The Galaxy Note is Samsung’s real flagship device for the close of 2011. It makes the Samsung Galaxy Nexus look a little middle of the road. While the Nexus has solid higher end specs, the Note goes for broke with the best of everything Samsung has to offer: a 1280 x 800 pixel Super AMOLED HD display, the fastest version yet of their very fast Exynos dual core CPU and a dual digitizer that supports both capacitive multi-touch and a Wacom pen. But it’s big; the phone has a whopping 5.3″ display, and though Samsung does their usual magic to make it supremely thin and light, it’s still big. I’ve owned a Dell Streak, a phablet (phone/tablet) with a 5″ display, so I can tolerate large smartphones. The Note is more portable but it still makes the Galaxy Nexus with its 4.65″ display seem compact. The Galaxy Nexus is at the large end of the mainstream spectrum given this year’s big phone theme. The Galaxy Note is for those with big pockets, literally and figuratively. While it actually does fit in my pockets, the price tag is steep because it’s currently available only as an unlocked GSM phone from importers. You can use any GSM carrier’s SIM card, but you’ll pay the price: around $650 to $750.

That’s equal to or $100 more expensive than the Verizon version of the Galaxy Nexus without contract ($650) and about the same as the import Galaxy Nexus. Mind you, the phone will work on T-Mobile and AT&T, and you’ll even get 3G/4G HSPA+ 21Mbps on AT&T, but it won’t work on Verizon and Sprint who use CDMA rather than GSM. I’m using it on AT&T with my standard postpaid 4G data plan and it works great. If you’re on T-Mobile US, you’ll only get 2G for data as well as voice service over GSM.

Like all Samsung smartphones, the Note is very thin and light, and it’s made of plastic. It’s attractive though not high end chic looking, and it fits in the hand and pocket better than you might think. Two disclaimers: I have very large hands for a woman and I don’t wear tight jeans with tiny pockets often. If your hands are small or your attire more trendy than mine, you might find the Galaxy Note is just too big. If you think the Samsung Galaxy Nexus is too large, forget about the Note. This is a big phone, folks.

Our phone is a Euro import, and Samsung describes it as blue, and that means the back cover is a very, very dark blue that generally looks black. The button configuration is pure Samsung: the power button is on the upper right just across from the volume rocker, so it’s easy to accidentally hit both. The headphone jack is up top, and the pen silo and micro USB port are on the bottom. The speaker fires from the lower rear section, and the microSD card slot is under the battery cover.

AT&T Samsung Galaxy Note is Coming

Given the cellular band match-up, it’s no surprise that AT&T announced at the CES trade show on January 9, 2012 that they’ll be selling the Note with LTE 4G. We suspect the AT&T version will drop the insanely fast 1.4GHz Exynos CPU for the LTE-friendly 1.5GHz Qualcomm S3 dual core CPU as they did with the Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket on AT&T. Our international unlocked Note is quad band GSM with EDGE, and it works on AT&T’s 3G and 4G HSPA+ 21Mb network (both 850 and 1900MHz bands), so it works fine for calls and texts as well as fast data. Why the switch to Qualcomm? Likely because it interfaces better with LTE radios.

Samsung Galaxy Note Video Review

Here’s our 28 minute in-depth Samsung Galaxy Nexus Video Review:

Display

The phone’s insanely high resolution 1280 x 800 pixel Super AMOLED HD display is easy on the eyes. Android does a good job of scaling UI elements so you won’t need a magnifying glass to see things. After all, 1280 x 800 is the standard resolution for 10″ Android tablets and select higher end 7″ tablets. All those pixels make for supremely sharp text and plenty of detail when viewing high res photos and video. The display uses a Pentile matrix, but we didn’t notice telltale color fringing or jaggy text thanks to the very high resolution. Super AMOLED displays tend to have a blue color cast, but Samsung clearly went with the best display panel they could design, and calibrated colors for nearly neutral tones. Our phone showed no banding when viewing blacks.

The Galaxy Note has a Wacom dual digitizer, and that means it has both capacitive multi-touch and an included S Pen that works with the active digitizer. It’s much more precise and fluid for drawing vs. a capacitive stylus and it supports 256 levels of pressure sensitivity, which artists will love. Samsung ships the phone with several pen-aware apps and there are more in Samsung’s download portal on the phone. If an app isn’t pen-savvy, you’re out of luck. Adobe Reader doesn’t support use of the pen, for example, but there are third party PDF apps that do. Given the Note’s size and pen, it actually feels like a real note pad replacement: nice. The pen stows in a silo located on the bottom edge of the phone. If you’re looking for a pocket digital sketchbook or note pad, the Galaxy Note does the job perfectly.

Performance and Horsepower

It’s no secret that Samsung’s dual core Exynos CPU is one of the fastest mobile CPUs available. The Galaxy Note currently has the highest clocked Exynos, and it runs at 1.4GHz (same as the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7 Plus tablet). The Note benchmarks higher than all other Android smartphones and tablets we’ve tested so far (even faster than the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime overall). Here are the numbers:

Quadrant 4088
AnTuTu 6468
Linpack multi-thread: 105
Sunspider 1920

How about perceived performance? The phone feels very fast, though we noticed occasional micro-lag when navigating the home screen and launcher. The Note does run the latest version of Samsung’s TouchWiz UI, which may weigh down the phone a bit, but we actually like what Samsung has done with TouchWiz, so we won’t complain. The Galaxy Note has no trouble playing HD video including 720p to the internal panel and 1080p to the internal panel and an HD TV via MHL adapter (not included but you can pick one up at carrier stores for $20).

The smartphone runs Android OS 2.3 Gingerbread with a promised upgrade to Android OS 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. It has a gig of RAM and 16 gigs of internal storage plus an available microSD card slot under the battery cover.

How fast will the AT&T version be with the likely 1.5GHz dual core Qualcomm CPU? Given the Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket’s performance running the Qualcomm, it should be quite good though not as fast as Exynos. Will you notice the speed difference? Probably not so much, but we’ll reserve final judgment when we receive the AT&T version for testing.

Phone and Data

The Samsung Galaxy Note is sold in the US as an unlocked import quad band GSM world phone. It has 3G and 4G HSPA+ 21Mbps on the 850/900/1900/2100MHz bands, and that means you’ll get 3G/4G HSPA+ overseas and on AT&T but not T-Mobile in the US. Our download speeds on AT&T averaged 6Mbps down and 1.3Mbps up according to the Speedtest.net app, which is average for HSPA+ AT&T phones in our area. That’s plenty fast for responsive web page downloads and app downloads from the Android Market. I don’t miss LTE when using the phone itself, but when using the mobile hotspot feature I would prefer LTE (and thus waiting for the AT&T version with LTE).

As a voice phone, the Galaxy Note is wonderful. It has very clear incoming and outgoing voice and better than average volume. Samsung’s Galaxy S II phones have had very good voice overall, and the Note takes it up a notch better vs. the Galaxy S II and Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket on AT&T. The phone likewise sounded good with a variety of Bluetooth headsets like the Jawbone 2 and Motorola H730 as well as our BMW built-in Bluetooth.

Camera and Multimedia

The Samsung Note uses the same 8 megapixel rear main camera module as the Galaxy S II phones, and it takes colorful and sharp photos as well as pleasing though not groundbreaking 1080p video. The camera is prone to overexposure in high contrast brightly lit outdoor settings, just as with the S II, but otherwise we have no complaints. Indoor photos show relatively little noise, and the flash doesn’t overexpose subjects at close range. 1080p video looks smooth at 30fps, and has a good amount of detail and color saturation, though there’s some motion blockiness typical of camera phones. The 2 megapixel front camera worked well with Google Talk video chat and Skype in our tests. We looked clear with good illumination over HSPA+ and WiFi.

For such a large phone, you’d think there would be room for some serious stereo speakers. Instead the Note has a decent mono speaker that’s decently loud but not louder than the pack of 4.5″ and above smartphones. Sound is reasonably full but you’ll want to plug in a set of headphones for best audio quality, or stream to Bluetooth speakers. The phone has a 3.5mm jack and an FM radio with RDS.

WiFi and Connections

The Samsung has WiFi 802.11b/g/n with average reception for a smartphone and it has Bluetooth 3.0 + HS. You get Kies Air syncing over WiFi and WiFi Direct as well as DLNA for streaming media. HDMI out comes via an optional MHL adapter that plugs into the phone’s micro USB port. The phone can mount as a standard mass storage device (thankfully for Mac users), and it can do Samsung’s Kies syncing over USB and WiFi to Windows machines plus MTP. Samsung says the micro USB port supports USB Host (with a USB host cable, aka USB OTG cable). We checked with our trusty USB host cable, but couldn’t get this feature to work with flash drives, hard drives, keyboards or mice.

The phone has a GPS with A-GPS and Glonass (the Russian GPS satellite system), and it ships with the usual Google Maps, Navigation and Places. The Note quickly found our location indoors and proved a trustworthy companion for in-car navigation. The Galaxy Note has a digital compass.

