{"id":3116,"date":"2011-08-12T15:45:48","date_gmt":"2011-08-12T20:45:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcitement.com\/?p=3116"},"modified":"2011-08-22T11:01:16","modified_gmt":"2011-08-22T16:01:16","slug":"techcitement-reviews-samsung-droid-charge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/column\/techcitement-reviews-samsung-droid-charge\/","title":{"rendered":"Techcitement Review: Samsung Droid Charge"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Samsung Droid Charge is the hottest phone in Verizon\u2019s current lineup. Or at least, it had better be, with a $300 price tag even with a contract.<\/p>\n

Even though I was anticipating a chance to play with this phone, which has a tremendous 4.3\u201d display on a black slab and silver border, the build quality is a bit disappointing. After looking at the Samsung Gala<\/a>xy Tab 10.1<\/a> 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\u2019s a false impression, as I learned from a combination of the toddler test and one accidental drop test. There\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>But even more amazing is Verizon\u2019s 4G LTE network. It\u2019s 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\u2019d be swapping my DSL for an LTE mobile hotspot.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t 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\u2019s Nexus branded handsets. I\u2019d find that acceptable if Samsung had a better custom UI.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, I find Samsung\u2019s 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\u2019t stand the layout of the four fixed icons at the bottom. Google Voice means I don\u2019t need the messaging app, and I usually access my contacts from the phone app, so I don\u2019t 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\u2019s placement of the drawer in the center, with the phone on one side and the browser on the other.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Call quality was excellent and reception has been strong everywhere I\u2019ve tested it. That applies to both 4G LTE in areas with coverage and 3G in more outlying regions.<\/p>\n

Battery life is the Charge\u2019s biggest weakness. I found myself topping off at every opportunity. LTE is a huge power drain, to the point where charging from a computer\u2019s USB port wasn\u2019t fast enough. That\u2019s just using it for calls, web, and apps. Use the Charge for GPS and you\u2019re going to run out of power fast, even while plugged in. I recommend turning off LTE when not in use. Unfortunately, that\u2019s not a built in option, but you can install an LTE switch from the market. It\u2019s free and handles the job nicely. With no LTE, battery life was greatly improved.<\/p>\n

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\u2019re not talking things with high level graphics here, I\u2019m talking casual games like Plants Vs Zombies<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Having \"\"<\/a>4.3\u201d screens make for truly huge phones. The Charge isn\u2019t really a great phone for your pocket, but if you carry a purse or don\u2019t mind the holster look, it\u2019s light enough to feel comfortable. And it\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

As great as the Charge is, I\u2019m not sure you can call it at all future proof. It launched with an outdated version of the Android OS and hasn\u2019t been updated quickly, which doesn\u2019t leave me overwhelmingly confident for the future. This is especially true given Samsung\u2019s record with upgrades for the Galaxy S series. Even more problematic is the Charge\u2019s single-core processor. It\u2019s pretty standard for this year\u2019s hardware, and the processor choice is not at all surprising given that prior to version 3.0 Honeycomb, Android didn\u2019t fully support dual-core. That means even potentially more powerful phones like the Motorola Atrix 4G aren\u2019t performing much better than their single-core brethren. With 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich likely coming before the end of the year, that\u2019s expected to change. If you want the best performance in the long run, dual-core is going to be important.<\/p>\n

The Charge\u2019s bootloader isn\u2019t completely unlocked, like the Nexus phones, but it\u2019s not terribly locked down, either. If you\u2019re 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<\/a>, but there are others with good reputations. ROM Manager<\/a> should have a list of available options.<\/p>\n

Despite my reservations about its long-term future, the Charge is an outstanding device. If you\u2019re looking for a new phone today, you won\u2019t find many better options. Especially if you want access to Verizon\u2019s blazing fast 4G LTE network.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Samsung Droid Charge is the hottest phone in Verizon\u2019s 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\u201d display on a black slab and silver border, the build […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":3117,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71,1085],"tags":[133,898,1035,242,560,132,421,61,993,67],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3116"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3116"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3132,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3116\/revisions\/3132"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}