Samsung Glyde Phone, Black (Verizon Wireless)

Maybe next time I'll listen . . . May 12, 2009

Reviewer:  FountainPenName  (Minneapolis, MN) -

I am a disappointed owner of the Samsung Glyde. For some reason, when I was looking for a new cell phone and saw this one, I thought to myself "It looks perfect! All of these people who gave it a bad rating must be crazy!" I can assure you, we are all very right in our heads. Just so everyone knows, this is both my first touch screen phone and also my first qwerty phone, so I suppose that could have something to do with it.

Physically (as in when you hold it), it feels like a decent phone. It fits in my hand, it feels stable, and I'm not in constant fear that it'll snap in two. The sliding feature has to be its major (if not only) redeeming quality: it opens and closes really easily, and it has that slider spring feel to it that you would get from an older Chocolate or any other well made phone. The buttons on the keyboard are decent - my fingers fit them just fine, but if you have bigger fingers, then this phone might be a bit hard to text on.

One thing about the keyboard that I don't understand is the Function Button. Let me explain: The shift button, when pushed once, is used as a SHIFT key like the one on most phones. One click = one capital letter. Two pushes turn this key into a CAPS LOCK - kinda useful if you're all about the "HAHAHAH!"s or "FML!"s or whatever. The function button, however, just skips right past the "one click = one use" and goes straight into what I suppose we could call "function lock." So basically, it's like "Hey (Function, comma, function) what(function, apostrophe, function)s up (function, question mark, [theoretically another function, but you could just hit send and skip it . . . ]). I know, how dreadful, the poor teenager has to push another button. It's just a peeve, but it's a big one, so I thought other people should know. And YES, you CAN just hold down the apostrophe key for a second or two and skip the function business altogether (which is what I do), but that's still like "Click click click click WAIT click click click click WAIT etc."

My second (and BIGGEST complaint) about this phone is the absence of parenthesis keys on the keyboard. A fair amount of teenagers use parenthesis a LOT when they text. :-) :-P ;-) (Need I go on?), and for some reason, this feature requires you to use the touch screen and hit "Abc" then change to "SYMBOLS" and select the ")" option. The touchscreen is slow and inaccurate, so sometimes it'll even take me two tries to get it right (Don't worry, I've had time to adjust - I got this on January 2, 2009). Personally, I use smileys a lot, and this is just like . . . painful for me. Okay, not really, but it's frustrating.

I suppose that could bring us to the touchscreen, which, as you may have heard, it sucky to the max. I wasn't expecting the best, because, to be quite honest, touchscreens are still developing and CURRENTLY, I doubt you could find a flawless one. This one just blew me out of the water. When I got the phone, I didn't have the update, and it was especially infuriating. Now I do, and it's still not very good. As I said before, sometimes it'll select the wrong button for me, and it isn't always lightning fast (this is especially true when navigating pictures, which always take a few seconds to load). I'm actually embarrassed when navigating my phone in front of friends, because they can just swoop in with their voyager (which is enormous, but I hear it's worth it . . .) or even like . . . a little flip phone (I miss mine . . .) and get wherever they want in a heartbeat, while I'm like "Um . . . no, I hit INBOX, not NEW MESSAGE . . ." So yeah.

Tactile feedback. Yeah. They really need to work on that one. You see, the purpose of tactile feedback (or a little bzzzzt vibration every time you hit a button) is to acknowledge that you (Here comes the suprise . . .) hit the button! Every once in a while, it'll bzzzzt, but it won't advance to the next screen, which KIND OF defeats the purpose. It's annoying to get a buzz and then have to do a second click, especially because, even if it didn't buzz, it should have worked on the first click.

Cue interface rant. From the home screen (or whatever you want to call the part with your background and the date and time), you have a good five buttons to push.
1) DIAL PAD - I use this once in a blue moon, but hey, it deserves a spot up there. Remember though, you're dialing on this touchscreen . . .
2) MENU - pretty much a standard in most phones. When you hit this button, you're presented with 8 new ones: Media Center, Messaging, Contacts, Recent Calls, Settings & Tools, My Music, Browser, and VZ Navigator. I just about NEVER use the last three, and I rarely use the media center either . . . if you do, that's awesome. If you don't . . . well . . . that's great too.
3) CONTACTS - Sweet. I'm glad phones are still using these . . .
4) SHORTCUT MENU - That's weird, ANOTHER menu . . . this one is all customizable. Add anything you want, take stuff off . . . I rarely use it because it's hard to tell if you've successfully pressed a button or not. Also, sometimes when you're trying to click one, it thinks you want to move it, so it'll move it . . . and not open it.
5) SHORTCUT BAR - I probably use this the most. It's THE fastest way to get to your text messages (though you can only get to the inbox, not sent or drafts etc) and alarm clock, and I don't really use the phone for anything other than texting and calling, so I don't really feel the need to navigate through a dozen unused features.
Overall, it's the poor touch screen that makes me dislike the interface. It's too easy to end up in one place when you're aiming for somewhere else.

As for calling, it's fine . . . I've never had any major sound quality problems, though the speaker phone isn't too great. When ENDING a call, though, you have to either push the END touch button twice because you can never be sure if it's ACTUALLY ending the call, or you can push the home button (as in physical "I stick out and can be pressed by fingers") twice.

Overall, it could be a pretty decent phone, it's just all the little things that add up to make it so frustrating - especially when they all happen in one use. If I could go back in time, I would un-buy this phone and just keep my old one (LG VX8300 - it was hands down amazing) to wait for something that works better. The main selling point for me was the slider qwerty keyboard, and though that's okay (yet flawed), it just isn't enough to make me overlook all the other little things.

P.S. I realize that this review was very sarcastic. Note that it was unintended, and though I am, overall, a rather sarcastic person, I think it attests to my overall annoyance with this phone.

