Awesome phone May 18, 2011

Reviewer:  Sweet T 

I wanted to upgrade to a smartphone but was confused to say the least. I didn't want to wait on the IPhone5 & after reading review after review on the Thunderbolt, I knew the Droid Charge was for me. I love this phone! If I had to describe it in 1 word......SEXY. It's sleek, lightweight, blazing fast 4G & the screen is amazing. Yes, it is a bit pricey @ $300.00 but you get what you pay for and it is soooo worth it. No regrets here & I am loving my Droid Charge. Buy it.....you will thank me.

Best phone since the original Motorola Droid May 16, 2011

Reviewer:  John Myers  (HASTINGS, MN, US) -

I owned several HTC phones over the years and they always had the same problems. Poor sound quality/volume. Bad reception and horrible battery life and constant lockups. I assumed this was the price I had to pay for needing a smartphone for work. I was almost tempted to carry a regular phone as well just because the smartphones sucked so bad. When the Motorola Droid came out I discovered it was just the crappy HTC hardware. Since the Bionic is delayed or canceled I decided to try the Thunderbolt hoping HTC had improved designs over the last couple years. Well no such luck I tried right up until the 14 day return window before taking it back. It was plaqued by all the same problems I had come to know from HTC. Poor signal reception, battery life, sound quality, etc. When the Samsung Charge came out I decided to try it and will say I have been pleased so far. Battery life is comparable to what I was getting with the Motorola Droid. Reception is about the same. The only thing I can complain is the volume is a litle light on the external speaker. I am in some noisy environments at times at work and it is not as good as the Droid but still far better than the Thunderbolt. Needless to say I will never consider another HTC phone again. If the Samsung holds up as well as the Droid did it will be Motorola or Samsung from now on.

WARNING: Known Buzzing Issue During Calls! February 10, 2012

Reviewer:  Chris Chris  (Columbus, OH) -

So, this phone is AWESOME for web browsing, apps, music, etc.

However, I can't use it for voice calls. On most calls, there is a loud hissing buzzing sound. It's startling and annoying. On Verizon Wireless's community forum page, you can see that many, many users have experienced this problem, and a Verizon employee said the problem has been "escalated." In the meantime, Verizon has replaced this phone for people who experience this problem and complain loudly enough.

I'd stay away from this phone!

EXCELLENT PHONE October 22, 2011

Reviewer:  samsunglyfe 

way better than the iphone lot of memeory tons of apps naice big quality touch screen excellent job by samsung time over time

Reasonable, but I do miss my iPhone October 14, 2011

Reviewer:  Kudokatz "Kudokatz"  (Seattle, WA) -

The first thing I noticed about the phone after making the jump from an iPhone 3GS was the connection speed (regularly 10 mbps down with reception that isn't stellar), and the second was the presence of Flash videos online.

The third thing I noticed is that the screen seems immensely over-saturated, and I couldn't find a way to turn it down ... but I got used to it after a while.

The fourth was how useful widgets are.

BUT ... coming from my iPhone, battery life is a big gripe of mine. I got this phone for the connection speed boost (which I do appreciate frequently), but leaving 4G data on all day means that my battery is near-drained at the end after light use. The extra screen space is great for a lot of things, but looking at battery use, it sucks a *lot* of power, too.

One thing that I really dislike is that if I enter an app, intent off to another one, and then return to the home screen, sometimes I will have to wait 3-5 seconds for the screen to load; this happens even when I have killed all but ~3 non-system processes running on the phone.

There are also some subtleties that it seems Android hasn't yet worked out. For example, I cannot add an Exchange account unless I use a beta app from VMWare, and when implementing security policies (lock screen and remote wipe), the app is allowed to completely override my settings. As a result, I essentially had dueling lock screens until a friend who is more familiar with Android showed me a list in the 'Accounts' section that lets me remove the application as an administrator; I had previously tried to uninstall the app, but was simply told "uninstall not successful" ... o_O

Overall a usable phone, but I must admit that I have looked up the consequences for breaking my contract a few times since buying it (from Amazon Wireless) months ago.

Enjoying 4G July 2, 2011

Reviewer:  S. Anthony 

I bought this phone directly from Verizon, having a $30 loyalty credit to cash in.

Background - I had an iPhone4 through work, but had to give it up when the job disappeared. Wandering around without data access for maps & other on-the-go issues was like walking around blind. Finally decided to take the plunge and get a real-phone and data access before the Verizon unlimited data plan disappears.

First - screen size - compared to the iPhone, the screen is quite a bit bigger. Which to my aging eyes is very nice. Note, I'm not going to be watching movies or TV shows on this unit; but to read email, text and do basic surfing, the larger screen size is much appreciated.

Second - battery life - This is where I was most apprehensive in the purchase. Other reviewers indicated that battery life was not a big problem. My experience: wife & I took a trip to Vermont this past week. The larger screen size and network access does deplete the battery quickly, and using it for navigation, web searching to find local attractions, etc; will require frequent charging. We got about 4 hours on a charge while using the phone continuously for data access. This was with Wi-Fi & Bluetooth turned off to save juice.... just cell coverage active. To contrast, on the way back, with the phone in sleep mode, and just a little (maybe 10-15min) of web searching, we easily ended the day with 2/3 battery remaining. I recommend a good car charger and to plug the phone in nightly at home to keep it ready to roll.

