The View From Space

I recently upgraded my 2 year old G1 to one of the latest Droid phones to hit the market, the Samsung VIBRANT.  I was in smartphone heaven.   Early on resisted the urge to blog about it for a couple of days to let the “new car smell” wear off.  Now I can take a good look at it and make some sensible evaluations of the phone itself.

Pros:

• It’s NEW (sorry couldnt resist)
• The 4″ AMOLED screen is simply captivating.  Personally, I’d put it on par with the iPhone’s Retina display.  Yes the iPhone’s display does look a little sharper due to it’s higher resolution but Samsung’s color replication has it coming in pretty close.  Both displays are absolutely mind numbing.  If you dont believe me, drop by a T-Mobile store and check out Avatar on one of their display units.  By the way my co-worker has an iPhone 4 and I’ve had a chance to look at both displays.
• This phone is LIGHT!  Weighing in at a miniscule 4.16 oz
• Android 2.1 (Elcair) installed with 2.2 promised.
• It looks like an iPhone 3G/3GS (although some may say its a negative)
• 5MP camera and the 720p video recording capability.  (WOW to the 720p video, the picture is sharp and the colors are vibrant… get it…)
• USB tethering built in.  So far havent gotten wireless tethering to work but devs are working on it and I envision it becoming available soon (Note 1:  Wireless tethering requires you to root the phone.  Note 2: I believe Verizon or Sprint offers wireless tethering for a fee, no root required only $$)
• Swype – allows you to enter words from the keyboard without having to lift your finger.  Once you get the hang of it you will rarely use the old hunt and peck method.

Cons:

• Bloatware put on by T-Mobile.  Although it doesn’t affect the performance it is a bit irritating as it cannot be removed by the average user.  One needs to root the phone and use an app called Root Manager.
• It looks like an iPhone 3G/3GS (although some may say this is a plus)
• This phone is LIGHT! Weighing in at a miniscule 4.16 oz (Sometimes it get’s a little precarious holding it and trying to text with one hand)
• There has been some noticeable lag when opening/closing some apps.  I got around this by rooting and using an app called minfreemanager.  It speeds up the opening and closing of apps.  So far so good.
• Like the iPhone 4 it’s so new that there aren’t any hard cases available.  There’s only a gel case that’s being sold by T-Mobile (ugh).
• While the video is great the audio is a bit oversensitive.  wind blowing pass the phone is picked up and sounds like a hurricane during playback.

Would I recommend this phone?  Absolutely!  Overall I can live with some of it’s shortcomings, and most of the cons could easily be pros depending upon personal preference.