Samsung Ativ Odyssey

Windows Phone 8 hasn't exactly transformed the smartphone space, and the Samsung Ativ Odyssey for Verizon Wireless probably won't change that. The $49.99 Ativ Odyssey is Samsung's first U.S. smartphone to run Windows 8, so it's surprising that it's a generic, middle-of-the-road handset. It's small and comfy, and Windows Phone 8 is as slick and speedy as ever, but the Ativ Odyssey doesn't bring anything new to the table. It's a decent phone, it just isn't exciting.

Design and Call Quality
One of my favorite traits about the current crop of Windows Phones is their fun, playful design. The Nokia Lumia 920, for instance, comes clad in a number of different gorgeous polycarbonate colors. Ditto the HTC Windows Phone 8X, which also stands out thanks to its "pyramid" design. Even the inexpensive Nokia Lumia 822?creates some visual interest with its white, rounded form. The Samsung Ativ Odyssey, on the other hand, can pass for any number of faceless, nameless smartphones out there.

The phone is made from the same shiny, cheap-feeling plastic you'll find on most Samsung smartphones, with the same faux-textured back panel as the Samsung Galaxy S III. On the bright side, the phone is relatively small and comfortable to hold, especially when compared with monsters like the 6.53-ounce Lumia 920. By comparison, the Odyssey weighs just 4.38 ounces and measures 4.82 by 2.52 by 0.44 inches (HWD). There's a Camera and Power button on the right side of the phone, a 3.5mm headphone jack on top, and a volume rocker and microSD card slot on the left.

The Ativ Odyssey has a 4-inch Super AMOLED display with 800-by-480-pixel resolution. That makes it look a little tighter than the Lumia 822, which has the same resolution spread out over 4.3 inches, but it still fails to impress. While Super AMOLED makes for very rich, vibrant colors, the PenTile pixel arrangement lends a fuzzy, pixelated look to everything, especially brighter colors. There are three backlit touch buttons below the display, and typing onscreen feels fine, despite the relatively small screen size.

The Odyssey is a world phone that supports dual-band EV-DO Rev. A (850/1900 MHz), quad-band GSM (850/900/1800/1900MHz), and quad-band UMTS (850/900/1900/2100MHz), as well as 4G LTE and 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi on the 2.4 and faster 5GHz bands. 4G LTE data speeds were fine in Manhattan, though unimpressive. The Phone averaged 3.1Mbps down and 2.5Mbps up, which have become pretty typical results for the network in this part of the city.

Reception is merely average, but voice quality is quite strong, especially through the phone's earpiece. Volume gets extremely loud, and can sound harsh at top volume, but if you keep it set to a more listenable level voices sounds excellent?crisp, clear, and natural. Calls made with the phone sound rather rich and bass-y, though background noise cancellation isn't great. The speakerphone is loud enough to use outside, and calls sounded fine over a Jawbone Era?Bluetooth headset; I had no trouble using the headset to control voice dialing.

You get a big 2100mAh battery, which was good for a solid 13 hours and 39 minutes of talk time in my tests. It's also removable, so you can always bring a spare.

WP8 and Apps
There are still relatively few phones running Windows Phone 8 out on the market?this is only Verizon's third. Windows Phone 8 is a spare, fast OS, built around a series of live tiles on your home screen. These tiles continuously pull information from social networks, the Internet, messages, and local content stored on your phone, which is both useful and fun. In WP8, live tiles come in different sizes, which lends even more configurability.

Unlike Google's Android, Microsoft keeps pretty close tabs on the OS, so you're guaranteed a similar experience no matter which phone you use. For a closer look at WP8, you can read our full review.

Windows Phone is very fast in general, but the Samsung Ativ Odyssey is powered by a 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 MSM8960 processor, which is no slouch. It's the same processor you'll find in the higher-end Lumia 920 and HTC 8X, and the lower screen resolution here actually makes the Odyssey feel faster. Benchmarks scores are similar across the board, but you're definitely getting a lot of power for your money.

(Next page: Multimedia, Camera, and Conclusions)

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