Samsung Fascinate Review: Verizon's Galaxy S Smartphone
by Brian Klug on October 5, 2010 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Samsung
- Galaxy S
- Fascinate
- Mobile
Speakerphone Volume
We've been testing speakerphone volume regularly on devices using a decibel meter 6" away from the device turned face up. In addition, we've been testing audio quality subjectively. The Fascinate is decently loud.
There's a raised bit right over the speaker output, so sound makes it out and around even if you've got the phone laying on a flat surface.
Earpiece performance and volume is adequate - voice quality is as good on the Fascinate as I've seen on other CDMA handsets in the testing I performed. One place I noticed the Fascinate being a bit quieter than I would've liked was Google Navigation.
Battery Life
The Fascinate doesn't really set any records for battery life, but then again that's partly due to the combination of Super AMOLED and the more power hungry SGX 540. For 3G and WiFi web browsing battery life tests, we run through a series of just over 20 pages every 10 seconds with the screen set at 50% brightness until the device dies. Obviously during 3G testing, WiFi is disabled. During WiFi testing, cellular is enabled. Background applications are also all killed before launching the browser and starting our test. For call time testing, we initiate a call and play music on both ends and wait for the phone to die.
The Fascinate does best the Epic 4G quite handily though.
The Fascinate does have a relatively beefy 1500 mAh, 5.55 Whr removable battery (same as the Epic 4G), but it still doesn't come close to its brethren in some areas. It's still better than the Epic fared with its 4G stack, but it's hard to really nail down why battery life isn't quite as good as the competition, even its Android competition. Either way, it seems like the Fascinate is designed to compete with the Nexus One and Motorola Droid, where it comes close. It can't hold a candle to the Droid 2 or Droid X. Perhaps when we finally get the Captivate and Vibrant - each with GSM/UMTS stacks - we'll be able to tell more about where this battery life deficiency lies.
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R3MF - Tuesday, October 5, 2010 - link
when is android due to get a GPU accelerated UI?fixxxer0 - Tuesday, October 5, 2010 - link
maybe update the numbers?? i think its more or less similar to the droid 2 for the most part.(sorry if someone already posted this i only read the front page of posts)
jasperjones - Tuesday, October 5, 2010 - link
On page 1: "There's the standard 1.8mm audio jack for headphones." Err, the standard audio jack is 3.5mm. It's a typo, right?alaricljs - Tuesday, October 5, 2010 - link
Standard audio jack "ON A PHONE" which really shouldn't need to be stated since we know this is a phone happens to be 1.8mm.fabarati - Tuesday, October 5, 2010 - link
No phone uses 1.8 mm jacks. The old smaller standard was 2.5, but that's not used all that much anymore either. The confusion arises from the american usage of the imperial system. See, 1/8"=3.5mm.So yeah, typo.
Brian Klug - Tuesday, October 5, 2010 - link
Oops, I meant 1.8", fixed!-Brian
Vepsa - Tuesday, October 5, 2010 - link
What GPS test app are you using?Belard - Tuesday, October 5, 2010 - link
I picked up my Captivate a few days ago. For the most part, the hardware is exactly the same as the Fascinate... But it has a metal cover for the battery and a slick release system... very nice. The BAD thing about the Captivate is the lack of a FLASH for the camera! Really, no flash!?The UI for at&t Android is very much the same shown in this review... but the branding is no-where near as bad (I'm not a Verizon fan because of this) - the at&t apps are out of the way and I believe are removable. There are no at&t book-marks, and at&t listings in the phone-book are removable.
I had a choice between the Samsung Captivate and Sony X10 (Android) - with the Sony being $50 cheaper at $150. Comparing the screen type, the USB cover and easily half as thin body - I went with the Samsung.
After a few days of use and STILL Learning how to use Android - there are a few things I don't like about using these phone which can be "fixed" with software, if they exists.
1 - Lock the main buttons to remain LIT when the screen is... YES, it sucks and I heard there is an option for this, haven't found it yet. UGH!
2 - To use the phone, press the tiny power button - THEN swipe to unlock the phone. This is a pain. I would LOVE the option to INCLUDE the Vol/Rocker buttons to activate the screen, or even the 4 main menu buttons... it should be easy. The rocker button is much bigger and easier to feel. Is there a way to do this (yet)?
Other than that, I'm good with the phone... I know its screen isn't quite as nice as the iPhone4, but I don't want an iPhone... but I am betting that future phones in 2011 will catch up, its nice that you CAN'T see the pixels.
In general, the Captivate will have the exact same performance, higher quality body, less bloat and no flash.
PS: Packaging. at&t is a very small box... not as fancy, but it is better for the environment as well as shipping.
darwinosx - Tuesday, October 5, 2010 - link
Between the bloatware, the GPS, and the non-changeable Bing search this phone is a non-starter. No wonder Verizon is already practically giving them away. Google sure did get suckered by Verizon in a way Apple would never do. I don't care how good Verizons network is, if they keep doing this to phones they are going to lose a lot of customers.Belard - Tuesday, October 5, 2010 - link
Verizon does this to ALL their phones, for years.Oddly, at&t has sometimes copied the SONY UI style to other phones - in the past.