Battery Life

You’re thinking: big screen, really fast CPU and HSPA+, battery life must stink. But battery life is actually competitive with other HSPA+ smartphones currently on the market. It helps that the phone has a large 2500 mAh Lithium Ion battery, and that Samsung’s CPU is very good at power savings.

Samsung does go a little overboard with the display power management, and there’s an option that’s turned on by default that adapts backlight to colors currently displayed (all Galaxy S II smartphones have this feature). That means light and white backgrounds trigger power management to further dim the display and web pages can look a bit too dim. Likewise, the ambient light sets the display too dim for my tastes, rendering it useless indoors. It does do a good job of increasing brightness to combat outdoor light, however.

Conclusion

The Samsung Galaxy Note is the best Android smartphone of 2011. It has a superb display running at an extremely high resolution, a very useful Wacom digitizer with pen for pressure sensitive writing and drawing and a very fast dual core CPU. It’s thin, attractive and though very large, can still fit in a pocket as well as medium to large hands.

Voice quality for calls is excellent whether using the handset or a Bluetooth headset, HSPA+ speeds are very good and the GPS is solid. There’s really nothing we don’t like about the phone, but it is too expensive and too large for some. AT&T’s version with LTE should be a phone to watch, and it will be much more affordable with a contract option.

Source: MobileTechReview.com

Samsung’s first US Windows Phone, the Samsung Focus on AT&T was a fast phone even with the first gen 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU. The Focus S is faster, and more importantly, it has improved battery life because the second gen Snapdragon CPU is much more efficient. How nice to not have to worry whether your phone will make it through the day with moderate to heavy use. It will. The Focus S has a 1650 mAh Lithium Ion battery and a power frugal 4.3″ Super AMOLED Plus display. As you’d expect from a Super AMOLED Plus display, blacks are inky and colors are hyper-saturated, and there’s a slight blue color tint that’s noticeable on white backgrounds.

Design and Ergonomics

The good news and bad news is that the Focus S is a near dead ringer for the Samsung Galaxy S II. That’s good because the phone is absurdly light and very thin, and the GS II has been extremely well received. The bad news is it feels too light (if that’s possible) and it’s typical Samsung plastics with not a hint of metal or high quality finishes. At 3.9 ounces, the Focus S is lighter than the smaller and cheaper Samsung Focus Flash (3.7″ display), and the battery door is paper-thin. The phone is exquisitely thin at 0.33″, but that thinness combined with the gloss sides makes it easy to drop. I rarely drop phones but have found myself one juggle away from disaster several times with the Focus S. Get a case with a grippy texture.

As per usual with Samsung, the power button is on the upper right side and the volume controls are almost directly across on the left hand side. Happily, Samsung dropped the volume controls just a bit lower than the power button so one doesn’t accidentally press the opposing button when gripping the phone to turn it on or change volume. The 3.5mm stereo jack is up top and the micro USB port for charging and syncing with the Zune desktop client is at the bottom. The phone has dual mics for noise cancelling, with one on the top edge and one on the bottom edge. The speaker fires out the rear and has moderate volume and fullness, but it can’t compete with the amazingly loud and full HTC Titan speaker that can literally fill a room.

Samsung Focus S Video Review

Calling and Data

The smartphone has HSPA+, which AT&T calls 4G, and download speeds were typical of the lower range of HSPA+. Our phone averaged 3-4.7 Mbps for downloads and 1 Mbps up using the phone itself and when using a laptop and the mobile hotspot feature, which is the same as the Titan but slower than the 3.5-6 Mbps down and 1.2 Mbps up we get with AT&T’s HSPA+ Android phones. Why? No idea.

The Samsung Focus S has the mobile hotspot feature, something we sorely missed on first gen Windows Phone 7 handsets. Call quality is excellent and reception is average. Call recipients said we sounded landline clear, and incoming voice had average volume with excellent clarity. The phone worked well with our Jawbone headset and our car’s built-in Bluetooth.

Windows Phone, Zune Multimedia, IE 9 and XBOX Gaming

Standard for Windows Phone, you get the very capable and attractive Zune music and video player that syncs to your desktop (Zune client in Windows, Mac Windows Phone Connector that syncs to iTunes on Macs running OS X). There’s 16 gigs of internal storage with 14 gigs available for your use, and there’s no expansion slot. After the ruckus over the microSD card slot on the original Focus, I doubt we’ll see any Windows Phones with card slots until the OS supports it in a more user-friendly fashion.

The Metro UI is all about elegance and simplicity. In fact, it’s downright calming–think of it as the Chamomile tea of operating systems. If iOS is too closed for your tastes and Android too unfocused, Windows Phone falls somewhere in between, and is closer to iOS in terms of ease of use and presenting a structured experience.

That’s not to say the OS is boring. It’s not, and you’ve got XBOX Live games with a healthy selection of high quality games to get your blood pumping. XBOX gaming and Zune music are the centerpieces of Windows Phone. Funny for a company that brought us the all business Windows Mobile phones of old. But there’s meat for business types here with solid MS Exchange support and Microsoft’s mobile version of their Office suite (view/edit/create docs).

IE 9 (mobile) does a good job of rendering websites, though we still don’t rank it as highly as the standard Android and iPhone web browsers. It gets 95% of CSS and formatting right, but once in a while we’ll notice a font that’s not sized properly (MS errs on the side of making fonts too large so things stay readable), or an image that extends beyond its intended column. Though IE 9 doesn’t break any Sunspider JavaScript tests (the Samsung Focus S scored 6250, while the iPhone 4S scored twice as fast), in real world use, the Focus S downloaded and rendered websites as quickly as our iPhone 4S and Samsung Galaxy S II. That’s a marked improvement over the original Samsung Focus and the HTC HD7S on AT&T. Sorry, there’s no Adobe Flash Player on board, but now that Adobe has announced the untimely demise of mobile Flash Player development in favor of HTML5 tools, that will fade in importance.

Windows phone manufacturers can create their own Hub or tile and a selection in the Marketplace for free downloadable apps. HTC and Samsung have the largest apps selections, and both offer note apps, photo editors and more. Samsung includes their Now app, which is a combo of Accuweather, Yahoo news, stocks and top tweets by country. They have a downloadable photo editor, RSS reader (a Google Reader client), MiniDiary (similar to the Android app, a cute diary app for photos, notes and voice recordings), a social network photo sharing app and more.

Audio

Given Windows Phone’s music focus, we’re surprised that the speaker wasn’t a bit louder and more audacious. The HTC Titan’s speaker is simply amazing in comparison, while the Samsung’s is solid but not impressive. Sound quality through the 3.5mm stereo jack is good, though we did notice some audio popping when using amplified connections like car and home stereos. We didn’t hear any popping using headphones or wired headsets. The phone works with Bluetooth stereo headphones and speakers, and audio quality through Bluetooth to speakers was very good.

Camera

Microsoft greatly improved their camera software in Mango, and there are lots of shutterbug options like autofocus mode (normal, macro), white balance, saturation, effects and EV. Happily, Samsung improved the imaging hardware too, and the Focus S’ camera is much better than that of the original Samsung Focus. It’s the same hardware as the Galaxy S II and it features an 8 megapixel camera with an illuminated backlit sensor and a fast lens. The S II does beat the Focus S for maximum recording resolution (1080p vs. 720p) because 1080p video recording requires a dual core CPU.

Photos are very colorful and sharp, with generally good exposure. There’s some whiteout in bright outdoor scenes, but it’s actually a little less than on the Galaxy S II. Windows Phones compress photos and videos less, and this leads to better quality, though the files are a bit larger than on Android phones and iOS. You can sync photos using Zune or the Mac desktop connector that syncs to iPhoto, and you can upload photos and videos manually or automatically to Microsoft’s SkyDrive services. You can also share via messaging, Hotmail, email, Twitter, Facebook and Evernote. As a camera phone, both the Samsung Focus S and the 8 megapixel HTC Titan do a good job.

 

Conclusion

It’s hard to not like a smartphone with serious Samsung Galaxy S II DNA when married to the elegant and enjoyable Windows Phone Mango OS. The display is lovely and Samsung’s Super AMOLED technology makes those colorful Live Tiles pop. The phone is fast; in fact it’s extremely fast. That’s a testament to Microsoft’s optimization for second gen single core Qualcomm CPUs and the added benefit is better than average battery life compared to other smartphone platforms. The Focus S easily lasts through the day, even with heavy use. Call quality is top notch and reception is good. The camera takes very pleasing and sharp photos and good 720p video. Our only complaints are the plasticky build and extreme slipperiness of the phone: get a case.

Source

Display

Sprint, like T-Mobile, has stretched the Euro Galaxy S II display from 4.3 to 4.5 inches. Bigger is better in America we suppose, but that does make the phone harder to hold despite its thinness. We love movies and photos on the bigger screen, but navigating icons and text in the OS and apps is a bit of a let down because Samsung went with the more pedestrian 800 x 480 resolution rather than the new high end standard qHD 960 x 540 like the HTC Sensation 4G and Motorola Droid Bionic. Icons look comically large and menu text is larger than necessary unless you have poor vision that’s not well corrected with glasses.  Other than resolution, it’s hard not to love the Super AMOLED Plus display with its better than life super-saturated colors and high contrast. Samsung offers 3 saturation levels under display settings so you can crank up those colors even more (ouch) or tone it down just a little for more natural colors. The phone is viewable outdoors, but washes out and isn’t as easy to see as the iPhone 4 or Droid Bionic.

