After using this phone for a week, I've fallen in love with it.
- Interface is very snappy.
- The screen is incredible. Very bright and the colours are outstanding, and just the perfect size.
- The AllShare app for playing content from a UPnP server is nice. At home, I can store my entire collection of music and videos and play whichever I want.
That said, there are a few issues I encountered:
- Interface, despite its speed, occasionally freezes. I was worried when this occurred an hour after I started using it, but it's only happened a few times since then. Usually lasts no more than 10 seconds.
- No flash for the camera. I'm given to understand that an LED flash is common on smartphone cameras these days, so low-light photos aren't as good as they can be.
- Camera again: no dedicated button, so taking pictures is a bit awkward. Definitely turn on the anti-shake feature.
- AllShare is a little finicky sometimes about detecting media servers. Moreover, the player is a little deficient next to the normal Android video player (it stretches videos to conform to the screen's aspect ratio, and I haven't discovered a way to return the video to its native aspect ratio).
- Battery runs out fairly quickly if your browsing the internet or watching videos all day. Haven't had a chance to test it on pure standby yet, but you aren't likely to go a whole day if you're using the "smart" part of the smartphone.
Even though I listed more issues than positives, the phone is very good and I would recommend it to anyone. All the other aspects of the phone are common to other Android sets and should be well known to Android lovers. The Samsung additions to the UI such as Daily Briefing (weather, stocks and news in a widget) and the seven homescreens are nice touches, but not particularly a deal breaker, and I haven't tried any of the other Samsung apps.
An additional note: this phone is really, really light and thin. While some other reviews have thought it too "plasticy", I absolutely love the build. I can use it all day.
The input method, Swype is also on by default, but you can get this on other Android phones. Very nice, though, and a nice thought from Samsung. Check out some videos on Youtube of it, but I also have to say that it's hard to say how nice this function is without using it yourself.
Some other details: this version is the 8GB internal memory model. For Americans and countries using similar power sockets, since this is the international version the charger it comes with is the Europlug style. You'll need to get either a converter or your own plug with a micro-USB connector. Samsung I9000 Galaxy S Unlocked GSM Smart Phone with 5 MP Camera, Android OS, Touchscreen, Wi-Fi, GPS and MicroSD Slot - Unlocked Phone - No Warranty - Black
I've had my Galaxy S (or "Captivate") phone for a month now, and the whole time I've been bursting at the seams to review it...but first I had to take a little bit of time to separate what's great about the Captivate that's specific to the phone, versus what's great about a Droid-based smart phone in particular.
First off, the Android OS is really very enjoyable. The top-level screen can have 5 pages of whatever you like and the Applications page neatly organizes installed apps separately, to page through them as well. If you're not familiar with this concept, think of the top-level screen as being similar to the Windows or Mac Desktop and the Applications area as being similar to the Start Menu/Launch Bar of your favorite computer OS.
The best thing about the Captivate is the hardware: the screen really takes up almost all of the phone's face, and it's vivid, colorful, and bright. The battery cover is a slick one-two slide that makes it easy to access without being the first thing to fall off if you drop the phone. The 1GHz processor inside the phone makes apps speedy, and I even find it to be fairly nimble about data use, easily grabbing onto my favorite Wi-Fi networks when I'm in range, then switching seamlessly over to my data network when I'm not.
Then we have the good things about the Captivate: calls are clear, I've had strong and clean reception even when I notice a drop in bars, and on those rare occasions I step into a dead zone, it seems to try its very best to hang on to the call...I can't explain it in technical detail, it's just the gut impression I get when I've driven or walked through areas that typically give me trouble on any phone and against all odds I stay connected (my office, for instance, is up against a cliff wall that closes further in near the top of the building). One complaint about this phone (and many smart phones) has been battery drain, but I find it manageable: if I choose to use the Power Toolbar (built-in and easy to add) and Advanced Task Killer app (a separate download, and a must for any smart phone owner), I can go 2 or 3 days on a single charge. Usually it's easier to top it off at the end of the day or leave it plugged in when I'm not going to be using it for a while. While the Captivate seems very wide, it is also very slim and thus surprisingly light. I added the carbon-fiber hard case to the outside and it still weighs noticeably less than an iPhone 4.
