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Samsung Galaxy S Offers Sharp Screen, Half-Baked Features
by Nicholas Kolakowski
AT&T’s Samsung Captivate (left) and T-Mobile’s Samsung Vibrant (right) are two of the four phones based on the Samsung Galaxy S model.
All versions of the Samsung Galaxy S come loaded with Android 2.1, although an Android 2.2 update is promised before the end of the year. Android 2.1 feels decidedly more polished than earlier versions of the operating system.
While the Samsung Galaxy S offers a sleek overall design, both the Samsung Captivate and the Samsung Vibrant feel lightweight and a bit cheap, with the physical buttons and ports seeming to fit uncomfortably in the frame.
Android 2.1 offers "Live Wallpapers" that create a continually moving background. For those who love their visual bells-and-whistles, it’s a decided improvement over the static wallpapers of Apple’s iOS 4.
The smartphone’s 4-inch Super AMOLED screen offers sharp, bright images—even in direct sunlight—thanks to the 50,000:1 contrast ratio.
The Android Market now includes thousands of apps and games, although some of them are decidedly unpolished.
The built-in GPS claims it can pinpoint the user’s location on Google Maps to within 40 yards. This seems a pretty accurate claim, although the smartphone is (obviously) much better at pinpointing locations in open areas such as Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, as opposed to built-up neighborhoods.
The Samsung Media Hub wasn’t available for review, but Samsung claims it will offer an extensive library of entertainment content once launched sometime this fall.
The Samsung Captivate includes a variety of AT&T-specific apps, including AT&T Navigator, AT&T Maps, AT&T Radio and AT&T Hot Spots.
The Samsung Captivate also features a YouTube search bar on the home screen. Both the Captivate and the Vibrant put their YouTube capabilities front and center (no surprise, considering it’s Android).
The Samsung Captivate’s pages of apps.
The Galaxy S includes an HD video player and recorder (1,280 by 720) capable of shooting 30 frames per second. In practice, the images and sound seemed crisp, even in low-light shooting conditions such as this dusk fireworks display.
The smartphone’s 5-megapixel camera takes relatively clear shots, although some interior images (particularly where the primary lighting source is fluorescent, or from a computer screen) came with a soft-focus sheen.
It takes some time to adapt to the preinstalled Swype feature, which lets you drag a finger around the virtual keyboard instead of tapping out individual letters. This reviewer preferred traditional typing.
Note the design differences between the Vibrant and Captivate.
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The Samsung Galaxy S smartphone emphasizes multimedia capabilities, with a Super AMOLED screen and 1GHz processor capable of handily powering everything from games and HD video to streaming movies. The smartphone is being offered on multiple carriers under different names: on T-Mobile, it’s the Samsung Vibrant; on Verizon, the Samsung Fascinate; on AT&T, the Samsung Captivate; and on Sprint, the Samsung Epic 4G. The Samsung Vibrant and Samsung Captivate, both reviewed by eWEEK, offer some of the best multimedia features seen on a smartphone. However, a few applications, including the Samsung Media Hub touted as an iTunes-killer, were not available yet; and some of the hardware and software could use a bit of tweaking.