Review: Samsung Propel
Apps
Propel is equipped with AT&T Navigator, a free service. While not as sleek as iPhone's navigation/mapping application – it took more than a minute for the phone to acquire my GPS coordinates, and even then it placed me a block south of my actual location – AT&T Nav on the Propel offers voice-prompted turn-by-turn directions and speak search.
Speak search works best in a quiet environment. My first attempt with some music playing in background transcribed "New York, New York" into a choice between "Oark, AR" and "Orrick, MO." A second, more clearly enunciated pronouncement yielded more accurate results. It also had trouble understanding "McDonald's" and "Subway."
But with a QWERTY keyboard at your disposal, there's really no reason to wrestle with the speak search. Even better, the intuitive Propel knows when you're typing numbers to start an address and letters after the space following the number. Once typed in, Propel found listed local locations in around 8 seconds.
Bluetooth
I had no problems pairing the Propel with Bluetooth headsets and syncing the Propel with both a Vista PC and a Mac, with only the usual code input timing issues (phones often are ready to receive the PC-generated password code before the PC has generated it or vice versa, and often one or the other times-out waiting for it). I was able to browse, transmit and extract files while browsing the Propel from both PC and Mac.
Clock
The clock is displayed digitally in large white characters on the home screen. There are no options for displaying analog time or for changing the font size of the time. The time is displayed on all menu pages but disappears once an application is launched – there isn't even a current time display on the music playback screens.
You don't have to worry about unlocking the phone to check the time. The position of the time is above the pop-up "keypad locked" warning if you hit the side shortcut key. You can also wake up the screen by sliding up the screen top or tapping the voice toggle key.
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Samsung Propel A767