Android and TouchWiz

The Epic 4G Touch runs Android OS 2.3.4 Gingerbread with Samsung TouchWiz 3.0 (according to Samsung’s specs page, that’s the version number) software that’s evolved since 3.0 since its release many months ago. There are HTC Sense-like touches here, including a carousel view of home screens (though not 3D), and the strange square backgrounds imposed on application icons is gone.  The widgets are mostly the same, and are in general useful.

Performance: Fastest Phone Ever

Along with the stunning and huge Super AMOLED Plus display, Samsung’s own dual core 1.2GHz Exynos CPU with hardware graphics acceleration is the star here. This is the fastest mobile CPU in a shipping phone, and it blows the socks off others by a wide margin. In the Quadrant benchmark, a score of 2,000 is pretty darned good for a dual core 1GHz CPU. The Epic 4G Touch scores 3,100-3,300. Wow.  It averages 78 in Linpack’s multi-thread test, which is well above the top performers that manage scrores in the upper 50’s to mid 60’s. Does the phone feel fast? Absolutely. There’s no waiting when working with the camera, the web browser renders so quickly it makes up for our sometimes slow data connections and games run flawlessly. NOVA 2 HD, a game whose controls are sometimes difficult, suddenly became fluid—we are talking fast phone here. The only drawback? Since the phone doesn’t run on the Nvidia Tegra 2, you won’t be able to play Tegra Zone games.

Samsung Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch Video Review

Design and Ergonomics

From the front, the Epic 4G Touch looks like every other slim slab phone on the market, including Samsung’s many other successful Android slate phones. It’s remarkably thin at 0.38” and impossibly light; Samsung is a master of featherweight phones and tablets. The drawback? Plastics abound, and though Samsung has moved away from the fingerprint loving piano black plastic, we’ve got a textured bland matte black back instead on this 4.6 ounce wonderphone. It just doesn’t scream quality the way a high end HTC phone does, but then HTC phones use metal unibody designs and are heavier.

The wafer-thin back cover peels off to reveal an ample 1800 mAh Lithium Ion battery and a hot-swappable microSD card slot (no card is included since the phone has 16 gigs of internal storage). Typical of Samsung, the power button is on the upper right side and the volume controls are on the upper left. This means that it’s easy to accidentally hit the opposing button, and it’s easy to squeeze one or both buttons when pulling the phone out of a slip case, pocket or purse. The 3.5mm stereo headphone jack is up top, and the mono speaker is on the back near the bottom.

The phone has capacitive front Android buttons and these are large enough to be easy to use, but not so large that we accidentally pressed them. The 5.1 x 2.74 inch phone looks like it should weigh your pocket down, but it’s absurdly light at 4.6 ounces. We actually checked to make sure the battery was inserted after pulling it out of the box—it’s that light.

Calling and Data

The Samsung Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch has 3G EV-DO Rev. A and 4G WiMAX. In our area of the Dallas metroplex, WiMAX isn’t strong, so we spent most of our time on 3G. Outdoors on 4G, we managed an average of 2.5 to 3Mbps down and 1Mbps up according to the Speedtest.net app. That’s not terribly impressive, but if you’re in a strong WiMAX coverage area, then you’ll likely see numbers closer to 10Mbps down. On 3G we averaged 460k down and 434k up, and that’s standard fare for Sprint in our area, though it pains us to see such a high end phone hobbled by a slow data connection. As with 4G WiMAX speeds, much depends on your location, so if you usually see better numbers with your current Sprint phone, you’ll see better numbers with the Samsung.

Reception is average on 1xRTT and 3G EV-DO, but less impressive for WiMAX. Perhaps Samsung is throttling WiMAX’s radio power since it’s a battery-hungry technology. 4G reception isn’t terrible, but when we compared it to our Motorola Photon 4G, the Samsung had weaker signals (Moto tends to produce excellent RF phones).

Call quality is very clear with plenty of volume. Our call recipients couldn’t tell we were on a cell phone, and we enjoyed crisp, clear and full incoming voice. The speakerphone is reasonably loud when set to higher volumes (the last few notches make for serious volume jumps), but the speaker sounds tinny for calls, though fairly full for music playback.

Multimedia and Software Bundle

The Samsung Epic 4G Touch has absolutely no trouble with Adobe Flash thanks to its extremely fast CPU and GPU. Flash Player controls are usable without the usual balking and pauses we see on many other smartphones. Playing HD media that’s stored locally is also a breeze and Samsung’s Media Hub is on board for Movie and TV show rentals. Sprint’s TV and music services are here as well, along with the usual bevvy of apps like NASCAR, TeleNav and Sprint ID. You’ll also get the standard Android apps including the Android Market, YouTube, email, Gmail, Search, Maps and Navigation.

Camera

The Samsung Galaxy S II has an excellent camera, and Sprint’s version is no exception. The 8 megapixel rear camera with LED flash takes some of the best photos you’ll see from a US 8 megapixel camera phone, and it can shoot 1080p that’s decently sharp with some motion blockiness.  Indoor photos are particularly impressive with low noise and excellent colors even in low light. Outdoor shots are crisp but not too harshly sharpened, and have plenty of color with good accuracy.

Battery Life

The phone comes with an 1,800 mAh Lithium Ion battery, and that’s a high capacity battery by smartphone standards. The phone needs it to power that very fast CPU and 4G WiMAX. In our tests, when in a 4G coverage area with 4G turned on, the phone lasted through a full work day on a charge with moderate use (9-10 hours). If you stream video, use the GPS for long trips or use the mobile hotspot feature, you’ll get much less, and a spare battery should be on your wish list.

Conclusion

It’s easy to recommend the Samsung Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch, even if you’ll dread telling your friends your new phone’s full name. It’s incredibly fast, extremely slim and has Samsung’s winning Super AMOLED Plus display. If you’re in a good WiMAX coverage area, you’ll revel in solid 4G speeds, and if you’re in a 3G-only area—well, you’ll get average Sprint 3G speeds and enjoy longer battery life. Speaking of battery life, the Samsung manages better than average 4G battery life, in part thanks to the high capacity standard battery. Our only complaints? It’s a plasticky phone (though solid) and we really wish it had a qHD display. The phone is large thanks to the 4.5” display—keep that in mind if you have small hands or small pockets.

Price: $199 with a 2 year contract

We’re a little surprised that the Conquer 4G doesn’t use Samsung’s 1GHz Hummingbird CPU. Instead it has a 1GHz second generation Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU with Adreno 205 graphics. That’s a fast and competent CPU, though it won’t run circles around dual core CPUs (hey, the phone is only $99). It handled Sprint ID packs, Sprint TV, Adobe Flash Player 10.3 and 3D gaming just fine. But some higher end games that are designed for 800 x 480 pixel displays may not run on this HVGA 320 x 480, 3.5″ capacitive display. Speaking of the display, it’s a run of the mill LCD that’s serviceable but lacks Samsung’s Super AMOLED color saturation and the clarity of higher resolution displays. You’ll have to zoom more in web pages due to the low resolution display, and both photos and fonts won’t have the sharpness you’d see with the higher resolution HTC EVO Shift 4G, Samsung Epic 4G or HTC EVO 4G.

The Conquer 4G has 3G EV-DO Rev. A and 4G WiMAX. You’ll pay $10/month extra for 4G even if you don’t live in a 4G coverage area, so for that $120/year additional cost, we suggest you consider this phone only if you’re interested in using 4G. Reception on Sprint’s 3G network is quite good, and we got better than average download speeds according to Ookla’s Speedtest.net app. The phone averaged 800k down and 400k up, which is good for our area. 4G WiMAX coverage is outdoors only in our neighborhood in the Dallas metroplex, and with a middling signal outdoors we averaged 3.5Mbps down and 1.1Mbps up. That’s not as fast as Verizon LTE by a long shot, and it’s about half what we get on T-Mobile’s 4G HSPA+ network, but coverage is a regional thing, and when we drove to downtown Dallas we saw speeds improve to 7.5Mpbs down.

Voice quality was excellent for calls with clear and full audio on both ends. The speaker is average in terms of volume and quality, and it’s suitable for quiet rooms and sedans. The Conquer 4G can act as a high speed mobile hotspot and share its 3G/4G connection over WiFi with tablets, laptops and other WiFi-toting gear.

In terms of look and build quality, the Samsung is an understated black slab with mechanical front buttons and a chrome strip around the sides that livens up the look. We like the rubbery-feeling back that’s grippy and doesn’t show fingerprints. We also like the dedicated camera button, and the 3.2 megapixel rear main camera takes passable shots. The phone has a front camera and it comes with the Qik video chat app. Calls were a bit blocky but the service worked as promised.

