Samsung's Droid Charge will go on sale, two weeks after Verizon Wireless delayed it following its 4G LTE network outage. The solid Android smartphone costs $299.99 with deal.
Verizon Wireless said it will sell the Samsung Droid Charge
Android 4G smartphone online from its
Website at midnight EDT on May 14 and in all its retail stores later that morning.
Samsung and Verizon
unveiled the Android 2.2 Droid Charge late April 20, promising to begin selling
the 1GHz device for $299.99 with a two-year contract April 28.
On April 27, Verizon
suffered an outage to its 4G Long Term Evolution network and said it would
delay the pricey-but-speedy smartphone until further notice.
Verizon declined to link the outage to the Charge's
delay, though most agree Verizon did not want to launch a brand new 4G device
with a broken network.
Droid Charge offers a 4.3-inch touch screen with Super
AMOLED Plus technology. Like the Verizon HTC ThunderBolt, the Droid Charge supports Adobe Flash and features an 8
megapixel rear camera, with LED flash and a 1.3 megapixel camera in the front
for video chat.
eWEEK
tested the Droid Charge in Connecticut. Aside from the muscular, mirror gray physique, customers
can expect download speeds of 5-12M bps and upload speeds of 2-5M bps across
the carrier's 45 4G LTE coverage areas.
The handset,
pictured
here, loaded applications such as YouTube and games such as Angry
Birds quickly, and downloaded apps from the Android Market within single digit
seconds.
The Droid Charge also leverages Verizon's mobile hotspot
capability, connecting up to 10 WiFi-enabled devices over 4G and five devices
via 3G.
This is available for free for a limited time, a
departure from Verizon's typical $20 per month fee for up to 1GB for the mobile
broadband tethering service.
Those who buy the Charge must subscribe to a Verizon Wireless
Nationwide Talk plan and a 4G LTE data package. Nationwide Talk plans
begin at $39.99 per month, while the Unlimited 4G LTE data packages start
at $29.99 per month.
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