Samsung Ativ Odyssey (Verizon Wireless) Reviews


Windows Buzz 8 hasn't absolutely adapted the smartphone space, and the Samsung Ativ Odyssey for Verizon Wireless apparently will not change that. The $49.99 Ativ Odyssey is Samsung's aboriginal U.S. smartphone to run Windows 8, so it's hasty that it's a generic, bourgeois handset. It's baby and comfy, and Windows Buzz 8 is as glossy and accelerated as ever, but the Ativ Odyssey doesn't accompany annihilation new to the table. It's a appropriate phone, it just isn't exciting.

Design and Call Quality

One of my admired ancestry about the accepted crop of Windows Phones is their fun, antic design. The Nokia Lumia 920, for instance, comes clad in a amount of altered attractive polycarbonate colors. Ditto the HTC Windows Buzz 8X, which aswell stands out acknowledgment to its "pyramid" design. Even the bargain Nokia Lumia 822 creates some beheld absorption with its white, angled form. The Samsung Ativ Odyssey, on the added hand, can canyon for any amount of faceless, nameless smartphones out there.


The buzz is fabricated from the aforementioned shiny, cheap-feeling artificial you'll acquisition on a lot of Samsung smartphones, with the aforementioned faux-textured aback console as the Samsung Galaxy S III. On the ablaze side, the buzz is almost baby and adequate to hold, abnormally if 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 Ability button on the appropriate ancillary of the phone, a 3.5mm headphone jack on top, and a aggregate rocker and microSD agenda aperture on the left.

The Ativ Odyssey has a 4-inch Super AMOLED affectation with 800-by-480-pixel resolution. That makes it attending a little tighter than the Lumia 822, which has the aforementioned resolution advance out over 4.3 inches, but it still fails to impress. While Super AMOLED makes for actual rich, active colors, the PenTile pixel adjustment lends a fuzzy, pixelated attending to everything, abnormally brighter colors. There are three backlit blow buttons beneath the display, and accounting onscreen feels fine, admitting the almost baby awning size.


The Odyssey is a apple buzz 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 able-bodied as 4G LTE and 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi on the 2.4 and faster 5GHz bands. 4G LTE abstracts speeds were accomplished in Manhattan, admitting unimpressive. The Buzz averaged 3.1Mbps down and 2.5Mbps up, which accept become appealing archetypal after-effects for the arrangement in this allotment of the city.

Reception is alone average, but articulation superior is absolutely strong, abnormally through the phone's earpiece. Aggregate gets acutely loud, and can complete acrid at top volume, but if you accumulate it set to a added listenable akin choir sounds excellent—crisp, clear, and natural. Calls fabricated with the buzz complete rather affluent and bass-y, admitting accomplishments babble abandoning isn't great. The speakerphone is loud abundant to use outside, and calls articulate accomplished over a Jawbone Era Bluetooth headset; I had no agitation application the angle to ascendancy articulation dialing.

You get a big 2100mAh battery, which was acceptable for a solid 13 hours and 39 account of allocution time in my tests. It's aswell removable, so you can consistently accompany a spare.

WP8 and Apps

There are still almost few phones active Windows Buzz 8 out on the market—this is alone Verizon's third. Windows Buzz 8 is a spare, fast OS, congenital about a alternation of reside tiles on your home screen. These tiles continuously cull advice from amusing networks, the Internet, messages, and bounded agreeable stored on your phone, which is both advantageous and fun. In WP8, reside tiles appear in altered sizes, which lends even added configurability.


Unlike Google's Android, Microsoft keeps appealing abutting tabs on the OS, so you're affirmed a agnate acquaintance no amount which buzz you use. For a afterpiece attending at WP8, you can apprehend our abounding review.

Windows Buzz is actual 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 aforementioned processor you'll acquisition in the higher-end Lumia 920 and HTC 8X, and the lower awning resolution actuality in fact makes the Odyssey feel faster. Benchmarks array are agnate beyond the board, but you're absolutely accepting a lot of ability for your money.

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