My New Phone Review

[Dante]

Wanted to wait a week before posting anything on this phone. I think like any device of this kind you need to use it for a while to get a true feel of it. To work out any differences from a previous phone. First off, keep in mind that I'm upgrading from the very first Google/Android phone the G1 which seems absolutely ancient compared to this new one. I guess this is due, in part, to the G1 software capped at 1.6 and this has Eclair 2.1 So some of the things I'm thrilled about, may be standard fare on other devices.

Some general impressions. This thing is very, very fast. Absolutely no lag while scrolling with your finger on the screen. Starting apps is also very smooth and equally as fast. The 1ghz processor they are putting in new phones now really shows. Next, the most obvious thing is the 4" SuperAMOLED screen. I was considering leaving T-Mobile for the Droid X but to me the 4.3" screen on that phone made it just too large. I checked one out at Best Buy. The Galaxy seems to be the perfect size without being kind of cumbersome. But the best thing is the image. My phone came pre loaded with the complete version of "Avatar". Now imho it sucked ass as a movie but there is no arguing that it looked awesome. I really didn't think a portable device was capable of such a great HD picture. I thought for sure there would be some pixalation or blurring of some kind. No way. It simply blew me away the first time I started it up. Now I can't wait to get a decent flick on my phone. We have a digital copy of "Hot Tub Time Machine" we got with our blu ray copy I might see if I can load that on. Not sure if I can though. Anyway nuff said about the screen. This phone is also very lite. It has a 1/2" bigger screen than the Iphone4 and slightly larger overall size but it's 17grams lighter. Since I'm on the hardware I guess the next thing would be the camera. For me, I think its convenient to have a camera on my phone for the odd shot that comes up that I need in a hurry. If I know I'm going to be taking some pics ahead of time I just take my point and shoot Canon. 5megapixel camera seems to do the job for what I would use it for but for those who really use it there is no flash on this phone. However, the pics I have taken seem just fine.

The battery life is pretty much to be expected in a smart phone. I haven't found it a problem yet as I can plug it in at work if I have to. I actually thought it was going to be much worse than my G1 considering the extra hp and big screen but it doesn't seem that way. Even so, I'm going to get a extra battery to switch out on long trips/days.

Now for some software stuff. The notification bar at the top has always been a nice feature but I really like the few important functions they have added to it. There is a WiFi, Bluetooth,GPS, and Silent Mode toggle in addition to the usual email, text and voice mail notifications. Really handy.

Another thing which they have added is there are now SEVEN home screens instead of the kinda 1 1/2 on the g1. So with just a quick swipe you can go to another home screen with more app wigets. This just gives a bit quicker access to them. Speaking of swipe. They have a feature called Swype. When you are typing a message you can just slide your finger across the virtual keyboard over every key you need to type the word. Don't have to press every key. I was skeptical at first until I tried it. Hard to explain so

is a look at it. The more I use it the more I like it. I can go on and on because there are so many neat touches to this phone like Live Wallpaper. Just wallpaper with movement. For example the one I'm using now is a weather one. The sun has glowing, moving flames coming off of it. Sun moves across the screen during the course of the day. Will rain when it rains. So thats my half assed review. I would recommend this phone to anyone. AT@T, Sprint and Verizon all have slightly different flavors for the same phone.

 

Pros

 

 

-Great Screen

-Super Fast

-Nice size. Not a brick

-Android Software Maturing. Nice Touches

-Lots of apps available. Over 90,0000 now I read somewhere

-Still seamless integration with all Google apps. Heck, even my Picasa photos were shown in the Gallery

-2.2 Froyo update coming soon!

 

Cons

 

-Wake/Power button is on the top right now. On my G1 it is on the bottom where you can press it with your thumb with one hand. Now, being on the top right, kinda need two hands.

-Had trouble at first downloading phone book to Ford Sync. It also wasn't very accurate recognition. I reset the Ford Sync to factory and paired the phone again and re downloaded the phone book. All is fine now.

 

-DIRECTV app doesn't work right now!!

 

-Doesn't give me winning lotto numbers!

[Chilly]

LOL, I'm reading and typing this post from my samsung captivate, the att version of the galaxy s. I have to agreewith you, this phone is amazing. I love swype, its so easy to type on. I was skeptical on switching from my bold 2, with a physical keyboard. Swype sold me on it.

 

I love everything about.only thing I really wish it had was a camera flash, but I can love without it.

 

Can't wait to see how android 2.2 is. Supposed to be even faster than this.

 

Anyway big thumbs up from me. So glad I switched from my blackberry to this.

[GG]

No FM radio. Grrr!!