The smartphone scored 1136 on the Quadrant benchmark; about 200 points lower than the HTC EVO Shift 4G (now reduced to $99 with contract) and 350 points better than the dual screen Kyocera Echo. The Conquer 4G feels responsive in most tasks, though it takes longer to completely load the desktop YouTube website vs. the high end Motorola Photon 4G. It feels a bit faster than last year’s flagship Samsung Epic 4G, likely because it’s not running Samsung’s TouchWiz UI and software that takes its toll on performance.

The Conquer 4G has the usual WiFi 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth and a GPS that works with Google Maps and Navigation as well as TeleNav (Sprint Navigation). It has 512 megs of RAM and approximately 430 megs of available internal storage. The phone ships with a 2 gig microSD card that’s pre-installed in a slot under the back cover (no need to remove the battery to access the card).

Battery life is usually a pain point for Sprint 4G phones, but the Conquer 4G uses very aggressive 4G radio power management, and we had no trouble making it through the day with 4G turned on. If you use 4G heavily to stream video or use the phone as a mobile hotspot, you might not make it to bedtime before hitting the charger, but when not heavily using those demanding services the 1500 mAh Lithium Ion battery did indeed last from 7am to 11pm.

Conclusion

If you want an affordable 4G Sprint phone and have no desire for the thicker hardware QWERTY slider designs, the Samsung Conquer 4G is a well-equipped phone for $99 with contract. The year old HTC EVO 4G sells for the same price and it offers a larger, higher resolution display, but it is last year’s model, and it has a much larger footprint and shorter battery life. The phone comes with all the goodies including Sprint TV, Navigation, Adobe Flash Player and a full suite of Google apps. Our only complaint is the low resolution display.

Price: $99 with a 2 year contract, $399 without contract

For a big phone, it is also relatively light: it’s lighter than the iPhone 4. So, how is it to carry the Samsung Infuse 4G around and use it in the real world? Is it as good as AT&T says it is? I tried it for a couple of weeks, and in this review I’ll tell you about its greatness and its pitfalls.
Context

We all use smartphones in different ways, so it’s important that I tell you where I come from: I check my email (a lot!) with Microsoft Exchange, and I reply only moderately because a virtual keyboard is not as productive as a physical one. I browse the web several times a day to check on news sites, but I rarely watch movies or play music. I don’t call much – maybe 10mn a day. On the “apps” side, I have a couple of social networks, but I rarely play games – even Angry Birds. This usage pattern will affect battery life and the perception of what features are useful.

Technical Highlights

Display: 4.5” 800×480
Soc:  Samsung 1.2GHz “Hummingbird”
GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
UMTS: 850/1900/2100 MHz (3.5G HSPA+)
OS: Android 2.2
RAM: 512MB
User Storage:  13GB (internal), 2GB (external)
Camera: 8 Megapixel + 1.3 Megapixel
Sensors: G-sensor, Compass, Proximity sensor, Light sensor
GPS: yes
Local networks: WIFI + Bluetooth
Battery: 1750mAh

Industrial Design

The industrial design of the Samsung Infuse 4G is clean and simple. The front looks nice, although the “AT&T” and “Samsung” logos are probably too invasive in my opinion. The backside of the phone would be a much better place for that.
infuse 4g review

The USB cable won’t get in the way if you use the Infuse 4G while charging

The USB connector is conveniently located at the bottom of the phone, which ensures that you can use it relatively comfortably, even while charging. A 3.5mm audio jack plug is present at the top of the phone. This is a classic location that works.

There are few buttons on the side (volume control and power), which is a good thing because it avoids accidental clicks. I personally find the Power button to be a little too recessed and I find myself searching for it sometimes… I use it dozens of time a day.

infuse 4g review

The back side has a texture that provides additional “grip”, which is great, but it also feels like plastic, well, because it is made of plastic. On the other hand, the frame all around the phone is made of metal, which makes the phone’s structure very rigid. Samsung has chosen to use a mix of very light and very strong materials to keep the weight down.When holding the Samsung Infuse 4G, it immediately feels lighter, even when compared to much smaller phones, like the iPhone 4.
Display (beautiful)
infuse 4g review

The display is great, especially for entertainment and gaming

The 4.5” display looks very nice and is easy on the eyes. One of the reasons why I like larger screens is because I type faster on them (bigger virtual keyboard keys). This is critically important for those who text/email a lot. Emails and web pages are also very readable, even when using the smallest font. Actually, I think that Samsung could use an even smaller font in the Email app. The typography in this phone isn’t as nice as it is on Windows Phone 7, but I hope that typography will continue to improve for all smartphones. As usual, keep in mind that Samsung’s OLED displays have colors that tend to “pop”, but are not accurate. Fortunately, most people like over-saturated colors, but if you care about color accuracy, LCD or IPS-LCD would be better.

In direct sunlight, OLED displays can be hard to read, and with the Samsung Infuse 4G, the problem is compounded with the fact that the user interface is mostly dark, which makes things even harder to see on a bright day. If you want things to be more legible in direct sunlight, I recommend using a bright background whenever possible.

The Infuse 4G, next to an iPhone 4. Note that the moire effect only appears on a photo
Software

As most manufacturers do, Samsung tweaks Android (here, version 2.2) to fit their own taste. some additions are really useful, while others just make things “different”. Here are a few things that I found useful:
infuse 4g review

The power control is so popular that Samsung has integrated it

The integrated power control: Android ships with a Power Control widget that lets you turn things on and off. It’s very useful to optimize the battery life. Samsung has such a widget built into the status screen of your phone (that’s where all the alerts go). You can see it by swiping down from the top of the screen.

Unlike the Droid Charge, Samsung’s power controls in the Infuse 4G lack the “Mobile Data” toggle. I think that this is a great loss for those who care about battery life because mobile data is one of the big power drain in a smartphone. Also, it would be really nice if the user interface was “consistent” from one Samsung phone to another…
samsung infuse 4g review

Start typing as soon as you are in the contact app

The integrated contact search box: by default, many Android phones require you to tap the Search button if you want to find a contact by typing a name. Samsung knows that for power-users, that’s one tap too many, so it has integrated the search box directly in the contact screen.

Most people don’t know that email search is not a standard feature for all Android phones out there

Email search: Many Android phones don’t have an email search… that’s annoying when you’re looking for that email buried among the 200 others you received yesterday. Samsung’s email app has a search!
Samsung Infuse 4G Review

Users want to be in control of their apps

Task manager: Android is notoriously bad at letting the average user know which apps are on/off, and closing running apps can be daunting for novice users. Samsung has a task manager that shows running apps and lets you shut them down with ease. It even shows how much processor resources each apps consume. That’s great, and I wish that this was a stock “Android feature”.

And yes, I know : android (2.2+?) is supposed to take care of moving apps, or shutting them down. But on the ground, what I’m seeing is that having a ton of apps in the background can still affect performance. There’s no question that users want to be in control of their apps, whether Google agrees or not.
Basics

Dialing: calling someone is super-easy with Android. Whether it is by dialing a number with the virtual numeric pad, using a contact or a shortcut (my favorite), calling someone is fast. There are no problems there and I even wonder if I should cover this part in future Android reviews (tell me in the comments).

Wireless network: Although it gets plenty of sarcastic comments, often for good reasons, the AT&T coverage has been getting better overtime, at least in the area of San Francisco where we are located (Potrero Hill). We were connected to the HSPA+ network according to the “H+” icon on the phone and with 3/5 bars, we got 1.4Mbps of download and 0.96Mbps of upload speed (using speedtest.net app, 136ms latency). On a less busy day, and a few yards away, we got much better speeds (3Mbps+ download) shown in the image above. Check our Verizon LTE review to compare.

Call Audio Quality: The call audio quality was average. For example, the Nexus S and many other recent smartphones did fare better in that area. However, in the grand scheme of things, the Samsung Infuse 4G was usable, even if the Nexus S remains ahead (by far) in terms of call audio quality.

The Samsung keyboard is simple and (visual) clutter free

Virtual Keyboard(s): The Samsung Infuse 4G has a (Samsung) keyboard that is clear and clean. I personally like this one better than other keyboards that display the “alternative” characters on the upper-right of each key. The stock Android keyboard is available for those who like it.

Swype often leads to less typos and faster typing

Swype is a third option. If you’re unfamiliar with Swype, it’s a keyboard that lets you glide your finger from one letter to the next without ever lifting it. Staying on the display surface reduces the rate of error, and the end result is often a faster typing rate. The only downside to Swype is that sometimes my finger obstructs my view of part of the keyboard. Check it out.

Copy/Paste is not consistent from app to app. Android 2.3 should help with this

Copy/Paste (inconsistent): in the Samsung Infuse 4G, you will only find a partial support for Copy/Paste. I know, you may think that this functionality should work everywhere by now, but it’s not the case (!). With the Infuse 4G, you can copy paste text from a web page, but not from an email (in read mode). Copy/Paste doesn’t work consistently from one app the other, and in the case of email, it’s a bit annoying, I think. I also could not copy/paste text from CNN mobile (the site), while it worked fine on this site.

