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
GPS on the Fascinate
I spent lots of time testing the Fascinate's GPS and unfortunately, performance was just as bad as I've heard it being on the other Galaxy S phones. It's really the entire line of device's achilles heel.
There are two real issues with the GPS - fix speed, and overall low SNR. I'll start with Fix speed.
I've seen the Fascinate get fast GPS fixes, and then 10 minutes later get extremely slow fixes. It's completely erratic, and there's no predictability to it. Right out of the box, I timed a whopping five minutes (even connected to WiFi) standing in my yard with a huge swath of visible sky.
Other times, the Fascinate gets GPS fixes quickly like any other modern smartphone - within seconds. At one point, I proclaimed to Anand that I was certain I had fixed the issue by disabling Verizon's location services - all my fixes that day took seconds. As we iChatted for the Apple 27" Cinema Display review, I tried to demonstrate my great success - and of course those fast fixes suddenly stopped. It seriously hasn't been fast since.
The other problem is fundamentally low SNR. Look at this shot, and guess which one the Fascinate is:
That's outside at night in a completely empty field with ideal sky visibility - no clouds, no rain, just cold air. Look at how many satellites the Fasciate has compared to an EVO 4G (right) and Nexus One (left).
Repeat the same thing in my office under a foot from a huge window:
This is the case indoors, outdoors, in the rain, daytime, nighttime, it doesn't matter - GPS is just poor on the Fascinate. The device is almost always at least 1 or more acquired satellites fewer, with slightly worse SNR being reported. It's small consolation that at least on Android we can have apps which read NMEA data so we can diagnose exactly what's going on.
Slow GPS fix times can probably be fixed with a software update. I've read differing reports that the Fascinate already has this fix applied - I can only hope the device I had didn't have it. Poor SNR and signal strength, however, is a problem no more fixable on the Fascinate and other Galaxy S phones than it is on the iPhone 4 - unless of course it's being reported incorrectly by the GPS receiver. I believe that GPS accuracy on the Fascinate isn't really as much of a concern when it takes minutes to get a GPS lock. Anything is better than nothing.
Until the GPS issues are fixed, using things like Google Navigation are downright frustrating. I've literally gone driving with the Fascinate, attempted to use Navigation, only to finally get a GPS lock after I'm 3/4ths of the way there and already looked it up on another smartphone-in-test I've got with me. It's frustrating and maddening to say the least.
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synaesthetic - Tuesday, October 19, 2010 - link
The A4 in the iPhone 4 is underclocked to ~800MHz. CPU performance vs. the iPad confirms this.Hodgins - Thursday, October 14, 2010 - link
Looks like a fine cellphone. But I still have one concern since I never used a SAMSUNG product before. Does the SAMSUNG company offer a platform like iTunes Store for people to download the free apps like those on iFunia? If that was not true, I would not think its a vrey smart move to buy it regardless of its gorgeous appearance.synaesthetic - Tuesday, October 19, 2010 - link
Android Market... ?benjamin7890 - Thursday, October 14, 2010 - link
I'm so happy with my new unlocked cell phones! This has an unbelievably fast processor, great feel and easy to text on. I used to own a unlocked htc phones, but I'm so much happier with my brand new unlocked samsung phones. This Samsung Fascinate is so much better for my business and pulls my email in so much faster. And I really couldn't be happier with it since it is an unlocked verizon phones and it's a unlocked 3g phones I can take it overseas. My family loves my new phone and can't get enough of the games. I'm going to purchase another one for my son for his birthday from gsmauthority.com. Definitely would recommend this phone.HamTyler - Friday, October 15, 2010 - link
Great review!Still, as it is admitted, having phones running 2.1 compared to 2.2 tends to bias the results a bit.
What would be nice is to have enough results to set up a data base and compare phones performance by selecting common criteria (such as OS, ROMs)
For example, I found this site that does just that with Caffeinemark benchmark :
http://www.flexycore.com/benchmark-database-access...
This company also has a product aimed at improving the performance of android phones (droidbooster), and set up this base so that one can see the benefit of it. But it's already a great kind of tools to compare ROMs for example.
krazyfrog87 - Sunday, October 17, 2010 - link
I did not like the way the camera comparison was conducted. The images were taken at different time of the day and in many of the images the subject wasn't even the same. How do you expect anyone to compare the quality of the images when the subject and lighting are so different?womensfashionroom - Tuesday, October 19, 2010 - link
Fashionable, stylish, trendy - at styledrops you'll find the perfect handbag for you! Italian Made Luxury - Discount Prices - 100% Authenticity Guaranteed site:bagonhandsynaesthetic - Tuesday, October 19, 2010 - link
I just recently acquired a Samsung Vibrant (since T-Mobile is my service provider), and this phone is pretty great. I went and flashed Bionix 1.9 with Jac's OC/UV/Voodoo kernel and this thing practically *flies...*... but I'm annoyed.
Verizon got the LED flash.
:(
Seriously, smartphone makers. Stop making phones without an LED flash on the camera.
agent88 - Tuesday, October 19, 2010 - link
I just purchased the Samsung Fascinate from Verizon but am concerned with the amount of RAM since it appears that the future version of Android (3.0) will require a minimum of 512mb of RAM to operate.On most sites, it states that the Fascinate phone has 512mb of RAM. However, when I go into the properties on the phone it displays only 325mb for the total.
What is the real total memory for the Fascinate? Samsung on the galaxy comparison page hides the Fascinates memory specs however it displays them for the Epic 4G and Captivate phones. So I am not sure if it really has 512mb of RAM, or if it's pre-allocated to the operating system or if it's a unified architecture where the GPU shares the memory. Can someone please clarify?
Also, how does this compare with the Droid X?
Please help!
jeans_xp - Wednesday, October 20, 2010 - link
Galaxy S as a SAMSUNG star phone in 2010, the high point is the AMOLED. Now SAMSUNG is the only company who fabricate AMOLED. For more information in website: www.mobilegoing.com