Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.
Battery
The Samsung Exhibit II 4G is rated for 5.5 hours of talk time, an estimate we found to be accurate with the phone at default settings. The OS features a Settings tab for Power saving mode, which allows you to tweak battery-draining options such as WiFi, Bluetooth, Email checking and GPS monitoring all in one place.
Keeping these settings to their defaults makes for optimal battery life, but most users will want to adjust them, most especially screen brightness. As we mentioned before, the Exhibit II's screen becomes quite washed out in sunlight, and bumping up the brightness is the only compensation. This puts significant strain on the battery, as does heavy 4G use, media streaming or playing games.
The Samsung Exhibit II 4G (T-Mobile) made it through days of light to moderate use with 40% of its battery remaining. We made multiple calls, sent text messages, checked email and Facebook and did a little web browsing. Using WiFi rather than 4G also helped extend battery life.
On a day of heavy use, doing all of the above as well as playing games and streaming Netflix over T-Mobile's 4G network, the phone needed to be charged by early evening. If you're going to be out and about and entertaining yourself with your smartphone, the Exhibit II will not make it through the day on one charge. Luckily, the phone's battery is easily removed, so carrying a spare is an option.
Connectivity
The Exhibit II's mini-USB port allows you to connect to a PC or Mac for fast and simple file transfers. It can also be synced over Wi-Fi with the onboard Kies Air app.
If you purchase an SD card (the Exhibit supports up to 32GB) the phone can be used as a mass storage device. It will function like an external hard drive, with simple drag and drop file transferring.
