Dive into an Android Gingerbread smartphone with a budget price that's still packed with 4G speeds, a front-facing camera, and a trusty processor.
Jessica Dolcourt
Jessica is a passionate content strategist and team leader across the CNET family of brands. She leads a number of teams, including commerce, performance optimization and the copy desk. Her CNET career began in 2006, testing desktop and mobile software for Download.com and CNET, including the first iPhone and Android apps and operating systems. She continued to review, report on and write a wide range of commentary and analysis on all things phones, with an emphasis on the iPhone and Samsung devices. Jessica was one of the first people in the world to test, review and report on foldable phones and 5G wireless speeds.
Jessica began her leadership role managing CNET's How To section for tips and FAQs in 2019, guiding coverage of topics ranging from personal finance to phones to home. She holds an MA with Distinction from the University of Warwick in the UK.
What we have here, my friends, is a $30 Android smartphone that has surprisingly more goodies than you'd think for a budget Android Gingerbread smartphone. The Samsung Exhibit II 4G has 4G HSPA+ speeds with T-Mobile, and a front-facing camera, and it comes stuffed with a bunch of useful apps. You can also find it off-contract for $200 from Wal-Mart.
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Camera
There's a 3-megapixel camera on the back, plus a flash. Photo quality is right smack in the middle--not great by any means, but much better than from other phones we've seen. (Read the full Samsung Exhibit II 4G review.)
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Screen 'n' specs
Believe it or not, this phone is toting a pretty nice 3.7-inch WVGA screen with 800x480-pixel resolution.) It's steered by a 1GHz processor and has a 32GB microSD card slot. (Read the full Samsung Exhibit II 4G review.)
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Family tree
The Exhibit II 4G doesn't look much like the original Exhibit. It's got a different shape, different color, and different material, to mention three reasons. (Read the full Samsung Exhibit II 4G review.)
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Nubbles
Here's a close-up on the nubbly texture you can see on the back cover; it helps with grip. (Read the full Samsung Exhibit II 4G review.)
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Photo time!
In the next series of photos, the Exhibit II 4G produced the images on the left with its 3-megapixel camera, while Verizon's Samsung Stratosphere 5-megapixel camera snapped the ones on the right. Colors in general are richer with the Stratosphere, and edges are sharper, though the Exhibit II doesn't lag exceptionally far behind. Photos were resized and cropped, but otherwise untouched. (Read the full Samsung Exhibit II 4G review.)
