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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WiredWired - Sunday, October 31, 2010 - link
My mom just got this phone yesterday (better than her old Storm 1) so I've been doing some research. Click on one the preset bookmarks and let it load completely. Then go to your history. You'll see it listed with a star next to it indicating it's a bookmark. Click the star and BAM, no more bookmark!Having said that, yes, TOO MUCH BING. The mail program is too basic as well. It couldn't identify / guess the proper POP / SMTP settings for her Brighthouse email, whereas my Droid Incredible had no problems at all. While the SF may be on better hardware than the DInc, the software needs a lot of attention.
For example: Her phone came with NFS and Tetris. NOT from the Android store though. The phone was on full dev mode as well as set to allow apps to be installed from unknown sources. Looks like you have those apps on your phone as well. If you still have the phone, could you check to see if it's in dev mode and allows apps from unknown sources?
Only other comment is that the guys at the store insisted over and over that it had Android 2.2 already on the phone. Kind of a spur of the moment purchase for her, so I didn't do any research in advance. When I got to check it out, it had 2.1. Called the store, they INSISTED that it had been released weeks ago and would hit the phone soon. Checked Android forums and there's no release date. Best guess is that it may be released by the end of the month.
Sub-par phone interface + the rest = possibly returning the phone before the 30 day return policy is up to get the rumored DInc HD that may or may not be coming out in 3 weeks.
bankerdude - Friday, January 28, 2011 - link
Just purchased the Fascinate from Verizon this week (I know- I'm a late adopter. Had to wait for my contract to be up!) Anyhow, one of the first things the phone did after acticvation was download an OTA update and voila- the button lights now stay on as long as the screen. Really happy with the phone upgrade, coming from a Samsung Omnia running a cooked version of Winmo 6.1. Android is a great interface, even with 2.1!290008381 - Friday, January 4, 2013 - link
Does the Samsung Galaxy S take a SIM card and if so where does it go?