Samsung Infuse 4G Review

Web Browsing (very good): Like with most Android 2.2 phones, the web browsing on the Samsung Infuse 4G is very good. Websites render properly, and you can zoom in and out at will. I haven’t found a website that is totally unusable because the browser doesn’t know how to interpret the code.
Samsung Infuse 4G Review

This is a flash site that runs with all its original features

Adobe Flash support: By now, Flash for Android is well supported on Android 2.2+ so I wasn’t expecting any issues, nor have I found any – if I use it within reason. Don’t forget that most of the Flash-powered web has been built for computers, not smartphones. Many Flash applications require more raw power or memory than a mobile device can provide.

Flash HD video is a good example: at the moment, most Android devices won’t be able to play 720p via Flash. Some casual games might work, but I think that the main advantage is that Flash on Android will let you access many promotional or small business sites built with Flash — something that the iPhone doesn’t offer out of the box.

Work

Exchange support has been very decent on Android for some time now

Exchange: The Samsung Infuse 4G can sync with Exchange (contacts, calendar and emails) without any issues. Overall, I found that the calendar and contacts apps worked well. The email is not always synchronized when I open the Email app, even if I get notifications of incoming emails. This might be an “optimization” to save battery life, but I’d like to have emails already downloaded and ready to be read as soon as I open the app. The BlackBerry was great for that.

GMail: Most email services support POP and IMAP, and setting things those up is usually very easy: just enter your email and password and you should be good to go. If you are hosting your email on your own domain, you may have to enter the server address and so on, but most people who own a domain would know how to do that.

Google Docs:  using Google docs is an option since Google made some fixes to make it work on mobile devices some time ago. Keep in mind that Google Docs could consume considerably more battery as it is saving your modifications to Google’s servers almost in real-time. There’s a Google Docs app that might be more network efficient.

Microsoft Office Documents: To open and edit office documents, there’s a version of QuickOffice that comes pre-installed in the Infuse 4G, ready to be activated. With it, I have been able to open Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents – and edit them. It’s not that I particularly look forward to editing a word document on a touchscreen phone, but it’s nice to have the option if I *need* to.
Play (good)

In terms of gaming performance, it’s “average” – there are much faster gaming phones out there

Games: With the Infuse 4G, polygonal 3D games run “OK”, but relative to the best phones out there, it’s on the “average” side. It’s not bad, but don’t expect to get the latest eye-candy. Most casual, 2D-ish (angry birds, and the likes) games should run very well on it.

Music: music playback has pretty much been solved problem for a while now. On Android, there are many services that offer music sales, rent or purchase. It’s really up to you to choose which one you want, and if you already have a big collection, you can copy it locally, but also to a cloud service like Amazon Cloud Player or Google’s Music Beta.

A Youtube HQ Trailer of Transformers 3

Videos: whether it is from a local file, or from a high-quality streaming service, videos that are displayed at the proper resolution will look great. Thanks to the large OLED display, the blacks are truly black, and the colors are well saturated. The only thing that stands in between you and video entertainment is “where” you will find the content: Android doesn’t have a great video store yet, but that’s coming… The best way to enjoy video on the go, is to have files stored locally, but on Android, this is not as easy as it should be yet. If you download or convert videos yourself, then things should be straightforward, as long as you use the proper video format.

Speaker Quality: Because it is placed in the back, the loud speaker does not convey the sound directly towards the user. Instead, it will bounce around in the environment to eventually arrive to the user’s ears. Relative to its size, the speaker works “OK”, but other phones do have a better speaker audio: the Atrix, the Optimus 2X, or even the iPhone 4. The Samsung Infuse does have a sufficient volume, but I think that the sound has a bit too much “echo” for my taste. I would probably prefer to use headphones to watch a movie, or a music clip. For phone conversations, it should be OK.
Photos and Video (very good)

The Samsung Infuse 4G camera app is interesting. It has many options, but only the most popular options are presented as icons. I like the fact that you can choose to leave the options visible on the left at all times. It takes a little bit of screen space, but it’s very handy. When using the camera, pressing the Power button will lock every button in the phone so that you can’t exit the camera app by accident. Unfortunately, the shutter button also becomes inactive, which kind of defeats the purpose… This maybe more useful in “camcorder” mode, when you want to make sure that the camera keeps recording.

A photo shot with the Samsung Infuse 4G

Photo capture: with a relatively good lighting environment (broad daylight  to early evening), the Samsung Infuse 4G snaps very good photos. That’s typical for recent smartphones as sensor technology and image processing software have made tremendous progress in just a few years. The Infuse 4G also has a macro mode, but it would be great if the switch from “normal” to “macro” was automated. (check additional samples in our Flickr account)

In a low-light situation (restaurant, parties) things are a bit more difficult. The problem is not really the sensor, it’s the auto-focus. The software is having a hard time deciding when the image is in focus or not. This may result in slightly blurry photos, but when shrunk for web use, they are mostly good enough. However, this is something that Samsung will need to improve upon, as the competition does better. Sony Ericsson and its Exmor sensor can snap sharp and clear low-light photos.

Video capture: the video recording pretty has the same optical qualities and flaws seen in photo capture. The good news is that DVD or HD (720p) resolution, the framerate of the video stayed at a solid 30FPS. This is not always the case, and in the past, I’ve often recommended phone users to stick with 640×480. Things are getting better, and although 640×480 if often good enough to share on social networks, it’s nice to have the option to snap a higher definition video.

Photo gallery: The photo gallery separates images and videos in several categories: camera, online albums, (email) downloads and local videos. You can probably add more sections by creating directories yourself on the SD card. Overall, things are fast and fluid, so browsing images should not be a problem. I did not have time to fill the phone with hundreds of pictures, but that would be an interesting test.
Data Sync

Media files: it is easy to connect over USB and browse/copy user files just like you would on a regular USB drive/key. If you don’t have a lot of files to move around, this is actually much easier to deal with than Apple’s iTunes, which is very strict and sometimes really annoying.

Want to copy some photos? Connect the phone in “disk mode” and copy your .jpg files just like you would with any disk. If you have a lot of media files that constantly change, it’s a bit more complicated as this is a typical case where a data management application like iTunes is helpful.

The thing is: people who tend to have large collections of media files are probably savvy enough to figure things out. Secondly, iTunes is not an option out of the box, but some 3rd party apps will help you sync with it…

You also have the option to upload your content to an online storage (and streaming) service like Amazon Cloud Music. It works well, but you need to have an active Internet connection, which can deplete your battery faster. Winamp can also be used to manage large quantities of music files.

In the end, you’ll have to poke around and see what works for you, but I think that the large majority of users will do just fine with copying their media files manually over USB. I actually like it.

Contacts, Emails: out of the box, Android is built for synchronizing everything over the Internet. However, some vendors add utilities to synchronize contacts and media files. Samsung is not one of them.

Desktop email sync is not an out-of-the box option (you might be able to find an app for that). Even Microsoft does not provide an Outlook email synchronization software with its Windows Phone 7, so in this smartphone world, you’re clearly better off with an online service.
Internet Sharing

The Hotspot is great, but it’s often not as fast as a USB modem. It depletes the battery too

Hotspot: As it is the case with most Android 2.2 phones, it possible to share the wireless data Internet connection by creating a Mobile Hotspot. There is no app or icon to do so, but going to settings>wireless and network>Mobile AP gets you to the right screen to enable the hotspot and assign a password. From there, it’s very easy to connect. In my opinion, this is the easiest way to share your data connection with another WIFI device. Note that this will deplete the battery much faster than normal usage, so be mindful of this.

USB Modem: It is also possible to use the Samsung Infuse 4G as a USB modem. To do so, you need a cable, and you may have to install drivers on your PC. This would obviously not work on tablets, and operating system for which the drivers aren’t available. Often, Mac and Linux computers are left out.
System Performance (good)

When talking about the performance of a consumer electronics device, I always try to separate the “measured” and “perceived” performance. Measured metrics are obtained by running synthetic (not always life-like) benchmarks to stress *specific* parts of the system.

On the other hand, “perceived” performance is the user’s observation of performance. Although they should correlate, I would always place perceived performance as being the most important. After all, why care if you can’t tell?

“Measured Performance”

BrowserMark and SunSpider are two tests that measure the speed of Javascript, a key component for interactivity in websites. To be clear, this does not measure “how fast” pages are loading. Instead this look at how fast scripting code can execute. Javascript is used in modern websites for user interface or even complete applications/games.

The Samsung Infuse 4G is average to above-average in those tests. While it doesn’t mean that web browsing is going to be significantly slower in general, Javascript speed shows how fast the central processor is.

CPU Benchmark: This test tries to measure the number-crunching capabilities of the phone. It explains why Javascript performance is relatively low: the Droid Charge main processor is by far the slowest at this particular test.

This is yet another processing power test, and it confirms that the Infuse 4G is slightly above-average, when compared to other smartphones that we have recently reviewed.

GUIMark 2 (Flash): This test measures the Adobe Flash performance. Flash is a widely used multimedia platform and you can find it virtually everywhere as advertisement, video or other forms of interactive web page module.