Third - 4G - simply WOW. I haven't benchmarked it, but the performance seems to rival wifi. Of course 4G is not wide spread, but we're lucky enough to live in an area where we get it at home. 1+ miles north, and we'd be in 3G land. Our trip to Vermont had us staying in an area that had _no_ coverage; or as I referred to it "NoG-VT". Funny, I had to ask how to make a long-distance call from the Inn's phone :)

Fourth - apps - still getting used to things here. I haven't missed anything that was on the iPhone. I would like to get rid of a bunch of the preloaded apps I know I won't use; just to tidy up the apps screens & make it more organized. But I haven't figured out how to do that yet. Also note, to download apps, you need a google-talk account. Additionally, there are problems when trying to download apps when wifi is on. As far as I can tell from reading forums, this is due to my local router blocking ports needed for gTalk to work on this device. I've tried enabling these ports (on the router), but no love yet. If I turn off wifi, everything works fine, and again, given 4G speeds, don't see a loss is performance on app downloads. So I'll probably live with this, rather than punch a hole in the firewall for minimal (if any) performance gains.

Summary - Damn nice. You do have to be on top of battery consumption, however.

Great phone but not perfect June 30, 2011

Reviewer:  Michael P. Long "mplong"  (Charlotte NC) -

While I generally like this phone very much, I did want to point out some minor drawbacks to it:
1. No LED light. I don't mind this too much as I never used the LED for anything but seeing if the phone was charging or not.
2. Bottom buttons...I prefer touch-sensitive buttons. These you physically have to push in and they feel a bit flimsy
3. Power button - its on the right instead of the top. Not a huge deal but it's a different layout than other phones I've used
4. Bloatware/TouchWiz. I'm not a big fan of Samsung's software (its horrible compared to Sense), or the tons of apps they put on there that you can't remove, or the ugly brown color scheme. Most of this can be resolved by rooting the phone and putting a custom ROM on there
5. Charged notification and powerup sound. What are they thinking have it do an audible notification when it is charged (in the middle of the night?) and also the power up droid sound is very annoying, especially if you need to restart your phone somewhere where you need to be discrete. I can't fault this phone entirely for this though since these issues affect other Droid phones as well.
6. This may have a better processor than most Droids out there, but I see no difference. It's not more responsive than any other Droid I've used. (I should also mention that this comes with a crappy class 2 SD card, which certainly doesn't help anything)

Now on to the good stuff:
1. The AMOLED screen is very nice. I have no complaints about it
2. The battery life is pretty good, but it drains quickly sometimes (could be 4G signal issues). I've ended up getting an extended battery and now have to charge it once a day. With my other Droid phone, I was having it go dead 2/3 of the day in so this is an improvement.

Awesome Phone June 13, 2011

Reviewer:  Newc 

I purchased the Samsung Charge 3 days ago. I am very happy with the phone and the features.
It is very fast and has a beautiful, high res screen. The camera takes fantastic photos and movies.
It is very lightweight. I guess this could be considered both good and bad.

Terrible Call Quality June 2, 2011

Reviewer:  J.Levins  (Cary, NC) -

Thought would change from my 9 years with T-Mobile/Blackberry to most touted Verizon for reportedly better coverage. Returning phones, cancelling Verizon, and switching back to TMO, after spending countless hours on this project ... aarrgghh. Blackberry = clear as bell; Charge = crackly, robotic, hard to understand people. Made calls side by side, zero comparison, nodda. Went to Verizon store to check out the (huge) Thunderbolt call quality and, while it seemed at least a slight improvement (on the one call I was on), it was still that same, tinny/robotic sound. Made call on Blackberry again standing right there in store, clear as a bell.

Pros:
* Size and weight not bad compared to Thunderbolt, but the G2X and upcoming Sensation (TMO) are smaller and lighter still
* Beautiful screen
* Amazon Wireless customer service

Cons:
* Call quality bites the big one
* Can't select all emails and delete, must delete one at a time, a real pain since I do 'most' of my emails on my desktop. Probably an Android thing not isolated to this phone, but it's a con wherever it's coming from.
* Dropped calls - just sitting still (no tower change), middle of conversation, "bloop" - gonner. In the short week I used mine, did that probably once a day, and always on those calls I didn't want it to happen on, you know, the ones you had to hold for 20 minutes to get the person in the first place? Those!

Excellent Phone September 25, 2012

Reviewer:  Oscardoyle 

This has got to be one of the best phones I have ever had. I use it for everything. It is reliable and I don't understand the negative reviews. This phone has more than met my expectations. I usually don't write reviews but I had to respond to the negative reviews that have been posted. There seems to be a wide range of opinion about this phone but I am completely satisfied and in fact, this phone has exceeded my expectations. It is like having a computer in your pocket.