Amazing Phone! June 8, 2009

Reviewer:  Analog Heart 

This review is for the "Refresh" version of the Samsung Glyde. The hardware version is U940.11. It also has a resistive touchscreen as opposed to the capacitive touchscreen on the original Glyde model.

I bought the Glyde when it was first released. I had the occasional problem with the touchscreen. However, in recent times, the screen only got worse. It was opening menus by itself, it was opening all the wrong things, the screen would freeze. I read about the "Refresh" version and immediately called Verizon trying to get my phone swapped out. After numerous phone calls and a software update, they finally shipped me out the "Refresh."

This version of the phone works a million times better. The resistive touchscreen is great. I never have ANY problem with the phone opening a menu on the other side of the screen. It always opens the right menus. I can use my fingernail, a pen, or a stylus to operate the touchscreen now. This phone is finally working the way it should have a long time ago!

There are, however, two cons that I have noticed with this phone. Twice in the last two days, the screen has seemed to freeze. While I was typing with the QWERTY keyboard, the letters would stop appearing on the screen. However, the amount of characters I used was still increasing. The only way to fix it was to close the message and start over. Not really a big deal though. The only other con is that occasionally when the screen is off and completely black, if I touch the screen, it will light up without the pressing of any buttons. However, this also is not a big deal.

I only have a year left with this phone. But I am glad that I finally 100% love this phone. I think it is great that Samsung acknowledged the problems with the touchscreen and fixed them. This really is a great device. I feel like I have a brand new phone again! I urge everyone who still has the original Glyde to get it swapped out.

(I also reviewed this phone on the "Samsung Glyde 1st Version" page.)

Warning do not buy The Samsung GLYDE!!!!!!! September 2, 2009

Reviewer:  Dia H "Dia"  (missouri) -

The glyde is a piece of crap...why you may ask beause:
once you get the phone everything is fine until you have the phone for about 3 weeks. This is my second glyde phone and both of them have been giving me hell ever since.

1) If you wanna txt..then you may want to press send 10 times before it actually sends your message
2)The screen frequently turns off and comes back on in the middle of a txt message etc
3)If your trying to put a hot guys # in your phone ..well that may be out of the question seeing that your phone will constantly press a series of buttons before you can press the save key

On my newest phone I only had it for about 3 weeks and I never dropped it i'm very carefully with my things. Well while i was texting one day my phone would not turn sided ways so I could read the txt from the keyboard side. I was txting and I couldnt see the words..once I closed the keyboard up I saw the txt. Ugh how frustrating

If you think that was it well it did that for the whole day before I charged it. WHile being charged it was fine after the phone finished I received one text message and my phone showed a blank white screen. I'm still not able to turn it on till this day so if you won't a piece of crap be my guest and buy THE SAMSUNG GLYDE

crap August 15, 2009

Reviewer:  dawson "dawsonsc"  (south usa) -

this is the biggest waste of money i ever spent. the touch screen is crap and in less than 6 months ive been through several replacements now over a year and I gotta buy a new phone. samsung really stunk on this one.

Save your money. June 13, 2009

Reviewer:  H V  (Boston, MA) -

Buy this phone if you enjoy:
-Pressing a button on a touch screen and watching as a button in a completely different area is pressed (this will happen about 10 times before it magically starts working or you turn it off and try again).
-Pressing a button on a touch screen multiple times as nothing happens (same results as before).
-Having to turn off your phone occasionally because the touch screen freezes.
-Having to press multiple redundant buttons just to perform a simple task.
-Dialing numbers with your face while you are on the phone (got to use that lock button).
-Having particles of dust seemingly activate buttons on your phone as it sits untouched (need the lock button again).
-Being unable to simply send more than one picture at a time (want to send some to your email? One at a time, baby. Apparently this is easier if you use the USB attachment but guess what? That only works with PC's.)

The keyboard is decent if you have small fingers, and the sound quality on calls seems fine.

If you like hearing your phone ring in a setting with any sort of louder than average noise, you won't. Use vibrate.

I'm surprised I haven't thrown this phone out of a window from pure frustration. The screen-protecting sheet of plastic has a few marks on it from angry finger-smashing as a result of the absolute fail of a touchscreen.

On my 3rd replacement August 17, 2009

Reviewer:  Frequent Techy 

Verizon Wireless no longer carries this on their website due to systematic issues. It is a great concept in that has a touch screen and slide-out keyboard. However, especially with older firmware the touchscreen is very unresponsive and the phone regularly locks up. It is also disappointing there is no support for flash and doesn't contain a full HTML browser. Even with the latest firmware it is very rigid in not supporting any practical applications and still has reliability issues with locking up.

I have had my Samsung Glyde replaced 3 times and would recommend spending same amount of money for a more reliable phone.

Worst Phone I Have Ever Had August 17, 2009

Reviewer:  C. Angel  (Indiana, USA) -

I picked this phone out when it was new on the market and initial reviews were decent, but I must say now that it was a giant mistake. The problems with this phone would take too much room to type in this review, but the gist of it is that the touchscreen would stay on until I turned the phone off, it would hit random buttons or nothing at all, and the latest update changed the phone to turn on at the slightest touch of the screen, which is not good on battery life if you keep the phone in your pocket. I wanted to like this phone. I love the keyboard and the sliding features. It just had too many issues for me to enjoy this phone. I had four replacement phones before I stood my ground with the verizon reps for two hours. Save yourself the headache of trying to deal with this phone and of dealing with verizon customer service.

Terrible May 13, 2009

Reviewer:  Rebecca Trana "annoyedglydeuser"  (MN) -

I wouldn't give this phone a star if that was an option. I like the keyboard, the sliding feature, hate the touch screen to the max. It's really a piece of crap touch phone.