Samsung Galaxy S 4G Android Phone (T-Mobile)

Know what you are getting into March 25, 2011

Reviewer:  Tae S. Shin "ScientificDeveloper" 

I was an iPhone user who decided to buy new SGS4G for some "freedom" and cheaper cell/data service. And another reason I bought this device is because it is very close to iphone. Here comes my review after a week of its ownership.

Pros

1. Cheaper and faster: Speed difference from iPhone is obvious with 4G and better processor. T-mobile provides with cheaper plans.

2. Smooth and beautiful Video: I rarely watch TV/movies on a smartphone. This device made me think again. Quality of the movie screen is amazing - smooth and clear. Watching experience is close to laptop. I will enjoy this on flight.

3. Camera: Without considering more resolution, this camera is better than the one in iPhone GS. It is much less sensible for small shaking.

4. Wireless tethering: I didn't really care for tethering with 3G because of its terrible speed. But this device's 4G now and supposed to be 21 Mbps. After rooting, I first installed wireless tethering. And it works like a charm. This portable wifi router does not really make 21 Mbps but 8 Mbps but it's still practical. Think about IPad or Kindle with this phone in my pocket. They are always connected without paying a buck for 3G plan/device.

5. Unlimited expandability: Since it's android OS, unlike iphone, the device is not much restricted to expand. You can virtually install whatever you want.

Cons

1. Lack of internal memory: 500MB internal memory is too small to store apps. So after getting this device, you'd better start moving apps into internal 16G SD card. As I will mention about this below, however, not all apps can be moved to SD.

2. Bloated apps: Unnecessary apps occupy in apps screen and some of them also automatically run. And most of these bloated apps can't be deleted nor moved to SD card. - Solution: Root and Titanium Backup. See the last part of this review.

3. No flash LED: I rarely use it for taking pictures so it does not matter much to me. But it's one component people may want to have at some point. Besides, you can use it for other purposes with apps. As other devices in this price range have the LED, I am not sure why Samsung is not getting it with this excellent device otherwise.

4. Bad battery: I guess this may be the reason SGS4G is so light but its battery life is not close to the one in iPhone 3GS. My daily use is not that heavy but I always get 20-30% battery power remaining at the end of a day. In my test, playing 2-3 hours of a movie will drain the battery out. UPDATE: I've looked ways to overcome this issue, and so far, the best one is buying extra OEM batteries and charger to keep replacing battery on the device. I first thought it's one of the stupidest ideas. But with charger taking care of the extra batteries (two extras in my case), you are free from worrying about battery life and your device doesn't have to be connected to USB cable. The OEM batteries are already cheap so don't think about buying cheaper batteries as I did. One of cheapest batteries I tried almost bricked my device.

Root: Root is like easy jailbreak for Android device but without any downside. Of course Rooted device can be bricked and void of warranty but in reality, most of times, CS will fix the bricked device under warranty. Google "Super One Click" for more details.

Titanium Backup: After root, get the Titanium backup app to delete all unnecessary apps. One thing to remember: don't delete telenav app because it will mess GPS up otherwise.

In summary, root is almost required for this smart phone - root will take less than 30 mins. Other than that, with its amazing speed and powerful customizing ability from Android OS, I still have to figure out what it can do. This device is truly a personal computer + more in my hand. I like it a lot more than iPhone.

A Love Hate Relationship coming to an end April 17, 2011

Reviewer:  Iceman  (Freezing in MI, 2 cold USA) -

I have been with Android since the Day 1 release of the G1. This is my 3rd Android phone and I was upgrading from a Nexus 1. Let's start off with the good. I bought this phone on its release date largely because I wanted a bigger screen, better batter life and a phone that I would actually hold a signal so I could talk on it (antenna was in the bottom of the Nexus 1 and it was pretty bad on reception).

I picked up this phone and the first thing you will notice is that it is very light almost too light. The back cover is made of plastic and it feels somewhat cheap in your hand. The screen is made of Gorilla Glass which is a good thing. It lacks stereo speakers opting for a loud but monaural speaker in the back of the phone with a unattractive two slit hole for sound in the back of the phone. In a loud environment this often requires holding the phone cupped in your hand to reflect the sound back out to you.

