Techcitement Review: Samsung Droid Charge

The Samsung Droid Charge is the hottest phone in Verizon’s current lineup. Or at least, it had better be, with a $300 price tag even with a contract.

Even though I was anticipating a chance to play with this phone, which has a tremendous 4.3” display on a black slab and silver border, the build quality is a bit disappointing. After looking at the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 I had high hopes, but the Charge confirms Samsung’s reputation for devices with a plasticky feel. The Charge has a slick back with almost no texture for grip and feels really light for its size, which gives it a feeling of fragility. Fortunately, that’s a false impression, as I learned from a combination of the toddler test and one accidental drop test. There’s a volume rocker and micro-USB port on the left, power button and mini-HDMI (with a cover) on the right, and a headphone jack on top.

Where the Nexus S has the contour display, with the screen curved to hug the face, the Charge is curved in the opposite direction, with a sort of reverse chin over the speaker. This odd shape means the phone is thicker at the bottom than the top and is tilted slightly away from you when resting on a flat surface. The chin is also thickest at the center, so the phone wobbles a bit when you put it down. All of this adds to the generally plastic feel of the phone, and nothing about the chin adds anything functional that I can tell.

The Charge has a nice set of features, including a pre-installed 32 GB micro-SD card, front and rear facing cameras, and the popular Swype keyboard. But there are two killer features that make me wish this was my phone instead of a review unit. The first is the Super AMOLED Plus display. It has incredibly bright colors, sharp details, and is almost unbelievably viewable even in direct sunlight.

But even more amazing is Verizon’s 4G LTE network. It’s fast. Almost ridiculously fast. I stopped using WiFi once I realized LTE was much faster. Samsung included their Media Hub app for renting and purchasing movies and TV episodes, and a 1.04 GB movie downloaded in less than 15 minutes. If the pricing were better, I’d be swapping my DSL for an LTE mobile hotspot.

I can’t really get behind the software the Charge is running on. The phone uses Android 2.2 Froyo, which was replaced by 2.3 Gingerbread over eight months ago. Android devices running on old versions is nothing new, thanks to the custom user interfaces on basically all Android phones other than Google’s Nexus branded handsets. I’d find that acceptable if Samsung had a better custom UI.

Unfortunately, I find Samsung’s TouchWiz to be the least beneficial of the three major contenders. The cartoon-like icons and widgets are a waste of the gorgeous screen, the side scrolling app drawer is inefficient, and I can’t stand the layout of the four fixed icons at the bottom. Google Voice means I don’t need the messaging app, and I usually access my contacts from the phone app, so I don’t need both permanently on my home screen. And where did Samsung get the idea that people want the app drawer in the bottom right corner? I much prefer stock Android’s placement of the drawer in the center, with the phone on one side and the browser on the other.

TouchWiz does bring one nice thing to the table. In the notification shade, you get a widget with quick toggles for commonly used features like WiFi and Bluetooth. For the rest, the Android Market has plenty of great home screen replacements, like ADW.Launcher.

Samsung does a much better job on cameras. The 8 MP camera takes excellent photos for a smartphone, and the 720p video recording looks good too. The front facing camera also produced extremely good results for video chat.

Call quality was excellent and reception has been strong everywhere I’ve tested it. That applies to both 4G LTE in areas with coverage and 3G in more outlying regions.

Battery life is the Charge’s biggest weakness. I found myself topping off at every opportunity. LTE is a huge power drain, to the point where charging from a computer’s USB port wasn’t fast enough. That’s just using it for calls, web, and apps. Use the Charge for GPS and you’re going to run out of power fast, even while plugged in. I recommend turning off LTE when not in use. Unfortunately, that’s not a built in option, but you can install an LTE switch from the market. It’s free and handles the job nicely. With no LTE, battery life was greatly improved.

The Charge is an extremely fast device, handling almost any operation smoothly and without stuttering. It does seem to have some stability issues, however. I had multiple crashes while playing full-screen games. We’re not talking things with high level graphics here, I’m talking casual games like Plants Vs Zombies.

Having 4.3” screens make for truly huge phones. The Charge isn’t really a great phone for your pocket, but if you carry a purse or don’t mind the holster look, it’s light enough to feel comfortable. And it’s a worthwhile trade-off for the usability that goes along with a big screen. Typing in portrait mode is actually practical, which is unusual for me on a virtual keyboard.

As great as the Charge is, I’m not sure you can call it at all future proof. It launched with an outdated version of the Android OS and hasn’t been updated quickly, which doesn’t leave me overwhelmingly confident for the future. This is especially true given Samsung’s record with upgrades for the Galaxy S series. Even more problematic is the Charge’s single-core processor. It’s pretty standard for this year’s hardware, and the processor choice is not at all surprising given that prior to version 3.0 Honeycomb, Android didn’t fully support dual-core. That means even potentially more powerful phones like the Motorola Atrix 4G aren’t performing much better than their single-core brethren. With 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich likely coming before the end of the year, that’s expected to change. If you want the best performance in the long run, dual-core is going to be important.

The Charge’s bootloader isn’t completely unlocked, like the Nexus phones, but it’s not terribly locked down, either. If you’re looking to hack your phone, the Charge has been rooted, and custom ROMs are available. While not my favorite, you can choose the popular CyanogenMod, but there are others with good reputations. ROM Manager should have a list of available options.

Despite my reservations about its long-term future, the Charge is an outstanding device. If you’re looking for a new phone today, you won’t find many better options. Especially if you want access to Verizon’s blazing fast 4G LTE network.