark, you'll only get grain-laden smears. When shooting properly lit subjects, the Light does manage to get white balance and exposure right, and all the video I shot was in focus. Again, it's not the best device for recording important events, but acceptable in a pinch.
Gallery
Samsung relies on the stock Android gallery app for the Light. It's a fine tool for managing your photos and comes with a handful of simple editing features, such as crop, rotate, filters, and so on.
The Light also comes with the new Photos+ application. (It is worth pointing out that Photos+ app will eventually replace the stock Android gallery app. In fact, it already has on the most recent devices sold directly from Google's web site.) The Photos+ app is a brighter, more cheery app for managing your photos and has all the same editing functions that the regular gallery app has. The big difference is that it interacts with, and is meant to help control, your Google+ photos. You can set auto-upload behaviors as well as use the Auto Awesome tool to improve your photos or create animated GIFs.
Which ever of the two gallery apps you care to use, all your photos populate both.
Apps
The Light comes with a typical mix of Google, Samsung, and T-Mobile apps. You can't delete most of the pre-installed apps, but you can at least hide those you don't use. Either way, there's plenty of on-board storage for your own apps. The Samsung App Hub is available if you want to see which apps Samsung recommends for the Galaxy Light. Samsung's S Voice and S Translator apps are on board. S Voice is for controlling the Light with voice commands, and S Translator can translate text from one language to another using the camera. S Voice functions well enough, but I'd recommend you skip it and stick with Google Now, which is available on the Light. Google Now is far superior. S Translator also works well.
Bluetooth
The Light's Bluetooth radio worked well. It paired and connected with every device I have sitting on my desk. Phone calls sounded very good when routed through a headset, as did music when played back through my favorite stereo Bluetooth speaker. I was easily able to pass files directly to other devices, as well.
Browser
The Light ships with the standard Android browser and Google's Chrome browser. Both browsers are highly capable of rendering attractive web sites. Chrome offers a few more features than the stock browser, but as far as how web pages look, they are on even footing. The Light was acceptable on T-Mobile's HSPA network, but not the fastest device by any stretch. Browsing over LTE didn't really improve the experience when compared to HSPA.
Clock
There's a white digital clock on the lock screen. It's big enough to be seen at an arm's length, but the style of the lock screen clock cannot be adjusted. You can, however, choose from three different sizes to make it even more visible if you wish. That's cool.
GPS
The Light has Google Maps for navigation. The GPS radio worked really well. It pinpointed me quickly, though accuracy varied between 25 and about 50 feet. I didn't have any trouble routing directions between points. The app ran fine on the Light with no issues.
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