Whether or not Adobe Flash is useful, is just a matter of performance. The Samsung Infuse did provide a positive surprise: it is the fastest “Flash” single-core smartphone that we’ve tried. I bet that there’s a mix of CPU speed and software improvements, but the good news is that it is one of the better Flash-compatible phones.

NeoCore Graphics Benchmark: NeoCore is an old polygonal 3D graphics test, but most Android games are still using relatively old graphics techniques, so it is still relevant – hopefully not for long.

The graphics performance of the Samsung Infuse 4G is very much in line with other Android phones that I’ve tried. If anything, polygonal 3D performance has not changed a whole lot since the Nexus S was released in December. On the hand, phones equipped with NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 SoC have dominated those benchmarks for some time.

“Perceived Performance”

The Samsung Infuse 4G did fairly well in the synthetic performance tests, and in the real world, it mostly feels comfortable to use. But it is also a phone with which I had occasional “stall” or “freeze” issues (for a second or two) while doing seemingly simple tasks like checking emails, or navigating the user interface. It also happens more frequently than on other phones, like the Droid Incredible 2 or the Nexus S. I suspect that this might be a “software thing” that may be fixed in a future update, but I never hold my breath on those.

That did not prevent me from enjoying the phone during the test, but if you can’t stand waiting on your phone, this might be a small issue that you should know about.
Battery Life (good)

The battery life is in the higher range

With my particular usage pattern, the Samsung Infuse 4G managed to last for a couple of days, which is in the higher range for modern smartphones. In practical terms, I can use it for a day, and not charge it that night, but on the following night, I would charge it or it would run out of battery on sometime on the day after.

Depending on your own use, this could be much less if you use the display a lot (it’s the #1 power-user, and if you do CPU-intensive tasks such as web browsing and games).
Conclusion (good, big)

“Display size” is really the name of the game here

The Samsung Infuse 4G is a good phone. I really liked the comfort and image-quality of its huge display, and the good battery life. The industrial design is clean, and the phone is even lighter than smaller phones like the iPhone 4. All those qualities are big advantages for most Android users in search for a comfortably big display.

On the downside, I think that, at times, the responsiveness of the phone did get to me. I’m used to more responsive phones, and to be honest, I’m not really sure how other people would react to it. It’s probably best to try it for yourself in a store, but keep in mind that in-store phones don’t have many apps installed, so they to represent the “best case” scenario.

In the end, it’s likely that prospect users will be mainly attracted by the display size which is the truly unique feature of this phone. If not, there are a lot of choices on the market, notably the Nexus S, or the Droid Incredible 2.

Source: Ubergizmo.com

Samsung Galaxy Pro B7510 Looks And Design

The phone looks quite stylish and Samsung has done a good job in providing a quality finish to the device. The keyboard and the screen are made up of grey plastic while the entire phone is carved out of plastic which makes it quite light. The phone weighs just a little over 103 grams. The phone is pretty wide measuring 108.6 x 66.7 x 10.7 mm.

With a 2.8 inches TFT capacitive touch screen, the phone displays 256 K colors of resolution measuring 320×240 pixels. The display is equipped with accelerometer and proximity sensors and the screen responds well to touches. However, it does not support multi-touch and viewing angles are also limited. Sunlight legibility is also not that great, but then considering the price of the device, we were happy with its design and construction. The phone feels robust, solid and quite comfortable to grip.

Samsung Galaxy Pro B7510 Apps

Google Search, Gmail, Maps, Calendar, Picasa Integration, Image/Video editor are some of the in-built applications in the phone. Streaming Youtube videos on the phone is facilitated by the presence of Samsung Galaxy Pro B7510 Youtube application. More apps can be downloaded by users from the Android market.

Samsung Galaxy Pro B7510 Features

One of the greatest features of the phone is its QWERTY keypad. Because of the wider design of the phone, the keys are well-spaced out which facilitates texting and messaging. The great phonebook of Samsung Galaxy Pro B7510 mobile phone is also pretty good which has unlimited capacity.

Samsung Galaxy Pro B7510 Specs

We were disappointed to find that the phone runs on Android 2.2 (Foryo) OS. We would have loved to see Android 2.3 (Gingerbread). The 800 MHz processor performs well, but then no way it delivers the performance of a dual-core processor. The phone however, has a 2GB of integrated memory card which can be expanded to 32 GB.

Samsung Galaxy Pro B7510 Camera Quality

The phone is equipped with a 3.2 MP which is capable of producing pictures of resolution measuring 2048×1536 pixels. The camera however lacks flash which makes it almost next to impossible to click pictures in the dark. The UI of the phone is touch-friendly and has great in-built features such as smile shot. The pictures clicked are good and provide enough detail. Considering that the phone is a messenger one, the performance of the camera is quite good.

Samsung Galaxy Pro B7510 Video

The phone offers QVGA video recording at 30fps which is hardly inspiring. The video recording is good enough for MMS.

Samsung Galaxy Pro B7510 Connectivity And Multimedia

The phone offers connectivity options for both 2G and 3G networks. The connectivity package also includes Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0 with support for A2DP, and USB 2.0. The interface of the USB is pretty simple and the presence of 3.5 mm audio jack completes the connectivity options. The performance of the Android browser is also quite decent.

Samsung Galaxy Pro B7510 boasts of an FM radio with RDS along with a TouchWiz Music player. The video player is also very basic in nature and covers only basic MP4 and 3GP formats. The audio quality of the phone is not that great.

Samsung Galaxy Pro B7510 Unboxing

During unboxing the device we found it to be equipped with a charger, microUSB cable, 2GB memory card, microSD adapter and user manual.

Samsung Galaxy Pro B7510 Battery Life

The phone is equipped with a standard Li-ion which offers a talk time of around 11 hours when the phone is operated on 2G and around 5 hours when operated on 3G.

Samsung Galaxy Pro B7510 Launch

The phone was launched sometimes in April 2011.

Samsung Galaxy Pro B7510 Price

Price of Samsung Galaxy Pro B7510 in India is approximately Rs 9500. Samsung Galaxy Pro B7510 is one of the first Android messenger phone by Samsung which aims to target audience looking for a messenger device. The QWERTY keypad, along with decent connectivity option and Android 2.2 makes Galaxy Pro B7510 a decent purchase.

The DROID Charge is loaded with all the trimmings you could ask for, including a huge Super AMOLED Plus display with colors that will blow your mind, an 8-megapixel camera that can shoot HD video, and of course, support for Verizon’s 4G LTE network. But do all of these features make it worth the $299 you’ll have to drop in order to own one? Hit the break for my full review to find out.

Hardware / Display

Samsung told me that the “pet name” for the DROID Charge was the “Stealth,” and that’s certainly an accurate description of its industrial design. The area below the phone’s large 4.3-inch screen tapers down to a small chin, and its rounded edges, glossy mirror gray finish, and sharp accents around the camera lens definitely add to its fighter-jet style. Samsung’s Super AMOLED Plus display is one of the clearest, brightest, and sharpest screens I’ve ever seen on a smartphone.

The display offers even deeper blacks than the Super AMOLED screen on Samsung’s Galaxy S phones, which is really saying a lot. Colors are stunning and you really just have to see it to understand the beauty, but a beautiful screen this size comes at a cost; the DROID Charge definitely has a bit of heft at just over 5 ounces, but at just 0.46-inches slim it easily slid into my pocket.

Unlike the Galaxy S devices before it, the DROID Charge has hardware keys below the screen instead of touch-sensitive buttons. The keys have nice bounce and each has a soft white backlight that illuminates while the screen is activated.

Under the hood the DROID Charge runs on a 1GHz processor, which is a bit lower powered than the dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2 devices that have started to infiltrate the market. Still, there’s 512MB of RAM that helps speed things up a bit, and our unit came with a 32GB microSD card so there’s more than enough space to store videos, music, and photos. A 32GB microSD card runs about $60 on Amazon, so I’m starting to see why the DROID Charge is priced as high as it is.

One feature that I really enjoyed using was HDMI-out. You can purchase movies from Media Hub for about $9.99 each, or move files over to the phone using your USB cable, and then output them to an HDTV using a mini-HDMI cable. There were a few hiccups in the frame rates, but otherwise the movie played without a hitch. I’ll revisit this a bit more in the camera section of the review.

Software

Here’s where things get a bit stale: The DROID Charge runs Android 2.2 (Froyo) with Samsung’s custom TouchWiz user interface on top. I’m not a big fan of TouchWiz — it’s too cartoony looking, the widgets are always larger than necessary, and they don’t use screen real estate efficiently. There are several useful features, like the ability to sync Twitter or Facebook with your address book, but generally TouchWiz turns me off.

Thankfully, the DROID Charge’s processor hummed along just fine despite the UI, which can slow things down just a bit on other devices. There are  also other small issues that drive me mad about TouchWiz, though — like its black e-mail interface — and at times I just wish Samsung had stuck with a vanilla version of Android on the Charge.

