Q. It's Christmas time and my father and I decided to gift my mother a beautiful new smartphone. Since my mother basically uses her phone for calling, messaging and music (a lot of music)...and maybe even a little bit of photography (though not a lot), we were looking for a mobile phone that excels in these areas. Another very important requirement is that the phone must have a QWERTY keypad - for my mother does not like touch phones. However, a touch AND type phone is acceptable.
Our current contestants include BlackBerry, Samsung, Nokia and HTC. However, my father has an HTC phone that discharges in a matter of two days. So, we were a little unsure about it. iPhone is out of the contest because it doesn't produce phones with keyboards - to my knowledge.
As for costs, I don't really have a specific range. But it better be below the cost of an iPhone (which is about a 1000 USD here in the Philippines). I would say between USD 240 to 600. But it's not set in stone - the quality and the features of the phone are more important and the range can be extended if necessary.
Our current contestants include BlackBerry, Samsung, Nokia and HTC. However, my father has an HTC phone that discharges in a matter of two days. So, we were a little unsure about it. iPhone is out of the contest because it doesn't produce phones with keyboards - to my knowledge.
As for costs, I don't really have a specific range. But it better be below the cost of an iPhone (which is about a 1000 USD here in the Philippines). I would say between USD 240 to 600. But it's not set in stone - the quality and the features of the phone are more important and the range can be extended if necessary.
A. The best: Samsung Captivate Glide It's a lot like the popular Samsung Galaxy S II (4.5 stars, $199.99), with the addition of a full, slide-out QWERTY keyboard and a slight bump down in specs. It's our Editors' Choice for keyboarded smartphones on AT&T.
Physical Features, Phone Calls, and Internet
The Captivate Glide measures 4.9 by 2.5 by 0.5 inches (HWD) and weighs 5.2 ounces. Made out of lightly textured black plastic, the Glide looks unassuming, but feels well built and comfortable in your hand.
View all 6 photos in gallery
The 4-inch, 800-by-480-pixel Super AMOLED display is gorgeous. It has fewer subpixels than the Super AMOLED Plus display on the Galaxy S II, but it still looks excellent. The screen can get very bright, but darker colors maintain a luxurious depth and richness. Four haptic feedback-enabled functions keys sit beneath the display, which are suitably responsive. Typing on the on-screen QWERTY was fine, but I suspect most people are looking to the Glide for the real thing. The phone slides open to reveal a large, four-row physical keyboard. The keys are large and backlit, with comfortable, even spacing. They're a bit flat, but it shouldn't take long to adjust to typing on them.
The Glide is a good voice phone. Reception is average, and calls sound rich, clear, and natural in the phone's earpiece. The speakerphone also sounds good but volume doesn't go loud enough to use outdoors. Calls made with the phone are clear, though voices can sound thin and background noise cancellation is just average. I had no trouble connecting to a Jawbone Era Bluetooth headset ($129.99, 4.5 stars) and calls sounded great. Thankfully, voice dialing works better here, using Android's native voice-dialing app, than it does on the Galaxy S II, which uses a version of Vlingo that had difficulty recognizing names.
The Glide is a world phone that uses AT&T's HSPA+ 21 network and 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi. It also works as a Wi-Fi hotspot with the right service plan. Download speeds averaged 4Mbps down, with peak speeds of 8Mbps, while uploads were around 1Mbps up. Those numbers are good, but they're no match for AT&T's blazing 4G LTE speeds on devices like the Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket ($249.99, 4.5 stars). This isn't too big a deal, though, because AT&T only has LTE in 14 cities right now. Battery life was excellent, at 10 hours 3 minutes of continuous talk time.
Processor and Apps
The Captivate Glide is powered by Nvidia's 1GHz dual-core Tegra 2 processor. It scored well in our benchmark tests, easily overpowering single-core devices, though not quite at the top of the dual-core heap.
The phone runs Android 2.3.5 "Gingerbread" with Samsung's TouchWiz extensions. There are some useful add-on apps, including Media Hub, a downloadable music and video store with reasonable prices, and Social Hub, a combination Facebook/Twitter client. There's also some bloatware from AT&T, including FamilyMap and the U-Verse Live TV app, which are both deletable. Other apps, like AT&T Navigator and an AT&T 'Featured Apps' store, are not. The Glide should be compatible with most everything in the Android Market, which currently has over 1250,000 apps.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2396819,00.asp
Good weekend
Physical Features, Phone Calls, and Internet
The Captivate Glide measures 4.9 by 2.5 by 0.5 inches (HWD) and weighs 5.2 ounces. Made out of lightly textured black plastic, the Glide looks unassuming, but feels well built and comfortable in your hand.
View all 6 photos in gallery
The 4-inch, 800-by-480-pixel Super AMOLED display is gorgeous. It has fewer subpixels than the Super AMOLED Plus display on the Galaxy S II, but it still looks excellent. The screen can get very bright, but darker colors maintain a luxurious depth and richness. Four haptic feedback-enabled functions keys sit beneath the display, which are suitably responsive. Typing on the on-screen QWERTY was fine, but I suspect most people are looking to the Glide for the real thing. The phone slides open to reveal a large, four-row physical keyboard. The keys are large and backlit, with comfortable, even spacing. They're a bit flat, but it shouldn't take long to adjust to typing on them.
