Samsung Captivate Android Phone
August 10th, 2010
- 3G-enabled, Android 2.1-powered smartphone with 4-inch Super AMOLED touchscreen display and 16 GB internal memory
- Fast Wireless-N Wi-Fi networking with free access to over 20,000 AT&T Wi-Fi hotspots nationwide
- 5-megapixel camera; 720p HD video recording; Bluetooth 3.0 connectivity; microSD expansion; Swype keyboard
- Up to 5 hours, 50 minutes of talk time, up to 340 hours (14+ days) of standby time; released in July, 2010
- What’s in the Box: handset, rechargeable battery, charger, wired stereo headset, USB cable, quick start guide
Amazon.com Product Description
The super-smart Samsung Captivate for AT&T brings a fully integrated entertainment, messaging and social networking experience to your mobile phone, thanks to its open and innovative Android 2.1 platform. You’ll be able to zip through the Web and multitask between a bevy of apps with the Captivate’s 1 GHz processor and ultra-fast 7.2 Mbps 3G connectivity.
Enjoy brilliant video playback and gameplay with the 4-inch Super AMOLED touchscreen dis… More >>
I returned my iphone 4 (which I saw bars go down when held in death grip but did not drop calls) since I wanted the white one and it sounded like in a few days it would be available.
Well it got pushed back and nobody in Los Angeles has a iphone 4 to sell.
So I bought the Samsung Captivate since I am in no way a apple guy (Big PC/Microsoft guy!).
The pros:
Thin nice and light design.
Beautiful screen-size is perfect with Evo being too big and iphone a bit too small.
Video’s and pictures look great and alive!
Camera takes great pictures and has so many cool controls.
Love the widgets and shortcuts you can put on the front of the phone.
Lots of deep customization of things..sometimes tooo much!
Gallery brings in pictures from places you didnt think you had pictures.
Really cool moving wallpapers..which can be a con (see later).
Cons:
Battery life- I had a fully charged Captivate and started day at 7:30AM and I had warning about battery low at 3:00PM. I was told on forums to make wallpaper regular black screen and get Advanced Task Killer. It was a bit better but have to do lots of juggling to get to 5-6PM without sweating to get to car and plug into charger. I dont want to carry a extra battery or add on a plump extended battery.
Iphone 3GS and 4 last me whole day and have 20% left when I get home with streaming news on drive home not charging.
Mail client- If you are using Exchange for work and have subfolders…forget it!
The subfolder names are arranged at the top for you to swipe alpha to the right folder. To make it worst the RSS feed folders are in there too.
Then, I cant move messages to another folder. I read the forums and was suggested to get a different app. Ok not bad but the app was $15! I expect a $200 smartphone to handle email out of the box.
GPS-there is a bug and I cant use the free turn by turn directions. I dont feel so bad for having bought Navigon for iphone at $29 that at least worked all the time.
The strip of buttons (Options – Home – Back – Search) at the bottom of the phone: these get you around and they are laggy. They do not respond fast enough. These should have been physical buttons not touch sensitive ones.
Multitasking-Its great to multitask but the phone gets slow when too many apps are open like Windows mobile use to be. I did get an app to help with that but I would have thought Android would have handled this on its own. It says it does but phone got slow and now I need to open this app to kill what is open. Though I saw some setting where every hour it can do it for you.
Apps- I think there is a good selection of apps and it should improve as it goes, but. THe apps are certainly not as polished as on the iphone and some have lot less functionality. example: the Chase bank app on iphone let me take a picture of a check made out to me and it would get the routing # and $ amount and get deposited in my account. Their android app doesnt do this. I called Chase and gave them hell. They said they will “one day support more mobile devices” well great, when?
There are a few more little things but just cosmetic and dont affect the fucntionality of the phone.
I will give this phone 15 more days and then I will return it. But I will research and see if I can find ways to keep this phone. Right now if I had to decide, I’d box this up and pay my $35 restocking fee and get back in an iphone 4.
If you think this is just me go to a n d r o i d f o r u m s . c o m and see the Captivate forum for people who are in same boat as me.
If you have not had iphone 3GS or 4 this phone seems great and wonderful. But if you are on AT&T why not get better for same price? Thats what I am asking myself.
Rating: 3 / 5
im not a big phone geek but this phone is sooo user friendly and easey to use!! i have always gone with samsung phones because of there pressure sensitive screens instead of the usual heat sensitive screens. i do love pressure sensitive screens because there easey to use with my nails. the captivate is NOT pressure sensitive but the sreen is so huge that texting is not a problem for me! It also has the cool talk to text feature on the android keyboard witch means i dont have to type at all!!!! this phone is sooo fun i havent put it down!!!! love it buy this phone!!!
Rating: 5 / 5
great phone…the only gripe I have is that it takes 3 hours to charge, but other wise it is a really good phone, and very esy to use and the reception is by far one of the best on any at&t phone, sround my area at&t phones don’t work in the Target, but this one does…great job at&t and Samsung
Rating: 5 / 5
Thank the heavens AT&T didn’t drink all of the I phone cool-aid and finally offered a Android phone that was worth while. This model is no where near the best of all the android phones out there, but it is by far the best one offered by AT&T… It runs on android 2.1 and has a very nice AMOLED display that looks very nice!!! Battery is a pain if you do all the things this phone is capable of doing…I have had it for 3 days and have had to charge it every day….
Like the phone so far… just wish there were more choices with AT&T for androids…
Rating: 4 / 5
Just like any other At&t user I had the option of the iPhone 4 or the Samsung captivate. For me it was a no brainer, I get an android device that is as good if not better than the alternative. Highly recommend this phone.
I should however point out that the gps takes its time to start. I have heard that a patch will be coming out soon.
p.s. The display is amazing
Rating: 5 / 5