[BillsRUs]

No FM radio. Grrr!!

 

Nice!

 

I'm shopping for a Verizon phone......any idea how this phone compares to the HTC Incredible??

 

 

Thanks!

[boyst]

The new Verizon Droid, X I think, is amazing. My brother has one, he and his wife switched from blackberries which they have had for years. I will not give up my BB for a long time.

[Dante]

The new Verizon Droid, X I think, is amazing. My brother has one, he and his wife switched from blackberries which they have had for years. I will not give up my BB for a long time.

That phone looks great. It was just the size that scares me a little(geeze, where have I heard that before!) But maybe after using it for a while it wouldn't matter. I know a lot of places sold out of them. My brother uses BB's for a long time as well.

[rackemrack]

I probably sound lame to you guys, but I have an EnV3, and its the biggest piece of sh*t phone I've ever had, I've been through 3 of them in the past year and finally talked verizon into giving me a different phone, which is an Alias 2 under warranty. Hopefully its better, I'll never buy an LG phone again.

[GG]

I'm on the opposite end. I picked up the Samsung Captivate yesterday, and I have to say that I'm somewhat disappointed with the experience. My wife has an iPhone 3Gs and I use it to play around and have gotten very familiar with it. So while the 4s are out of stock, I decided to take the Captivate for a 30-day trial run.

 

I have to agree that the phone's form factor is great. The screen is not as overwhelming as the X or Evo, and just big enough to show a very crisp display. Much better that the iPhone 4. But I think that's about it on the comparison front. I think that the processor is supposed to be faster, but I didn't notice it, as many apps suffered from a lag. Especially on web based apps.

 

The biggest thing though is Apple's unyielding dedication to the user experience. Having the same company design the OS & the hardware matters a lot, and Android is still far off in delivering an OS & features that match the installed base of Apple apps. It's not just the apps, but how the phone behaves and how you move things back & forth between the wireless device & the desktop. Google is making the bet that eventually you'll be doing most of your ork on a handheld device. But those days are far off, and you still need to be tethered to the desktop for most of the stuff. At least I am. So, for managing music, photos, email, etc, Android is severely deficient. It's the basic things, like needing to plug the phone in 3 - 4 times for the PC to recognize it. And using Windows Media player to transfer files is a pain, while you need to have another app to manage podcasts, and another to manage videos.

 

If you weren't used to the iPhone or were coming from BB and don't need enterprise email, then the new Androids will work for you. I'm still going to give it a shot, but I don't think I'll keep it past next weekend.

[Chilly]

I've only noticed a slowdown once in a while - when I've got multiple tasks open doing stuff. Are you leaving apps open? A task killer app helps with that if you are running apps that don't allow you to fully quit them (most apps).

 

Android is a different mindset. It can do pretty much anything you want, but the functionality isn't all built by Google straight into the OS. I had no problems finding and using the free DoubleTwist software to manage syncing my media to my Captivate: http://www.doubletwist.com/dt/Home/Index.dt

 

It was literally as simple as install software on computer, plug my captivate in, hit Sync.

 

Personally, I much prefer this mindset, as it doesn't lock you into using one vendor's products. If I decided I wanted to use Salling Media Sync for Android instead, no problem! Easy to use that to Sync it up. Whereas software companies have problems getting media sync for iPhones to consistently work (Apple's added encryption to stop some of it, others require specific iPhone firmwares, etc).

 

For photos, as soon as I plugged my Captivate in, iPhoto popped up, recognized the device, and showed me all the pictures on it.

 

I have it hooked up via Activesync to Exchange, and contacts/calendar/email works fine. No complaints here on the enterprise email front, although I will enjoy GAL lookups in Android 2.2.

 

I've used the iPhone extensively for email, and I prefer the Captivate's interface for it. There's also some pretty cool free email apps like K9-Mail that support push IMAP and lots of cool features. K-9 Mail was written by some people at Google as part of their 20% and is free.

[CountDorkula]

HTC EVO 4G

 

I think this is the best phone on the market rigth now IMO.

[Dante]

HTC EVO 4G

 

I think this is the best phone on the market rigth now IMO.

It looks nice.

There are so many choices out there now which is great. I guess my only gripe right now is that I wish carriers did not sell phones. Or at least they sold all of them instead just their own that only work on their network. I wish we could buy any phone we would like and have it work on any network. To get a subsidized phone I get that we have to sign a two year deal, just let us have any phone we want. I'm not complaining in the least about the Vibrant I got. I'm a happy camper. It would have been nice to take a serious look at other ones like the Evo. As it is we have 3 phones on T-Mobile and I didn't want to have to break the contract to shop for other devices.