Using the Captivate is fairly simple: the connector port for the charger or a data cable are one and the same: a "micro" USB connector with a tiny sliding door to keep dirt out. I much prefer this to the plastic peel-away tab that usually comes off in your hand if you're not careful. The charger that comes with the phone also pops apart into a data cable, allowing you to detach the AC outlet prongs and connect to the computer. And last, the navigation buttons are just four touch-sensitive spots along the base of the screen, with a slide rocker on the left side of the phone (for volume) and an unlock button on the right. I've heard people say it's hard to pinch a button on one side without accidentally hitting the other (such as turning down the volume when you go to unlock the phone), but I haven't had this problem.
More on the OS: using Android 2.1 (soon to be FROYO), I find myself discovering neat little features that I enjoy. For example, some of the wallpapers are interactive with the touch screen. When I'm playing music, if I need to pause, I don't have to unlock the phone: a tiny CD logo appears in the top with controls for pause/next/back. The "Swype" feature of the OS is extremely responsive. I didn't have to adjust any of this - the sensitivity really seems balanced between "must mash to get a response" and "breathed on it and accidentally deleted something". Unlocking the phone requires a tap of the button and a swipe along the touch screen. Even the tilt--a feature that began to annoy me in my Nokia phone--seems to both be quick to respond and easy to correct if you didn't mean to rotate the screen.
Much as I enjoy this phone, all is not perfect. The buttons sometimes don't respond properly. There are times I have to tap twice, and there are times I try to hit 'back' and accidentally hit 'search' instead. I'm not sure how much of that is in the programming, the hardware, or my thick thumbs. The Search window is extremely handy, but it doesn't always frame the search properly. For example, I might be in an app that has a long list of items on the screen, and search will zoom down the list straight to the item I'm looking for...and then in another app the search might launch a web browser and search the Internet for what I typed in. I haven't really learned a good way to scroll down a long screen: often I have to just flick downwards again and again until I get where I'm going. And probably the most annoying feature is the actual call interface. I haven't taken that final step to voice-activate my favorite call list, so when I manually drill into my contacts or favorites to find someone to call, it seems to require more steps than it should to place a call: find the contact, tap their picture, tap the "phone" icon, if they have two numbers associated with them you have to specify which, and then you get to tap "call".
There have been some complaints about the fact that the camera lacks a flash. It is a shame that this feature is missing, but apart from that I have to say that the pictures I have taken with the phone have been excellent, better than the first digital camera I purchased years ago and definitely better than the last phone I had, which did have a flash. The interface for the phone is dirt-simple, and can even lock in standby mode, in case you want to tuck it away for a bit but be ready to shoot with a tap of the unlock button. The Gallery app in the Android OS does a snappy job of both organizing my groups of pictures and in making it easy to flip through: clean thumbnails tell me at a glance which collection of pictures I'm looking at so I can select the group I want to view.
If you're in the market for a smart phone and you'd like to try the Droid OS, I can't say enough about the Captivate. It's got a brilliant screen, speedy hardware, and runs the OS quite smoothly. Despite its flaws, this is quite an excellent smart phone, whose benefits far outweigh its drawbacks.
USEFUL TIP: when connecting to a computer, it's not immediately obvious how to make it work, and a lot of people are having problems. When you connect the cable, the "Smart Phone (Kies)" option doesn't appear to work. Instead, you have to choose "USB (mass storage)"...which then still doesn't make the phone's files and folders show up in Windows--in Windows 7 it will just tell you a Samsung Captivate has been connected to the computer, but you can't "see" it. You have to take one extra step: from the main screen, access the pull-down menu. You will see "USB Connected" in the list of notifications. Tap that, and you'll get a prompt to "Mount" the phone. The moment you do this, everything works: the phone maps two drives (one for the phone's memory, one for your memory card) and you can access files and folders just as you do on a USB "thumb" drive. - Galaxy S - Galaxy - Smartphone - Samsung'
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