The Charge’s virtual keyboard mirrors those on Samsung’s Galaxy S devices, and I’m not a fan. The space bar is too small and seems to be positioned too far to the left; half the time I try to type a space I end up hitting the period button instead. This, of course, is where third-party developers come in, and I definite;y recommend installing your third-party keyboard of choice on the Charge.

There’s a fair amount of bloatware on the phone including VerizonApps, a Guided Tour, VZ Navigator, TuneWiki, City ID, Bitbop, and more. Thankfully, though, Verizon chose to use Google as the default search option on the DROID Charge, which is a welcome change from the Fascinate.

Calling / Data

The call quality on the DROID Charge was clear during my tests and I had no issue with dropped calls in New York City or during a trip to Orlando for BlackBerry World. Friends and family on the other end of the line said I sounded good, and the ear speaker was loud enough even while walking on busy streets. The speakerphone had adequate volume as well, but voices were distorted at higher levels. Callers said I sounded fine on speakerphone and they couldn’t tell I wasn’t directly talking into the handset.

The DROID Charge is Verizon’s second phone capable of placing phone calls while surfing the Internet, and this feature worked perfectly during my tests. I looked up a quick place to eat lunch while I had a friend on speakerphone, and I didn’t notice any drop in call quality or data speeds. BGR Editor in Chief Jonathan Geller, in his ThunderBolt review, wondered if perhaps the poor voice quality on that phone was related to the talk / surf feature, and I’m glad to report that’s not the case with the Charge.

Data speeds on Verizon’s 4G LTE network regularly exceeded 20Mbps on the downlink in New York City, and I typically saw upload speeds around 4Mbps. The download speeds are faster than you’ll find on any other U.S. carrier hands-down and are even on a par with home network connections.

There are drawbacks to being an early adopter, however. During my first week of testing Verizon’s 4G LTE network, it went down for just over 24 hours. Users weren’t compensated for the downtime, and I couldn’t even access a 3G network during the outage. That’s a big deal, especially for business users or those of us who rely on our smartphones throughout most of the day. Similarly, while tethered to a laptop, I noticed that the signal dropped a number of times, and there are reports from some websites claiming the same issue — hopefully this is something that will be fixed in a future software update. I’m not dinging Verizon, though; it’s the first to roll-out such a high-speed network and there are bound to be small hiccups along the way.

Battery Life

The DROID Charge moniker is quite fitting as I found the 1,600mAh needed frequent charging under heavy 4G use. The phone offered up better battery life than the 4.5 hours Jonathan saw with the HTC ThunderBolt, but it still wasn’t great. Generally, I was able to go from about 7:00 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. with moderate usage on 4G.

If you need to save battery life, there’s an option under wireless network settings to use a CDMA network only. This let me place voice calls and use Verizon’s slower 3G EV-DO network for surfing the Web. It’s definitely a welcome change over the HTC ThunderBolt, which didn’t ship with that option, although an app is now available. With 3G enabled, I was able to get through a full work day with moderate usage. Unfortunately there isn’t a widget to quickly switch networks out of the box; that would certainly be a welcome addition, but I’m sure Android enthusiasts will whip something up to fix that.

Camera

There’s an 8-megapixel camera on the DROID Charge, and I used it to shoot a bunch of photos during a trip to Florida. Images were crisp and colors looked true in daylight. Photos look amazing on the Super AMOLED Plus screen, and they just had a little distortion when I pushed them out to my 32-inch TV using HDMI-out. Pictures snapped under incandescent lights had a decidedly orange hue to them, but were otherwise perfectly acceptable.

A night shot taken of a neon sign, without the flash, had brighter colors bleeding into the darker areas of the screen, even with the camera’s anti-shake feature activated. In lower light conditions, the single-LED  flash did a decent job grabbing our subject, too, but I prefer the dual-LED option on phones like the HTC ThunderBolt.

I shot several HD video clips in 720p, but the DROID Charge defaults to a 720 x 480 resolution, so you’ll want to be sure to activate the HD option for better video. The frame rates were fluid when I played the video back on the Charge’s display, and I was just as blown away when I watched the same clip on my TV using HDMI-out. The video and audio were both crisp and I didn’t notice any pixelation, even when panning the video around. One issue I did run into, though, is that the phone required a reboot when I unplugged the HDMI cable and then tried to plug it back in again to resume playback.

Wrap-up

If you’re looking for 4G speeds, the Samsung DROID Charge is the phone to beat — but you’ll need deep pockets. Sure, I’d take HTC’s Sense user interface over TouchWiz any day, but the DROID Charge offers a few things HTC’s ThunderBolt doesn’t, namely a gorgeous Super AMOLED Plus display and an out-of-the-box option to turn off 4G to save on battery life, which meant I was able to get through a full day with moderate usage when I didn’t need to surf the Web at blazing fast speeds.

The DROID Charge is priced at $299, which is $50 more expensive than its only 4G LTE competitor, the ThunderBolt. That’s for good reason, however. It offers better battery life, a killer display, clearer phone calls, and a much less bulky design — easily worth the $50 difference. Sure, Verizon has a number of new 4G LTE smartphones coming down the pipeline, but if you want in on the carrier’s blazing fast data now, the DROID Charge is your best bet, hands-down.

Samsung Droid Charge is one of those great value mobile phones, which have the best specs on board and will keep you on top of technologies for much longer period.

Hardware / Display

Most people love or hate Samsung’s hardware, but I find myself uncharacteristically on the fence. On one hand, Samsung pumps out solid hardware that has always been widely adopted around the world. On the other, there appears to be a little separation, at least where the U.S. market is concerned, on what people really consider to be a quality product. There’s a fine line between making a device extremely light, and one that feels cheap and unworthy of a $200 price tag. The Samsung Galaxy S II is the thinnest smartphone I have ever tested, and it’s also one of the lightest. It’s even thinner than the iPhone 4, and it’s much lighter.

One of the reasons the device is lighter, however, is due to Samsung’s continued use of what feels like a low-cost glossy black plastic for the handset’s shell. The saving grace on the Samsung Galaxy S II, however, is that the rear battery cover isn’t a typical high-gloss Samsung extravaganza, but a textured matte-finished cover.

On top of the device you’ll find a 3.5mm headset jack with secondary mic for noise cancellation. On the right side is a power button and the volume rocker is on the left. Around front there’s a 2-megapixel camera for video chat, and three of the four typical Android navigation buttons. Samsung hasn’t included a dedicated search key, though in daily use, I rarely found myself hunting for it. The home button is a physical rectangular key, and the back and menu keys are capacitive and work quite well. A nice touch is that they light up for a short period of time when the screen goes on, and then they dim and blend back into the black facade of the Galaxy S II.

As far as specs go, the Samsung Galaxy S II is, for lack of better works, a beast. We’re talking about a 1.2GHz dual-core Orion processor, 1GB of RAM, Android OS 2.3 Gingerbread, an 8-megapixel camera with LED flash and 1080p HD video recording, and 21Mbps HSPA+ support.

The Samsung Galaxy S II also features Samsung’s Super AMOLED Plus display, and it’s one of the best screens I’ve ever seen, easily besting the display on the Google Nexus S. Black levels are incredible, colors are vibrant, bright, and the display is very sharp. Viewing any sort of content with a black background will melt into the black front case around the display and make it difficult to tell where the screen starts and the case ends — it’s that good.

The Galaxy S II is also the fastest Android phone I have ever used, hands down. It’s evident across the entire OS, with web pages loading at desktop-like speeds. There’s absolutely no lag while zipping around from app to app or screen to screen, and it makes the entire Android experience much more enjoyable.

TouchWiz

Let me just get it out of the way: I’m a stock Android guy. I don’t care for any custom UI from any manufacturer on my Android device at this point. With that said, TouchWiz has it’s ups and downs. I’m not a fan of Swype or Samsung’s keyboard so I replaced the keyboard with the stock Gingerbread keyboard. I’m also not a fan of the email app and the calendar app also looks like Times Square at 2:00 a.m. — I’m just not feeling all the use of black backgrounds here. I do, however, like how you can edit the number of home screens on your device — I like three, not seven, home screens — and while I don’t use any of Samsung’s widgets, I appreciate the creativity some of them showcase.

For the average user, it’s certainly possible TouchWiz could help more than it hurts. It’s definitely more lively than what stock Android is, and it could be more straight forward to the general consumer.

Battery

Battery life typically isn’t a strong point on Android handsets, but the Galaxy S II performs very well thanks to its large 1,640 mAh battery and no doubt thanks to its power sipping dual-core Orion processor as well. Standby time lasts days — up to around three days with corporate push email on and various background apps. The Galaxy S II should no doubt be able to power you through a normal day’s worth of usage as well.

Conclusion

Hands down, the Samsung Galaxy S II is the greatest Android smartphone available on the planet… if you can get past TouchWiz. It’s the fastest smartphone I’ve ever used, it features one of the best displays I have laid eyes on, it offers great signal reception and audio performance on AT&T, it has a great camera, it’s very thin and light, and even better, it’s free from any carrier’s wrath (restrictions) since it’s the unlocked global version. The downside is that it’s not subsidized so it’s going to run you around $800 — for reference, a 32GB iPhone 4 without a contract runs $699. Of course we expect the Galaxy S II to launch under various names on all four of the major U.S. carriers, so those who don’t mind branding and bloatware will have the option of picking up this phone from your carrier of choice soon enough.

