Hardware

Inside the box you'll find the Focus 2, a USB cable with a cube-shaped wall adapter, an in-ear headset and a pair of information pamphlets. Anyone familiar with T-Mobile's Galaxy Blaze 4G might feel a sense of déjà vu as they glance at the Focus 2 for the first time. The devices are similar in design, but the Focus 2 falls victim to our all-too-common complaint with Sammy-bred phones: it feels just a bit too plasticky. Samsung traded the Blaze's brushed-metal accents and textured battery cover in favor of a literally slick "Gloss Pure White" finish. The overall design ethos remains intact, though, so the device at least feels pleasing in hand. You'll find a 4-inch (WVGA) Super AMOLED display up front with Windows Phone's standard trio of backlit capacitive buttons above the bottom edge. Colors on the screen appear vibrant with gobs of contrast, the black levels are very deep and you'll get fairly good viewing angles. Tilt the device about 150 degrees, however, and you'll start noticing some color shifting.

Having the non-Plus variety of Super AMOLED means you're getting PenTile, and it's beyond easily noticeable.

Here's the thing: having the non-Plus variety of Super AMOLED means you're getting PenTile, and it's easily noticeable. Once you've seen a display like those belonging to the Focus Flash or even the 4.3-inch Lumia 900, it makes the 800 x 480 resolution look worse than it really is. It's especially obvious on curved borders and text, making what should be a smooth white look like grid paper. We found that it irritated our eyes and was harder to focus on than comparable displays without it. The interesting takeaway is that the Focus 2 has a slightly higher ppi than the Lumia 900 (233 pixels per inch vs. 217). It would be wise to grab a look at this phone in person to see if you can live with it.

With that detailed, it's time to move a bit below the display. The capacitive buttons are ultra-responsive like the ones we experienced on the older Focus models, and the device's vibration motor left us with unquestionably better haptic feedback than the Lumia 900. That said, that level of responsiveness becomes a pain in Landscape mode, where we repeatedly found ourselves accidentally exiting out of Netflix into Bing just like with those other Focuses. Another quirk that'll surely annoy some folks is how much the buttons light up -- they're jarring indoors, being brighter than the display on its highest setting. By the way, don't count on the vibration motor to be subtle during a quiet meeting; we noticed it makes a boop pitch that'll easily be amplified if set down on a table.

The back of the Focus 2 lays claim to a 5-megapixel sensor, LED flash and speakerphone. Peeling off the thin, snap-on battery cover reveals a micro-SIM slot and a 1,750mAh battery to keep the handset juiced. A chunky stripe of chrome plastic wraps around the edges of device breaking up its milky white complexion. On the right, it houses a power button and a two-stage shutter release, along with a volume rocker on the left. All of the buttons have a pleasing click without being too stiff, but they do feel just a little wobbly like we noted on the Lumia 800. The shutter button feels especially great, however, only requiring a light tap to grab a photo without inducing any shake. That leaves us with the top of the device, where there's a 3.5mm headset jack and secondary noise-cancelling microphone, and the bottom which houses the main microphone and micro-USB port.

If you caught our initial hands-on, one point that still resonates with us is how small it feels in hand. Despite having a 4-inch screen, it doesn't seem much bigger than the Galaxy S or even an iPhone 3GS. It's only if you put these devices back-to-back when it becomes apparent the Focus 2 is larger. We've got a nifty chart that goes over the key specs of the Focus 2 below, compared to the Titan II and Lumia 900 for perspective.

HTC Titan II Samsung Focus 2 Nokia Lumia 900 Dimensions 5.2 x 2.7 x 0.4 inches (132 x 69 x 10.2mm) 4.79 x 2.47 x 0.43 inches (121.7 x 62.7 x 10.9 mm) 5.03 x 2.7 x 0.45 inches (127.8 x 68.5 x 11.5mm) Weight 6.1 oz (173g) 4.3 oz (122g) 5.64 oz (160g) Screen size 4.7 inches 4 inches 4.3 inches Screen resolution 800 x 480 (199ppi) 800 x 480 (233ppi) 800 x 480 (217ppi) Screen type S-LCD Super AMOLED (PenTile) ClearBlack sAMOLED+ Battery 1,730mAh 1,750mAh 1,830mAh CPU 1.5GHz single-core Qualcomm MSM8255T (Snapdragon S2) 1.4GHz single-core Qualcomm (Snapdragon S2) 1.4GHz single-core Qualcomm APQ8055 (Snapdragon S2) GPU Adreno 205 Adreno 205 Adreno 205 RAM 512MB 512MB 512MB Internal storage 16GB 8GB 16GB External storage None None None Rear camera 16MP, f/2.6 5 MP 8MP, f/2.2 Front-facing camera 1.3MP VGA 1.0MP Video capture 720p HD 720p HD (30fps) 720p HD NFC No No No Radios Quadband GSM / EDGE; HSPA+ 850 / 1900 / 2100; LTE 700 / 1700 Quadband GSM / EDGE; HSPA+ 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100; LTE 700 / 1700 Quadband GSM / EDGE / ; HSPA+ 850 / 1900 / 2100; LTE 700 / 1700 Network speeds LTE, HSPA+ LTE, HSPA+ LTE, HSPA+ 21.1Mbps Bluetooth 2.1+EDR 2.1+EDR 2.1+EDR MHL No -- Yes Internet Sharing Yes Yes Yes FM Radio Yes Yes Yes SIM card Standard Micro Micro

Performance and battery life

It's getting tiresome to note that a new Windows Phone performs about the same as the others on the software front, but that's exactly the case here. Given the hardware restrictions that will remain in place until Windows Phone 8 hits, you're left with a 1.4GHz single-core CPU, an Adreno 205 GPU and 512MB of RAM to run your phone. As such, there are no surprises here, with the device averaging a WP Bench score of 87.2 after ten runs -- predictably not far behind every other Windows Phone we've used.

