Samsung Galaxy S Blaze 4G User Reviews

Author posted on 27 Oct 2012, 01:27

9

I love this phone!

Author has owned it for less than month before publishing this review

I love this phone! For me, it’s the perfect combination of compact size (4.79 x 2.48 inches) with a big screen (4-inch diagonal), a powerful processor (Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 running at 1.5 Ghz), and Android operating system (4.0.4). I like it BETTER than Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S III because the Blaze is smaller; it’s able to fit comfortably in a pocket. Blaze has good audio quality sending and receiving, snappy screen response, beautiful vivid screen colors, nice camera (5 megapixels), and everything works. No strange reboots, no hanging apps. My complaints are minor. (1) There is no LED indicator, so the phone WILL correctly notify you of an incoming call or text when it’s asleep, but if you miss it, then the phone goes back to sleep (black screen with no flashing indicator, no LED). You have to wake the phone to check if something came in that you missed. (2) The XT9 predictive text is a bit intrusive when it’s turned on. It works, but it could be smoother and more intuitive. This can be fixed with an ad-on text app. (3) The emoticons in the SMS text dialogs are green "Android" illustrations showing smiles, laughter, love, etc... But they're poorly drawn and difficult to distinguish one from another. A smile looks like a little green blob, not very different from a laugh or a cry. Note that sent messages actually include only the original text characters :-) etc... and when you copy the text to another app, the original text characters reappear (as they should). So the problem...  

I love this phone! For me, it’s the perfect combination of compact size (4.79 x 2.48 inches) with a big screen (4-inch diagonal), a powerful processor (Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 running at 1.5 Ghz), and Android operating system (4.0.4). I like it BETTER than Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S III because the Blaze is smaller; it’s able to fit comfortably in a pocket. Blaze has good audio quality sending and receiving, snappy screen response, beautiful vivid screen colors, nice camera (5 megapixels), and everything works. No strange reboots, no hanging apps. My complaints are minor. (1) There is no LED indicator, so the phone WILL correctly notify you of an incoming call or text when it’s asleep, but if you miss it, then the phone goes back to sleep (black screen with no flashing indicator, no LED). You have to wake the phone to check if something came in that you missed. (2) The XT9 predictive text is a bit intrusive when it’s turned on. It works, but it could be smoother and more intuitive. This can be fixed with an ad-on text app. (3) The emoticons in the SMS text dialogs are green "Android" illustrations showing smiles, laughter, love, etc... But they're poorly drawn and difficult to distinguish one from another. A smile looks like a little green blob, not very different from a laugh or a cry. Note that sent messages actually include only the original text characters :-) etc... and when you copy the text to another app, the original text characters reappear (as they should). So the problem is just the display. There is no switch to turn off these graphic emoticons. Keep in mind that all these items are minor complaints.

The phone is just about perfect for me. It’s by far the best smart phone I have owned and I prefer it to all other smart phones compatible with T-Mobile’s network.

Build quality 10/10

Reception 10/10

Call quality 9/10 It sounds as good as any phone I have used.

Internet 10/10

Multimedia 10/10

Camera 8/10

UI speed 9/10 Because the UI is very fast. No apparent hesitation or lag

Everyday usage 9/10 I like this phone better than any other smart phone compatible with T-Mobile's network.

Text input 7/10

Display 9/10 Beautiful vivid screen colors.

Battery 8/10 The battery lasts a reasonable time, especially with WIFI and GPS turned off, but you have to recharge at the end of the day (or in late afternoon) after heavy use. This has never been a problem for me. I just plug it in and keep working.

Pros

• Size (small footprint)
• Fast speed
• 4-inch screen

Cons

• No LED indicator
• XT9 predictive text is a bit intrusive
• Graphic emoticons are difficult to read

Author alternatives:

Samsung Galaxy S III T-Mobile