Verizon has a rather large booth at CES this year, and to our surprise Windows Phone is prominently displayed. In addition to the HTC and Nokia phones that they have had for a couple of months they are showing the new Samsung Ativ Odyssey. We talked about the initial announcement on Entertainment 2.0, but today we were able to get a few minutes of hands-on time with the new device.
Just by looking at the specs you would definitely call this a low-end phone. It has a 4″ 800×480 display and only 8 GB of on-board storage. However, it doesn’t perform like an entry-level phone. It does sport a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor, so maybe that shouldn’t be surprising. The phone just doesn’t feel all that great. In typical Samsung fashion the phone is all plastic, and it feels that way. It is very light though, and the size and weight combination feel good in the hand. It really reminds me of the original Samsung Focus, and that is a good thing.
I would expect this to be a very low-cost option for Verizon customers, and honestly I would be willing to bet that it won’t be long before it is offered for free. That maybe the best benefit, because as an entry-level smartphone it really doesn’t get much better than the Samsung Ativ Odyssey.