Performance is usually smooth, but it's not ultra-zippy like the latest iPhone and top tier of Android flagships. It's not likely to be an issue as long as you're not an extreme power user -- heck, at least three Engadget editors manage to use Mango devices as their daily drivers, so we really mean it when we say "extreme." Apps generally load fairly quickly, but we occasionally experienced load-screen hangups while trying to access basics like Messages and Twitter. Aside from that and some mild stuttering when swiping around, we'd be hard-pressed to say any of the Windows Phone flagships perform materially better. The main concern we have with the Focus 2 rests with its 8GB (6.51GB user-accessible) of non-expandable storage. Despite having powerful connectivity, it leaves us to think that Samsung is forcibly positioning an otherwise solid device into the newbie smartphone owner territory -- that, or it's hoping you love SkyDrive.

Of course, running over HSPA+ and LTE can do a number on your battery life, so how does it fare here?

Samsung Focus 2 Samsung Focus S Nokia Lumia 900 HTC Titan II WP Bench 87.2 91.54 92 94.5 Battery rundown 4:47 4:24 4:29 2:50 SunSpider (ms, lower numbers are better) 7,058 6,914 6,902 6,445

Using a Lumia 900 alongside the Focus 2, we really didn't find much of a difference between their running times. As long as you're not tethering over LTE and HSPA+ for about three hours a day like we do, you'll easily be able to eke out more than a day's worth of life -- so long as Mango's battery saver is turned on. Even adding in a light amount of Netflix streaming, a handful of calls, texting, a few camera shots and light browsing, we could probably make it through a normal workday without an outlet. That said, the Focus 2 managed to last 18 minutes longer than the Lumia 900's four hours and 29 minutes in WP Bench's CPU-intensive battery rundown. It's not a whopping achievement by any means, but if battery life is your main concern for a Windows Phone then look no further.

If battery life is your main concern for a Windows Phone then look no further.

Speaking of radio signals, let's talk about speeds. Using BandWidth, we were able to record LTE throughput as high as about 10Mbps down (with peaks up to 13) and 5Mbps up in San Francisco. Tethering to a laptop in Midtown Manhattan, the best we managed was around 5 Mbps down and 4 Mbps up according to SpeedTest.net. Considering we've seen upwards of 21 Mbps down on the Lumia 900 and Titan II, we're disappointed that, in our LTE trials, the phone couldn't make it out of the speed zone that's common for HSPA+. Web browsing in IE9 is usually just peppy enough, but as our most accurate SunSpider score shows (7,058ms +/- 0.3 percent), it's a bit slower than the rest of the pack. We experienced load times in excess of a minute to fully load pages over WiFi with the Lumia 900, and the results aren't any better here. You won't catch any checkerboarding, but scroll down a long webpage and you'll be greeted by a sea of white for a second or two.

Lackluster speeds aside, we came away quite impressed with the audio quality on the Focus 2. Compared to the Lumia 900, the device has much less hiss in the signal and a bit less grit to overall sound, with headphones plugged in. Although WP7.5 still can't seamlessly transition between two tracks without a quick pause, we didn't experience any popping like we do with the 900. Unluckily enough for Nokia's flagship, it doesn't stop there -- the Focus 2's earpiece produced clearer audio, without the slightest hints of metallic tones like the Lumia produces. Even the speakerphone sounds clearer, making the 900's sound a bit muddier and condensed in comparison (it's sound is noticeably thicker, however). Interestingly enough, the Focus 2 also has a hotter volume output (at least in the lower volume settings) through its headphone jack, needing only to hit 3 or 4 out of 30 when the Lumia needed to be near 15 to achieve the same output. With both devices, though, callers on the other end didn't have any complaints about hearing us. The Lumia 900 is certainly a good performer in the voice quality department, but there's no question that Samsung's lower-tiered device comes out a step ahead. And in case you're wondering, the included in-ear headphones are essentially (save for the inline remote and mic) what you'd get with a Galaxy Player: passable at best.

Camera

Let's start this section by stating that, no, this 5-megapixel shooter won't rival your Canon S95s. It does have some redeeming qualities, however, especially when pit it against the Lumia 900. Once you get into the Focus 2's live screen, the 900's look awful by comparison -- the framerate is smoother while panning, and the dreaded pink center that other WP7.5 devices suffer from is at least less obvious. The Lumia 900 does produce sharper images with more information and a wider angle thanks to its 8-megapixel sensor and 28mm lens, but the Focus 2 never slipped up with auto white balance like the 900 does on nearly every shot.