Samsung Array review

The Samsung Array includes a mere 40MB of internal storage, but by adding up to 32GB with a micro-SD card, the handset is capable of playing MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA, WAV, AMR or MIDI format audio files through a dedicated Music Player – or so it promises.

We loaded up several AAC+ songs purchased from iTunes and launched Music Player, only to be flatly denied with the warning: "No music files found on card." We had better luck with MP3 tracks from Amazon, but even those threw up a random error the first time we played them.

For those who intending to use the Array as a down and dirty music player, the software offers the option to play tunes in the background while you're doing other things on the phone. It's cumbersome, but does work as expected.

Oddly, the Samsung Array come equipped with GPS, which can be turned on via the Settings > Location option. According to Sprint, turning this feature on will make some applications and services "easier to use," but we didn't see much difference either way – especially without a navigation app to test it on.

That brings us to the so-called "applications." Two games – Bubble Bash 2 and Tetris – come preinstalled inside the My Stuff icon, along with a variety of built-in ringtones and wallpaper.

Browsing to the "All" category of Sprint's application store offered up a pretty anemic collection of web apps including Jeego Ecards and dating services such as Webdate Mobile and Lavalife2Go (the latter of which tossed up a "404 Not Found" error when we tried to open it).

This kind of stuff is hardly worth bothering with, so just trust us when we say you won't buy the Samsung Array for its multimedia capabilities, which are scarce at best.