As a novice Android user, i took the leap of faith and went for Captivate a.k.a Galaxy S.
Here is my first ever review. 'Bhul chuk maaf karna' (Please pardon my mistakes). Its gonna be a long one, so grab some popcorn.
Got Captivate from AT&T as an upgrade phone. Device cost was nil. Will be paying $65/month including data plan for 2 years. I already have iphone 4, so didn't want another iphone, decided to go open source
The phone in hand is big and quite thin compared to x10 or iphone 4. Has gorgeous 4 inch super AMOLED screen. Came preloaded with android 2.1. No idea when we will get official 2.2. Quality is very good. Have used Samsung phones before like Solstice, Mythic. This is much much better. Feels truly premium.
Has a 1GHz hummingbird processor which is quite fast and gets things done in a jiffy. Speaker is at the back so the volume seems less but when I hold in a cup shape the volume of speaker increases.
Call quality is very good, no drops, no network congestion problem. I tried putting iphone 4 and GS at same place at my home wherein i get 2 signal on iphone 4 and 4 signal bar on GS. Both are in case.
I removed all the ATT crap from the phone by rooting. Good riddance. Felt the phone starts much faster and is more responsive because of less running apps. Browser is very good and there are plenty of additional browser in market. I am using Dolphin browser.
If i have to compare screens of iphone 4 and GS, i would say both are very good, when reading text, GS needs a 1x zoom which is not required in iphone 4, apart from that, GS leads all the way in videos especially and screen size. More area to work on.
Started exploring options and i must say even though number of apps in android market is less compared to app store, i found plenty of apps useful in market than app store of iphone 4. And most of them are free which is one big advantage. This is just official android market. Picture in appbrain and its even more mind blowing. The most imp app i came across is remote notifier. Its a blessing in disguise for me as i have a habit of leaving phone anywhere so if someone calls i miss the calls. Not any longer, i see notification in my laptop which is super cool.
The video quality is awesome. What's even better is drag and drop of video. I have dvd rips and 720p videos and it plays without any problems. No conversion, no transferring to a software, just drag and drop on the phone. 16gb memory is good, can add 32 gb memory card making it a whopping 48gb. Song quality is good, though on normal equalizer, bass is lacking. But some minor tweaks and it sounds good. Love the Live wallpaper concept. Its too good a timepass. I also like how the wallpaper moves with the different home screens.
Swype is awesome. Its definitely revolutionary in terms of input. Also like how patterns have to be formed to unlock the fone. Its cool. Love the notification bar at the top.
I love how it comes pre installed with office suite, adobe reader and flash. Makes life so simple
Some negatives:
- the four touch buttons are pain in arse. They don't stay lit long and sometimes doesn't react to my press.
- Battery life is average. Last a day and half with games, wifi-3g, calls. Take too long to charge too.
- And a very unique secured browsing problem wherein i am not able to use wi-fi of my school. Everywhere else the wi-fi works good but not at my school where i get an error about unverified certificate and data connectivity error.
- Its kinda irritating that to unlock the phone, i have to press the power button to get to the unlock screen, no other buttons does anything else.
Overall, its a true iphone 4 competitor and i am loving every minute of it.
Sorry for the long post. It was long over due.
Comments and suggestion are welcome.