[GG]

I've only noticed a slowdown once in a while - when I've got multiple tasks open doing stuff. Are you leaving apps open? A task killer app helps with that if you are running apps that don't allow you to fully quit them (most apps).

 

Android is a different mindset. It can do pretty much anything you want, but the functionality isn't all built by Google straight into the OS. I had no problems finding and using the free DoubleTwist software to manage syncing my media to my Captivate: http://www.doubletwist.com/dt/Home/Index.dt

 

It was literally as simple as install software on computer, plug my captivate in, hit Sync.

 

Personally, I much prefer this mindset, as it doesn't lock you into using one vendor's products. If I decided I wanted to use Salling Media Sync for Android instead, no problem! Easy to use that to Sync it up. Whereas software companies have problems getting media sync for iPhones to consistently work (Apple's added encryption to stop some of it, others require specific iPhone firmwares, etc).

 

For photos, as soon as I plugged my Captivate in, iPhoto popped up, recognized the device, and showed me all the pictures on it.

 

I have it hooked up via Activesync to Exchange, and contacts/calendar/email works fine. No complaints here on the enterprise email front, although I will enjoy GAL lookups in Android 2.2.

 

I've used the iPhone extensively for email, and I prefer the Captivate's interface for it. There's also some pretty cool free email apps like K9-Mail that support push IMAP and lots of cool features. K-9 Mail was written by some people at Google as part of their 20% and is free.

 

Will give them a spin.

 

But got two more peeves - it randomly shuts down during the day (reboots after power button is pressed) and battery drains too fast. I had Pandora running for 3 hrs yesterday and the battery was dead.

[EC-Bills]

Will give them a spin.

 

But got two more peeves - it randomly shuts down during the day (reboots after power button is pressed) and battery drains too fast. I had Pandora running for 3 hrs yesterday and the battery was dead.

 

I got my Captivate on Saturday. I haven't had the shutdown/reboot issue you are experiencing so there may be something up with that unit.

 

I agree with the initial battery consumption. I think I have my battery life issue sorted out. Basically it will involve shutting down stuff you are not using. For instance, right now, I am not using Bluetooth or GPS so I have those items shut off. If I am not going to be doing anything online for a bit, I turn off both wi-fi and mobile data (I can still make/receive calls though). I also use Advanced Task Killer to whack apps.

 

Here's a link to one set of tips regarding battery life:

linky

Edited July 26, 2010 by EC-Bills

[mead107]

I need a new phone.

[Chilly]

Will give them a spin.

 

But got two more peeves - it randomly shuts down during the day (reboots after power button is pressed) and battery drains too fast. I had Pandora running for 3 hrs yesterday and the battery was dead.

 

I haven't had the random shutdowns either. I don't think mine's restarted since I got it.

 

I agree on the power consumption, it drains fast. It helped me tremendously to turn off bluetooth/wifi when I wasn't using it, but when I'm actively using the phone the battery does get killed.

[GG]

I haven't had the random shutdowns either. I don't think mine's restarted since I got it.

 

Looks like I'm not the only one experiencing this.

 

I agree on the power consumption, it drains fast. It helped me tremendously to turn off bluetooth/wifi when I wasn't using it, but when I'm actively using the phone the battery does get killed.

 

I can shut down bluetooth, but no can do in wifi when Pandora is streaming.

[Chilly]

That sucks on the shutdowns. I wonder if there are a number of defective units out there.

[Dante]

I haven't had the random shutdowns either. I don't think mine's restarted since I got it.

 

I agree on the power consumption, it drains fast. It helped me tremendously to turn off bluetooth/wifi when I wasn't using it, but when I'm actively using the phone the battery does get killed.

I also must agree on the battery life. I shut off Bluetooth and wifi now. Cut the screen brightness in half. Seems to help. As i did for my G1, I bought a extra battery and charger off ebay for $13! This helps for days where you can't get to your computer or wall charger.

Also, the battery indicator isn't accurate. Download another one off the market to get the true level

No shutdown problems here btw.

[GG]

I'm getting my bearings about this device, as there's definitely a learning curve. I'd probably also equate it to the old PC vs Apple battle. Apple is much better in the ease of use and integration of hardware & software & stability of the device. But looks like Android will have more apps out there and will be more customizable. I guess the early Android adopters are paying the price of breaking the OS in.

 

Another bonus for the Captivate is built in tethering from Samsung. I don't think that Apple does that.

 

If they activate the stupid FM radio chip that may seal the deal for me. That and a few spare batteries on eBay

[Chilly]

I like that comparison, I do think it fits well.