While I would have preferred to see stock Android on the Galaxy S II, the phone is so good that TouchWiz doesn’t hold it down too much, at least for me. In fact, Samsung is going to have trouble getting this one back. And who knows? Maybe I’ll even switch to Android as my primary daily carrier just for this device. Well, probably not.

Hardware / Display

The very first thing you will, and I did, notice about the Infuse 4G is its huge 4.5-inch 800 x 480-pixel resolution Super AMOLED Plus display. It’s the same screen technology that’s on the DROID Charge from Verizon Wireless, and it’s hard to describe just how beautifully colorful, bright, and sharp it is. We first saw Samsung’s last generation Super AMOLED displays on its Galaxy S devices, and the Super AMOLED Plus improves on that panel in a number of ways. It’s easier to read under direct sunlight, and the blacks are even darker and inkier. Everyone needs to see this screen, even if you’re not on the market for a new phone. But I digress.

Despite having such a large display, the Infuse 4G is shockingly light at about 5 ounces. It’s thin, too, and measures just 0.35-in thick. The touch sensitive buttons for menu, home, return, and search all worked well during my tests. The power and volume buttons are all located within reach and there’s a 3.5mm headphone jack on the top of the phone. With a capable camera on board though, I wish Samsung added a camera quick-launch button, too.

Speaking of cameras, the Infuse 4G has two of them: a 1.3-megapixel front-facing shooter for video chats, and an 8-megapixel camera capable of recording full 720p HD video on the back. There’s also a single-LED flash, something the Captivate lacked. The back of the phone looks sharp and has a textured finish that blends nicely with the imitation metal border that wraps around the whole device. However, the textured back battery panel is flimsy. The HTC Inspire 4G, by contrast, has a rock solid unibody design. While I appreciate the Infuse 4G’s lightness and its aesthetic, it does feel a bit cheap.

Under the hood there’s a 1.2GHz processor, 16GB of storage built in, a 2GB microSD card, support for 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi networks, a 1,750mAh battery, and more. That’s not a huge jump from the hardware that the Captivate offered, and I wish the phone packed Samsung’s dual-core Orion processor that’s inside the Galaxy S II. All of the aformentioned hardware powers Android 2.2.1 (Froyo), with Samsung’s last generation TouchWiz user interface. Let’s get into that now.

Software

The Infuse 4G runs Google’s previous-generation Android 2.2.1 operating system. That’s not a huge deal, given that just 4% of phones are powered by the newer Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) OS, but it’s still odd to me that new devices are hitting the market with an outdated version preloaded. Here’s what really gets me though: Samsung’s previous-generation TouchWiz user interface.

I’ve spent time with Samsung’s new TouchWiz 4.0 on the DROID Charge, and I like what the firm has done to improve it compared to earlier versions. The UI feels faster, has several new and fun zooming features, and has an improved widget interface. Unfortunately, Samsung didn’t include that on the Infuse 4G, and I can’t figure out why. TouchWiz 3.0 is too colorful and cartoonish, and the widgets waste too much space. Thankfully the 1.2GHz processor kept everything snappy, though, so it never felt too sluggish. User interfaces are a matter of taste, and I’ve met plenty of people that prefer TouchWiz to competing UIs. For me personally though, it’s not a good fit.

As I’ve said in the past, I’m not a fan of the black background in the e-mail user interface, and don’t like Samsung’s default keyboard. There’s the option to use Swype on the Infuse 4G, which worked pretty well, and you can switch to the default Android keyboard, too. One software issue in particular that stood out was the sluggishness of the web browser. On multiple occasions it would lock up while I was trying to access a new website or pan around a page. Sometimes it would just stall for a few seconds, and then work properly again, but this is an issue I’ve typically seen with lower-end devices — not 1.2GHz “superphones.”

Last, but not least, the Infuse 4G is the first phone on AT&T to allow for side-loading of third-party applications. That means you can load up an .apk file on the phone, access it via your file manager of choice, and then install it. Before you can start side-loading apps, however, you’ll have to visit Settings > Applications, and check the box next to “Unknown Sources.”

Calling / Data

Battery Life

I was easily able to get through a full workday with moderate usage on a single charge of the Infuse 4G’s 1,750mAh battery. That’s an improvement over the Captivate, which frequently died on me before 5:00 p.m. Using the phone as my primary device, checking email, surfing the web, and listening to music, drained the battery noticeably faster, but I was also impressed with its standby time. Overall the Infuse 4G’s battery life was among the best I’ve seen on a high-powered Android phone yet. If you’re looking for a bit longer, I’d suggest checking out the ATRIX 4G, which managed to muster through a full workday with heavy usage.

Camera

The Infuse 4G’s 8-megapixel took stellar photos, especially in good lighting conditions. Shots taken around New York City came out clear, and the sky on a sunny day was deep blue. On particularly bright days, I noticed that the sky would bleed a bit into my subjects, and shots came out overexposed altogether. Low light pictures came out OK, but just like the DROID Charge on Verizon, street lights really bled into my images, even with the anti-shake option enabled. I took a few more images while watching the Kentucky Derby in a dark pub, though, and the flash did a good job when I took a picture of my dinner plate.

The Infuse 4G’s camera is capable of recording 720p video, and the results were impressive, but on a par with what the Captivate was capable of shooting, too. I didn’t see much distortion, even while panning around. The camera also continuously auto-focuses, which is a nice touch.

Wrap-up

No, it’s not the 4G phone you’ve been waiting for, but it’s still a solid device. I’m shocked that AT&T can get away with calling this a 4G phone, however, because I have yet to see data speeds that push the boundaries of its network. But if AT&T making good on its “4G” claims and delivering solid data speeds isn’t a necessity for you, the Infuse 4G is worthy of your attention. The screen is incredible, I like the thin form factor, and the solid battery life was definitely appreciated. Samsung’s TouchWiz user interface isn’t for everyone either, but I still highly recommend you consider reserving a spot in your pocket for the Infuse 4G when it launches on May 15th for $199.99.

Source: BGR

The Galaxy Prevail features a 3.2-inch HVGA (480 x 320 pixel) touchscreen display and an 800MHz processor. Unlike many Samsung Galaxy family smartphones, the Galaxy Prevail lacks Samsung’s custom TouchWiz user interface enhancements. The Prevail also sports a 2 megapixel camera with no HD video recording capability.

Despite some of the phone’s lower end specifications, the Prevail offers a solid Android 2.2 Froyo experience for the novice Android user who might be transitioning from a feature phone to their first smartphone. The processor did not hold back the Prevail from zipping through menus and home screens with ease, and we were easily able to accomplish many standard tasks that we would expect a modern smartphone to do.

Since the Prevail runs Android 2.2, it has the full benefits of the Android ecosystem, with many apps available to install and add functionality. Boost has pre-loaded some select, basic apps such as Twidroyd for Twitter, SCVNGR (a location based social networking app), ThinkFree Office, TeleNav GPS navigator, Layar augmented reality, and Boost’s own Hookt social networking app. We were a bit surprised to see that Facebook for Android was not pre-installed, but that is easily downloadable from the Android Market. The Prevail will not likely be able to handle intense 3D games, though, thanks to the smaller screen and slower processor.

The browser is the standard Android 2.2 browser, and we found it to be acceptable for our usual browsing needs. Pinch-to-zoom is enabled and pages scrolled easily enough once loaded. It does not support Adobe Flash Player, though, due to its lower end processor.

Although the camera offers a relatively low 2 megapixel resolution, pictures were not bad at all. Colors were accurate and detail was acceptable from the sample shots we took. We would have liked to have seen autofocus capabilities, but we did appreciate the dedicated camera key on the side of the phone. Video quality left more to be desired, as the video tended to be fairly choppy.

Call quality was good, and on-par with other Sprint 3G phones that we have tested in our area. The speakerphone was loud, although it did get a bit crackly when the volume was turned all the way up. Callers did not express any complaints regarding call quality when we were using the Prevail.

Thanks to a large 1500mAh battery, its smaller screen, and its slower processor, the Prevail was able to easily power through a day of solid use, and sometimes even more. We were able to go an entire day using phone calls, messaging, web browsing, email, and even GPS navigation for about an hour.

The Samsung Galaxy Prevail, although not a high-end smartphone, is certainly a solid option for the Boost Mobile customer looking to upgrade their handset. It benefits from the full Android ecosystem, as well as Sprint’s nationwide 3G network for solid data capabilities. The build quality is very nice, and there is abundant use of soft-touch rubber on the phone’s body to provide extra grip. Boost will be selling the Prevail for $179.99 with no contract commitment, and it is eligible for Boost’s $50 per month unlimited plan that provides unlimited talk, text, and web usage. Based on our experience, we think that the Prevail is the best phone in Boost’s current line-up, and a great value. We wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to anybody on Boost looking for a great way to step into the smartphone world.

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