The screen on this phone is absolutely beautiful. It is a SuperAMOLE 480x800 screen. The colors are rich & vibrant and HD movies or video looks incredible. It really is like watching a pocket version of my 50 inch 1080p HD television. The screen technology also uses less battery so it doesn't have the incredible drain you might expect even in 4 inches of real estate.

The camera is where one of the first major flaws of this phone surface. It is a 5 megapixel camera with NO FLASH. That is completely unacceptable on a phone that is a flagship device (albeit only for a few months) on T-Mobile. The camera does have good low light performance but it will not work if you are on the phone. There also is no way to turn off the GPS if you don't want that information embedded in the metadata of the phone. The interface of the phone is awkward & far too time consuming. It takes average photos & videos and has no dedicated camera/video button. I have been so frustrated at times with this camera I have wished I brought a standalone device.

Onto the operation of the phone. The phone operates on a Hummingbird processor and its operation most of the time is very smooth. I added the juice defender app which turns off certain functions when the phone is not being used and it extends battery life. With Juice Defender I have seen as much as 16 hours on a full charge. Without Juice Defender on a solid 6-9 hours can be expected depending on the user.

On to the MOST annoying issue with this phone. It has 1GB of ROM on the phone which means that the Android OS and all of the bloatware pre-installed by Samsung are on the internal memory. By the time they are done with what they feel its important for you to have (apps like QIK for video chat, LAYAR, T-mobile TV, Media Hub, Wifi Calling, etc) you are left with about 250mb of space for the apps YOU want. I don't want to root the phone because that is the solution to getting rid of the issues with this phone. I shouldn't have to root the phone to buy an app. I don't have the Amazon App Store on this phone right now not because I don't want it because it won't fit. A 1.25mb application will not fit on my phone! I have 13 apps installed to the memory of the phone that I need (app's like Flash, Facebook, Google Maps,Gmail, Doubletwist, Sirus/XM & Juice Defender). All of the apps I can put on the SD card have been moved over (all 42 of them). How do you expect me to purchase apps if I have no space.

The lack of internal memory and horrible camera operation are the reasons that after a few short months of ownership of this phone I'm selling it and buying the just released LG 2GX on T-mobile. I really don't want to have to buy another phone this soon but the internal memory issues and the camera are just too much of an annoyance. I wouldn't really recommend this phone now as there are much better devices out there now. Its a shame that Samsung & T-mobile didn't make the minor tweaks to this device (more internal memory, flash & better camera features) that would have really made it a great device.

In Love With This Phone! March 17, 2011

Reviewer:  Sammie 

This is the first smart phone I've ever owned and had it for about a week now. At first, it's a little intimidating but after you play around with it for an hour, it's easy to use. Loading time is fast so I have not encountered stalling problems yet. The audio and images on here are very crisp and clear. The speakerphone feature is amazing. Not only can I hear the caller but they can hear me clearly (which was a big problem with my last phone). I know some people complain about the lack of a flash for the camera but I personally think that flash on phones aren't that great anyways. The camera on this phone is 5 mp and takes excellent photos in natural lighting. Video chat on the phone is a lot of fun too. I haven't used the qik app on the phone but downloaded the Tango app and it was so easy to use.

Now there have been a few negatives that I have encountered. Sometimes I have a hard time switching over from using the 4G network to wi-fi, since I have horrible service at work and we have a fast wi-fi network. I also have experienced some echoing issues when using this phone at night for some weird reason.

Other than, it's a great phone to have especially if you like to multitask between apps.

An all-around awesome phone March 7, 2011

Reviewer:  Rollin D Crittendon 

I have had this phone going on a week now. The speed, battery life & screen have been fantastic.

The addition of the Swype keyboard was a savvy move on Samsung's part as well. Tracing and voice-dictation work very well.

The television package is a nice extra as well. Catch up on a basketball game while running an errand.

This phone is probably up there with the iPhone from what I gather. At this point I think consumers will have a bounty of riches as companies like Samsung and Apple keep redefining what a smartphone means.