Cool phone... but not for long-time AOL users June 29, 2011

Reviewer:  minskypinsk  (miami) -

Screen is great. 4G speed is fantastic (though there are glitches that will probably be worked out but every few days you may lose connection). Could have lived with recharging the battery more often than I'd like. But the big problem was that Samsung's interface with OLDER AOL accounts had severe issues: Sent mail folder wouldn't show destination addresses, forwarded emails never showed up as sent at all. Motorola Droid X2 and even the iPhone work fine with my AOL account, so the Charge had to go back. (Amazon Wireless has been absolutely terrific all around: great customer service, seamless exchange process. FIVE STARS FOR AMAZON WIRELESS!)

awful battery life June 20, 2011

Reviewer:  LinFromNJ  (USA) -

I love almost everything about this phone except the battery life. It is awful. Don't know what everybody is raving about regarding battery life. I do very little with it, turn off most syncing and apps and still need to switch batteries (to replace depleted one with charged one) least once a day. The desk dock is a really good accessory.
6 months later and the battery life is still awful. Phone also will lock up when trying to key in a voicemail pin

Droid Discharge June 24, 2011

Reviewer:  Opinionator 

I bought the Droid Charge b/c others reviewed it as having better battery life than other Verizon 4G smartphones. However, the battery life is awful and I am returning the phone. I took all appropriate measures to extend the battery life but continued to experience very poor performance. I strongly advise against buying this phone.

Very disappointing May 30, 2011

Reviewer:  Stephen 

I owned the original Motorola droid and loved it for 2 years. Time to upgrade came around and I purchased this phone. It crashed twice within the first week, and it would become intermittently unresponsive. The final straw came when it started malfunctioning during calls and making a high-pitched whine. I don't normally take the time to write reviews, but this phone was terrible.

1st phone, bad, maybe a mistake, eh? August 28, 2011

Reviewer:  robersml 

1st Droid Charge phone I got from amazonwireless.com would not charge/transfer data through the USB cable. It was a bad charging/data phone. Sent it back and got a 2nd phone.

Droid Charge June 24, 2011

Reviewer:  Piano17man 

The phone is excellent but the battery life is terrible. Only lasts a couple of hours. Everything else is perfect. Screen is very clear. 4G works great in my area. Voice commands are easy to use and make getting at everything very fast. Apps work perfectly. Keyboard is very accurate. Docking station works great on my dashboard as a GPS. Only reason for three stars is battery life. About 80% of the battery drains if the screen is on for 30 minutes. This is true for both WiFi and 4g. When I look at battery usage, most of it is from screen display even though I have brightness set at the lowest level. Samsung should recall the phone and give everyone a better battery.

Don't buy October 10, 2011

Reviewer:  har_lin 

Battery sucks. Corporate emails suck. Can't be used in Europe because of 4G. All in all, it is just a terrible phone.

Don't buy it! July 24, 2011

Reviewer:  Happy 

I was so excited with Charge, 4G LTE.
However, there were so many things to disappointed with this worst phone ever i had.

- Phone freeze every single time.
- Can't hold Bluetooth signal more than 5 min, even the phone showing I am using Bluetooth device. I was disconnected with Bluetooth device suddenly, and I had to switch to actual phone, but phone light up, I am using "Bluetooth"
- Battery is gone as crazy super fast.
- Samsung Interface is so complex. I used to use iphone but there are more step to do something with this phone. EX, listen music, make phone call, changing internet mode, Bluetooth setup, etc. So much annoying me.

I am now switching to LG Revolution, but I am very scared also.

4G service sucks July 8, 2011

Reviewer:  Calibuyer "MM"  (Bay area, CA) -

Most of the features are impressive. Two most important features that i was looking for

Battery Life: Well, by now I'm sure everyone heard the horror stories abt TBolt's battery. This one was supposed to be better and that was one of the main reasons why i chose this over TB. While its better than TB, I'm not impressed with the battery life on this, but i guess with 4G, there are no other phones that has a decent battery life. I'm told 4G is what consumes the battery so much.

4G: This is why switched from AT&T to VZ. So far the service has been spotty. 4G would be on and after i start browsing, it would switch to 3G within minutes and would never get back to 4G unless i do a reboot. Apparently, this is a known issue and they (VZ and Samsung) are working on a solution. Very disappointing.
Looking at other reviews, i'm wondering if this is a location issue. However, my friend sitting next to me has solid 4G all day on his TBolt and the area i'm trying to use the phone is supposed to have good 4G coverage.

gotta wonder, what is samsung thinking????? May 25, 2011

Reviewer:  David Devine  (Heaven, and Hell) -

Lame touchwiz hampers this phone. Keep it vanilla android plz.
buttons are too far away from screen, making it very difficult to use one-handed.
no notification led which is a bummer.
nice to have 4g though.
Bloatware takes up 3 pages of app space. Why do you do this verizon? Get a clue.
perhaps the next software update will make it better,but samsung is terrible in releasing sw updates.