Our friends over at Verizon Wireless have sent us the Pantech Perception for us to review. This is a mid range device for the carrier and is no free on the carrier, it original started at $99.99 with contract. It has some nice feature from a very sleek design to a fast 4G LTE connection. Will this be your next device, we will answer that in our full review!
Design
The Verizon exclusive Pantech Perception has very sleek and modern design, while it is not the beautiful HTC One, it makes the plastic look good. The bezel is sort of square, but has some nice cut corners. It is quite thin at only 0.35-inch and it can easily fit in any pocket. It won’t weigh your hand down either, coming in at 4.83-ounces. It has a sleek silver color and on the back it has a slate design. While the front of the phone remains mostly black, the back color provides some what of a pop of color.
Above the display on the Perception you will find the earpiece, Verizon logo, and a 2 megapixel front facing camera. Below the display you will find a silver Pantech logo and no buttons. Like on the Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 4, or Nexus 5 the buttons are built-in to the operating system. Your volume rocker lives on the left hand side and the power/sleep button is on the right. The top of the phone is home to the headphone jack and the micro USB port. Having the charging port on the top of the phone is not a normal design placement, I would have much rather had it on the bottom of the device. The 8 megapixel back camera with LED flash, speaker, Verizon logo, 4G LTE logo, and Pantech logo are on the back. Under the back cover you will find the SIM card slot, 2020mAh battery, and micro SD card slot.
Software And Processor
The Pantech Perception is running Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich with a custom user interface. Pantech has said an update to Jelly Bean is coming, but no time frame has been announced yet. The software experience on the perception is heavily changed from the regular variant of Ice Cream Sandwich. It is powered by a 1.5GHz dual core processor with 1GB of RAM and it performs well. For storage you have 16GB internally and a micro SD card slot is built-in.
One of the changes is the lock screen, it has a unique back drop which show cases some different photos. You can unlock the phone into the home screen, or have it open up into phone, messaging, camera, and music applications. The sound can be turned on and off directly from the home screen as well. In the notification bar, you can simply turn on or turn off applications like Data, GPS, Motion Recognition, and more. Similar to Q Slide multitasking on LG, you get a mini application. Out of the box you can have a mini music player.
You have the choice of two different modes on the Perception, those being Starter and Standard. Starter mode turns the Pantech Perception into a first time device. It simplifies it down to just four home screens and can ease you into the Android ecosystem. On one of the home screens you have the phone dialer, then your applications, a weather widget, and easy access to the web. The standard version gives you access to full Android under Pantech’s custom user interface. Like the Galaxy S 4 the Perception has a few motion technologies built-in. It is built-in to a few applications, for instance when viewing photos you can swipe with your hand above the screen to go from photo to photo.
In terms of pre-loaded applications you will find Alarm/Clock, Amazon, Amazon Kindle, Amazon MP3, Apps, Audible, Browser, calculator, Calendar, camera, Camnote, Color, Document Viewer, Downloads, Email, Gallery, Gmail, Google App Suite, Google +, IMDb, Mobile hotspot, Music, My Verizon Mobile, NET Media, NFL Mobile, Google Play suite, Play Store, Real Racing 2, Shark dash, Slacker Radio, Smart Voice, Task Manager, Verizon Tones, Viewdini, Voicemail, VZ Navigator, Weather, YouTube, and Zappos.
Hardware
The Pantech Perception is running on a 4G LTE network. Verizon’s network will give you some crazy fast data speeds, this means super fast web browsing, video streaming, music streaming, and basically anything that uses the network. As expected it requires the SIM card for the data connection to the 4G LTE network and it is a CDMA device. For even more connectivity you get WiFi, Bluetooth, Near Field Communications, and more.
A bright 4.8-inch HD Super AMOLED display is on board, it features a resolution of 1280 X 720. It is a very vibrant display and images look life-like. With only 306-pixel per inch it is not the clearest when you zoom in or are reading a book for a long period of time. But for the average user they will be happy with the display.
A 8 megapixel camera is on the back with an LED flash on board as well. It performs pretty well and the shutter speed is quite well. When shooting outside with heavy sunlight, images can appeared washed out and a little less vibrant. You get a good amount of shooting modes like HDR, Normal, Exposure, Timer, White Balance, Instant Film, Division, and many others. It can capture video at 25 frames per second and up to 1080pHD. On the front you have a 2 megapixel camera which performs well for video calling or taking selfies.
Bottom Line
The Pantech Perception on Verizon exclusively is a great first time smartphone. Now that it only costs free on contract, it becomes a great first time smartphone. With a fast processor inside, it can be compared to a Galaxy S III. A bright 4.8-inch display is on board, plus you get two different modes of use. The starter mode will let you get eased into Android. 16GB of internal storage plus a micro SD card, means that worrying about storage will be a thing of the past. For those who like to take photos, an average shooter is on the back. If you are looking for an average first time smartphone, be sure to look at the Pantech Perception! For More Information On The Verizon Pantech Perception, Please Click Here. We would like to thank Verizon for providing us with a copy of the “Verizon Wireless Pantech Perception”.
