The Verizon Wireless Salute is a basic slider phone for the feature-phobic. It's actually manufactured by ZTE, and is the Chinese company's first phone for Verizon. Like the LG Accolade ($9.99-$199.99, 3.5 stars) and the Samsung Gusto SCH-U360 ($0-$199.99, 3 stars), the ZTE Salute gives Verizon sales reps another option when someone walks up to the retail counter and asks for a phone that's "just a phone." There's nothing terribly wrong with the Salute, especially if you really want a slider. But there are several better choices on Verizon at virtually the same price.
Design and Call Quality
The Salute measures 4.0 by 2.0 by 0.6 inches (HWD) and weighs four ounces. To me, the silver plastic construction feels cheap, though the blue LED around the circular control pad adds a little extra bling. Five function keys offer Send, End, Clear, and two soft keys that change function depending on the menu display. The impressive 2.4-inch LCD is a good size for a low-end device, and sports 240-by-320-pixel resolution. That's better than the 176-by-220 or even 128-by-160-pixel displays you'll find on similarly inexpensive phones. The flat, slide-out numeric keypad features rectangular plastic keys. Dialing numbers was pretty simple, though the keypad felt chintzy. At least the keys didn't wiggle around in their perches, which I've seen on some low-cost handsets.
The ZTE Salute is a dual-band 1xRTT (850/1900 MHz) device with no 3G or Wi-Fi capability. Unlike the Samsung Haven SCH-U320 ($39.99-$169.99, 2.5 stars), the Salute has Bluetooth. This way you can use it with a hands-free speakerphone, a Bluetooth-compatible car stereo, or a headset while driving. In my tests, voice quality was very good, as befits a Verizon phone. Callers sounded clear, if a little hollow, through the earpiece, and they said my voice came through just fine. Reception was average, and there was no background hiss or buzz.
Calls also sounded clear through an Aliph Jawbone Icon ($99, 4 stars) Bluetooth headset. Voice dialing worked fine over Bluetooth without training. The speakerphone sounded okay. I've heard worse; using this one outdoors should be fine as long as it's not too loud outside. Battery life was quite good at 5 hours and 48 minutes of talk time.
Apps, Multimedia, and Conclusions
The Salute offers a choice of three modestly animated home screen wallpapers and menu themes. The main menu itself contains nine icons arranged in a grid. It's pretty easy to get around using the control pad. The Settings menu has plenty of separate pages with just one choice on each, which, to me, was a bit confusing. The Networks-in-Motion-powered VZ Navigator 4.5.3 offers voice-enabled, turn-by-turn GPS directions, local search, and event listings for $9.99 per month. You can search the Web with Bing, or dive into the Polaris 6.1 browser to bring up basic mobile WAP pages. I'd suggest avoiding Verizon's extra-cost pair of e-mail clients, as this isn't a QWERTY device.
The 1.3-megapixel camera lacks a flash or auto-focus capability. Test photos were a bit bright and overexposed, but they'll suffice for throwaway shots. There's no music player, no video player, and no camcorder. The non-standard size 2.5mm headphone jack is at least semi-common for mono wired ear buds, which is all the Salute supports anyway. The media section is mostly for stored pictures, ringtones, and games. Verizon gives you 25 ringtones to get started, and VZW Tones Deluxe offers an on-board portal that soaks up extra megabyte charges if you don't have a data plan. You'll need to cram everything into 36MB of free internal memory, since there's no microSD card slot or device sync capability. You can share photos online or send them in picture messages, but e-mailing them isn't an option.
All told, the Salute is just okay, and not particularly exciting. Alternate options: the Samsung Haven SCH-U320 ($39.99-$169.99, 2.5 stars) is a flip phone that's aimed squarely at older consumers, with its big keys, big fonts, and useful lifestyle and emergency call focus, but it drops the Bluetooth and camera, which, to us, borders on unacceptable. If anything, go with the LG Accolade, which feels well-built and offers solid voice quality and excellent battery life. Your best bet for a low-cost Verizon feature phone remains the Samsung Intensity 2 SCH-U460 ($0-$199, 3 stars), which also skirts Verizon's irksome data plan requirement, but adds a very usable QWERTY keyboard and better social media connections.
