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.