Samsung Glyde Review

Messaging:

Like most other phones in the market today, the Glyde is capable of sending and receiving text, picture, and video messages. The methods of typing in a text message are by using T9 predictive input or multi-tap with the touchscreen, which shows letters on a 12-icon dial pad, or by using the internal QWERTY keyboard. Both the inbox and outbox allow up to 100 messages each to be stored.

The Glyde also comes with a program called mobile email, allowing you to connect with your own personal e-mail accounts while on the go. However, unlike smartphones that can automatically check for new messages every few minutes, the mobile email program must be run manually to check for new messages. It comes preloaded with the ability to connect to Yahoo Mail, Windows Live Mail, AOL, AIM, and Verizon.net, but you can also manually configure it to connect to any other email account through means of POP or IMAP. We were able to access all of our email accounts without any problems, and could send messages through the account server. When viewing a new message, you can choose not delete it from the server, so that you can download it later when you are connected using a PC. Even though this application is not as feature-rich as Windows Mobile Outlook, it does a fairly good job for showing plain-text mails. However, it cannot open attachments or properly render HTML messages, which is a disappointment since the browser is HTML compatible and the Glyde is targeted as a messaging device. Regardless of the limitations, it is still worth the $5/month access fee.

For people who like to use Instant Messaging, the Glyde also comes with mobile IM, which will connect you to AIM, Windows Live Messenger, and Yahoo. After signing in, you and can send and receive IMs, but it is basically glorified text messaging to people on your buddy list and will count on your calling plan the same as using text messages.


Connectivity and Data:

The Glyde is a dual band all-digital device that operates on the 800MHz and 1900MHz CDMA Verizon Wireless network. Non-voice data, such as web and email, are transmitted using the 3G EVDO network, but it is limited to Rev 0 speeds instead of the faster Rev A, which should have been implemented on such a high-end device. The Glyde also lacks the Mobile TV service, which is featured on the Voyager and uses the 700MHz spectrum on Qualcomm’s MediaFLO network.

Bluetooth version 1.2 is supported and allows up to 20 pairings. Supported profiles include: Headset, Handsfree, Serial Port, Dialup Networking, Advanced Audio Distribution (A2DP/AVRC), Phone Book Access, Object Push for vCard, Basic Imaging for sending and printing non–protected images, and Basic Print. We were able to use the auto pair feature to easily connect to our Jabra 250v and Motorola HT820 headsets. When using the 250v for calls, we were able to get up to 25 feet of static free performance, and with the HT820 we were able to get up to 30 feet of stereo music without static.

For connecting to the Internet, the Glyde must use Verizon’s EVDO network, since it does not have built-in WiFi. When launching the browser, you are taken to the VZW homepage, which has quick-launch icons for news, sports, weather, entertainment, optimized web, connect, email, and Verizon services. Along the bottom are icons for back, home, refresh, favorites, WWW, and menu. It would be nice if the bottom icon bar had an auto-hide feature to allow more of web sites to be visible, since you do not need to have those 6 icons always showing. When selecting “Go to WWW” you can view HTML web sites as they would appear on your PC, with properly rendered text, pictures, and formatting, but there is a lot of horizontal and vertical scrolling that must be done. You can zoom out, by pressing the left/top volume rocker, which will cut down on some scrolling since more of the page is shown at the same time, or you can go to menu/settings/view mode and select Smart Fit, which will reformat the page to only allow for vertical scrolling. This does not compare to the more advanced web browsers used on the iPhone or the HTC Diamond, which allow for easier movement and zooming of web pages. We then went back to the home page and tried the optimized web option. This completely reformats web sites and partitions them into smaller pages. You have to click through 6 or more of these pages to view one actual large HTML page. After we used this for a while, we decided to revert back to the standard non-optimized view, where HTML pages are displayed as intended. Due to the ongoing problems that we’ve had using the touchscreen with other applications, it comes as no surprise that it was also problematic when using the browser. When using your finger to move web sites around on the screen, the page doesn’t move smoothly, and often times would move erratically. For selecting text links, most are shown quite small, causing us to zoom in 150-200% to be able to click the link with our finger. Despite the browser supporting HTML and JavaScript, it does not support any type of plug-ins, such as Flash, which means you cannot watch videos using the popular www.youtube.com site. This was also true with the Voyager, so we tried the mobile-version http://m.youtube.com which did work and play videos on the Voyager, but unfortunately did not work on our Glyde. We are unsure as to why we could not get the Mobile YouTube videos to play, but without them, it limits your video options to only V Cast video.


The time required for the browser to completely load graphically rich sites, such as PhoneArena.com, is 50 seconds, while more simplistic sites, such as Google, would only take up to 6 seconds. While the speed is not excessively bad, the Glyde should have been EVDO Rev A compatible to allow for faster downloads.



Computer Sync:

Even though the Glyde comes with a USB data cable, you are limited to only using it in conjunction with the Music Essentials program, which must be installed from the CD. This is because the device does not show as USB Mass Storage. With the program and proper Samsung device drivers installed, you can sync music from your PC to the microSD card installed in the phone. However, you cannot transfer any other files over the data cable, such as pictures or videos, like you can with the Voyager. For this, you must still use a card reader.