The Glide is a good voice phone. Reception is average, and calls sound rich, clear, and natural in the phone's earpiece. The speakerphone also sounds good but volume doesn't go loud enough to use outdoors. Calls made with the phone are clear, though voices can sound thin and background noise cancellation is just average. I had no trouble connecting to a Jawbone Era Bluetooth headset ($129.99, 4.5 stars) and calls sounded great. Thankfully, voice dialing works better here, using Android's native voice-dialing app, than it does on the Galaxy S II, which uses a version of Vlingo that had difficulty recognizing names.
The Glide is a world phone that uses AT&T's HSPA+ 21 network and 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi. It also works as a Wi-Fi hotspot with the right service plan. Download speeds averaged 4Mbps down, with peak speeds of 8Mbps, while uploads were around 1Mbps up. Those numbers are good, but they're no match for AT&T's blazing 4G LTE speeds on devices like the Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket ($249.99, 4.5 stars). This isn't too big a deal, though, because AT&T only has LTE in 14 cities right now. Battery life was excellent, at 10 hours 3 minutes of continuous talk time.
Processor and Apps
The Captivate Glide is powered by Nvidia's 1GHz dual-core Tegra 2 processor. It scored well in our benchmark tests, easily overpowering single-core devices, though not quite at the top of the dual-core heap.
The phone runs Android 2.3.5 "Gingerbread" with Samsung's TouchWiz extensions. There are some useful add-on apps, including Media Hub, a downloadable music and video store with reasonable prices, and Social Hub, a combination Facebook/Twitter client. There's also some bloatware from AT&T, including FamilyMap and the U-Verse Live TV app, which are both deletable. Other apps, like AT&T Navigator and an AT&T 'Featured Apps' store, are not. The Glide should be compatible with most everything in the Android Market, which currently has over 1250,000 apps.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2396819,00.asp
Good weekend
How is the Samsung Galaxy Proclaim with Straight Talk?
Q. Anyone who has it, do you like it? If I have the $45/month unlimited Straight Talk plan, do I get unlimited internet use/data or is it limited to 2G/month? Is it still the same Verizon coverage as the other Straight Talk phones?
A. I have been using it for about a week now, and I am very impressed. For the last 4-5 years at least, all the Verizon-based phones on Straight Talk, TracFone and Net10 have been less desirable than their AT&T-based counterparts. Based on that experience, I didn't have the highest expectations for the "Samsung Galaxy Proclaim," the first Straight Talk smart phone to use the Verizon Network.
So far, I have been very happy with it. Here are some reasons why:
It has a 1Ghz processor that is snappy enough to make the phone run pretty quickly.
I love using Swype to compose text messages.
My data connection speeds have been acceptable and at least as good as I expect.
Battery life is very good - it has lasted me all day during my most vigorous testing.
I have installed quite few apps and they all run well.
All in all, I think for $180 for the phone and $45 a month, this Android phone running on Verizon is a great deal.
Some people questioned the size of the phone (3.5-inch screen), and that's really a matter of personal preference. With new phones such as the Samsung Galaxy Note (5.5-inch screen), the trend seems to be toward bigger devices. For me personally, a one-handed phone is better. I have also used an HTC Inspire with a 4.3 inch display, and it was very very nearly too large for me to hold the phone in one hand and still be able to reach all corners of the screen with my thumb. And a screen that big requires a lot of juice to light it up, and this necessitates a big battery that adds substantial weight and bulk.
Another thing is that the Proclaim is running with the Gingerbread version of Android, not the newer Ice Cream Sandwich. But Google has been pretty slow to roll out ICS phones, so I'm not surprised that the Proclaim is Gingerbread. I've heard great things about ICS, but I'm content with Gingerbread and I'm pretty sure that 90% of phone users out there will be happy with it too, especially on a prepaid phone.
I'll be posting more info about this on the site referenced below, including some videos and lots of pictures. If you have more questions, you can definitely post them in the comments section on any page of that site and I'll do my best to answer you.
So far, I have been very happy with it. Here are some reasons why:
It has a 1Ghz processor that is snappy enough to make the phone run pretty quickly.
I love using Swype to compose text messages.
My data connection speeds have been acceptable and at least as good as I expect.
Battery life is very good - it has lasted me all day during my most vigorous testing.
I have installed quite few apps and they all run well.
All in all, I think for $180 for the phone and $45 a month, this Android phone running on Verizon is a great deal.
Some people questioned the size of the phone (3.5-inch screen), and that's really a matter of personal preference. With new phones such as the Samsung Galaxy Note (5.5-inch screen), the trend seems to be toward bigger devices. For me personally, a one-handed phone is better. I have also used an HTC Inspire with a 4.3 inch display, and it was very very nearly too large for me to hold the phone in one hand and still be able to reach all corners of the screen with my thumb. And a screen that big requires a lot of juice to light it up, and this necessitates a big battery that adds substantial weight and bulk.
Another thing is that the Proclaim is running with the Gingerbread version of Android, not the newer Ice Cream Sandwich. But Google has been pretty slow to roll out ICS phones, so I'm not surprised that the Proclaim is Gingerbread. I've heard great things about ICS, but I'm content with Gingerbread and I'm pretty sure that 90% of phone users out there will be happy with it too, especially on a prepaid phone.
I'll be posting more info about this on the site referenced below, including some videos and lots of pictures. If you have more questions, you can definitely post them in the comments section on any page of that site and I'll do my best to answer you.
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