Actually 4-1/2 stars -- SO close to perfection April 10, 2011

Reviewer:  Grrgoyl  (Aurora, CO USA) -

Okay, I'm coming from a Motorola Cliq XT running the ancient and completely obsolete Android 1.5. I was a sworn Moto fan for life, before they made the extremely ill-conceived decision to leave us high and dry on 1.5 after promising an update for over a year. Over the past three months I've watched that phone grow increasingly laggy and buggy, with random reboots 1-2 times a day (sometimes in the middle of calls, delightful) and Windows ME speeds of operation. But that's in the past now. Goodbye Moto (forever; I am a champion grudge-holder). Hello, Samsung.

My choice was between this and the MyTouch on paper, but I picked the Galaxy up first and let me tell you, there is no comparison, at least in form factor: The Galaxy is ultra-sleek, ultra-thin, polished, absolute love at first sight (not gonna lie -- looks like an iPhone except for the bottom row of buttons. I've never had an iPhone and I wasn't looking for an iClone or anything, but that's the fact). The MyTouch looks like a good phone for a teenager in comparison, i.e. toy-like. No offense to people who love their MyTouch, I'm sure it functions great, but my cerebral gut reaction was won over instantly by the Samsung (another deciding factor was that the Galaxy sports a Gorilla Glass screen, at least from what I read online. That was the one thing the Cliq had going for it -- I used it totally unprotected for probably our last four months together and it never got so much as a scuff on it).

The screen is huge and absolutely gorgeous, bright with deep saturated colors. Call quality is excellent and it takes great pictures despite the lack of a flash -- the phone seems to have a really good white balance that optimizes the light available (though probably won't work miracles in really low light). I love the hard keys at the bottom which are totally flush with the glass, giving it a really classy, high-tech feel. I felt bereft without a trackpad, but when needed while texting a cool little cursor button pops up on the screen for it.

The processor is super snappy (compared to the Cliq, not really that surprising) as is the 4g. Almost everything about the phone impresses, at least compared to the Cliq.

Except my three and a half complaints:

1) No LED indicator light, but I've found apps that make up for that (LOVE the Android Market).

2) Only 512 mb of internal storage, but comes with a 16 gb SD card. "Just move apps to the storage card" people tell you. Well, a) not all apps allow this, and b) if an app is kept on the storage card, its shortcut won't show up on your desktop (a shortcut is there, but with a generic Android logo, not the app-specific icon). We'll see how long before I'm pulling my hair out trying to juggle phone space.

3) Pretty pathetic battery life, even for a smartphone. I read the complaints about this and shrugged them off, assuming they were from people not used to the battery-gobbling tendencies of every smartphone, but no -- it's pretty bad. Like 12 hours or less with moderate texting and one phone call, and that's with the data connection turned off, the screen brightness at zero (an unforgivable crime considering how gorgeous it looks with it higher) and obviously 4g had to go (as my friend said, the one thing that makes the Galaxy better than the iPhone). Oh, and half that time spent sleeping, not even touching the phone. Even the Cliq lasted up to two days usually (granted I wasn't fondling it quite so often near the end of our relationship). I've decided that swapping out spare batteries is preferable to adding a high-capacity brick to the back of my super svelte and lightweight new plaything (and thank my lucky stars it isn't an iPhone for that reason alone).

Half a complaint) Very strange quirk. The front-facing camera only functions for picture taking, not video recording, when using the stock camcorder. However, video recording with it IS possible through the Qik video chat app, also stock on the phone (which helpfully offers a "record my life" function rather than only video chatting). I'm just thrilled to have the option at all; like I said, the Cliq seems as primitive as the Razr to me now.

Another half a complaint) This phone is so popular that buying accessories (like spare batteries) is proving to be quite tricky -- there seem to be five different incarnations in the US alone, depending on your carrier (to say nothing of the international version), with tiny differences negating any kind of universality. I'm about 85% certain it's the same as the Samsung Vibrant (t959) except with a front-facing camera.

If I went into everything I loved about this phone you would get bored and quit reading. Let me just say the wow factor is high here. Hopefully you can get into a store and see/hold it for yourself, because I can almost guarantee that will make you a believer.

I was going to wait for the new LG G2x coming soon, but who knows what the asking price will be (guessing higher than the Samsung), and after having a few days to play with the Galaxy, I don't feel like I settled at all.

Samsung customer for life? Let's hope they learn a thing or two from Moto about how NOT to treat the people who give them their hard-earned money.