Samsung Droid Charge Review

Introduction:

It has been a little over a month since we reviewed Verizon’s first 4G LTE smartphone, the HTC ThunderBolt, as we were impressed by its data speeds, software, and overall performance, though we are still having an issue with the device cycling through 4G, 3G, and 1x for no apparent reason, which we discussed here. Now with the new Samsung Droid Charge approaching release, we have high hopes for it, as it comes packed with a Super AMOLED Plus display, 1GHz Hummingbird processor, an 8MP camera, and of course 4G LTE. Let’s see if it has what it takes to steal away customers from buying the ThunderBolt.

Included in the retail box is the Samsung Droid Charge SCH-i510 phone with a 32GB Class 2 microSDHC memory card pre-installed, 1600mAh battery, wall charger with a 1-meter detachable microUSB cable, and user guides.

Design:

Even though the Samsung Droid Charge is not in the “Galaxy” line, its overall design does remind us some of the Samsung Fascinate and Samsung Continuum for Verizon, as it has a plastic construction with chrome around the edges, and a gray colored back that is slick to the touch. When compared next to the HTC ThunderBolt, the Samsung Droid Charge doesn’t feel quite as thick, and is also not as heavy, though we do wish it had the soft-touch coating on the back to give it more of a grip.



You can compare the Samsung Droid Charge with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

Located on the front is the impressive 4.3” WVGA resolution Super AMOLED Plus display. The “Plus” means that the display on the Droid Charge is brighter than the (regular) Super AMOLED screen that is used by the Fascinate and Continuum, and it also uses a standard RGB pixel matrix, so that text and images are sharper than before. More information about Super AMOLED Plus and how it compares to other displays can be viewed here. We used the Droid Charge outside on a sunny day and could still view the screen, while the TFT screen on the ThunderBolt was dark and unreadable. This is one key advantage the Droid Charge has over the ThunderBolt.




Above the screen is a 1.3MP camera (on the left) and the proximity sensor (on the right), but not present is a LED notification light – which we find unthinkable to be missing on such a high-end device. Below the display are four physical buttons for accessing the menu, home, back, and search. We like having the real physical buttons, as the touch-sensitive ones (like on the ThunderBolt) can be easily pressed by mistake. Along the sides of the Droid Charge are the volume rocker, microUSB port, 3.5mm headset jack, power/lock key, and HDMI video port. One thing we noticed is that all of these side-buttons are larger and easier to find and press than the ones on the ThunderBolt. On the back is the 8MP autofocus camera with LED flash, and removing the battery cover will allow access to the 4G SIM card slot and the pre-installed 32GB microSDHC memory card.

Interface:

The Samsung Droid Charge runs on Android 2.2.1 Froyo and makes use of Samsung’s TouchWiz 3.0 interface layered on top. Because of this, its form and function is pretty much identical to what we saw last year with the Samsung Continuum and Fascinate – so no surprises here.

TouchWiz attempts to add extra functionality to the Android operating system. There are four dedicated buttons at the bottom (phone, contacts, messaging and applications), 7 home screens, a reorganized the app drawer (that uses swipeable pages, but can be changed to a list-view), and some other reworking on things like the phonebook. TouchWiz also brings along a few custom widgets, including a dual time zone clock, WeatherBug clock, calendar, daily briefing, feeds and updates for social networking, buddies, and a program monitor.



Even though the TouchWiz 3.0 interface on the Droid Charge is leaps ahead of the older versions, we still believe that HTC’s Sense UI (as used by the ThunderBolt) is the only custom skin to truly enhance the overall user experience for Android. HTC has some very nice applications, such as their contacts and dialer programs, which add significant functionality beyond what stock Android has to offer. The Buddies Now widget on the Droid Charge, for example, takes up an entire screen but only displays one assigned favorite contact at a time, which you have to scroll though. Thankfully, this time around, the bottom four icons on the screen and all the icons in the app menu can be edited and moved around.



Contacts:

Of the other customizations Samsung has made to the default Android interface, the most notable are in the Phonebook. Going into the Phone screen will open up to the dial pad, but there are also tabs at the top for the call log, favorites, and contacts. Tap on one of your saved contacts, and you are taken to their respective screen, where you can view their info, message history, posting activities, and media (pictures).



The Android 2.2 phonebook groups all of your phone, Google, and Facebook contacts into one scrolling list. Samsung furthers this by adding the contacts from your Twitter, Skype, AIM, Windows Live, Yahoo! Messenger and MySpace accounts. Furthermore, you can import and export contacts to the SIM card. It also does a good job of linking contacts together that have the same name, but you still have the option of doing it manually. Pretty much all of the contacts’ details are visible and editable on the screen at once.

Organizer & Messaging:

We also appreciate the usefulness of the integrated Calendar, since it pulls events from your Google, Facebook and corporate Outlook/Exchange accounts. Views are separated by day, week, or month (the default tab), or you can view a list of your recent and future appointments, holidays, and birthdays. Reminders are easily set, and you can choose if the phone is to mark the event only on the handset, or sync it to the cloud with Google Calendar as well. Pushing events work quickly, so adding that party to Google Calendar or Facebook saves it to the phone instantaneously as well.



The alarm function can be found under the Clock icon in the apps menu, and also includes a world clock, stopwatch and timer for all those hard boiled eggs in the morning. It's nice that you can control every aspect of its sounding, and even snooze duration and repetition. One of the phone's apps is a Desk Cradle, and it can be used as a regular alarm clock tucked neatly on your nightstand, but can also be used to access the gallery, daily briefing, and music player. There is the so-called Smart Alarm, which rings up with soothing nature sounds before the main alarm is sounded. Night owls like us are certainly appreciative of any options to wake up in a prolonged and gentle manner. One small bug we noticed while using the Desk Cradle app is that it shows our AccuWeather temperature as 32 degrees on the screen, even though when going into the daily briefing it was correctly shown at 75 degrees.



The Samsung Droid Charge supports every messaging standard you could want, including SMS, MMS and Email, and also comes pre-loaded with Verizon’s Mobile IM app for connecting you to your AIM, Windows Live, and Yahoo! buddy lists. GMail is of course a stand-alone app that replicates the web-based experience. Other Email accounts, including POP3, IMAP and Exchange are handled by the standard Email app. Since the Droid Charge does not have a physical QWERTY keyboard, it comes with Swype preloaded, but has the standard Android keyboard loaded as default on-screen keyboard. For those of you unfamiliar with it Swype, you simply run your finger from key to key without lifting your finger until you’re done with the word. It definitely takes some getting used to, but was remarkably accurate even when we made some mistakes. You can easily change between using the standard Android keyboard and the Swype keyboard by going into the settings menu. Since the 4.3” display on the Samsung Droid Charge is the same size as the one on the HTC ThunderBolt, both provide enough room to type, as the on-screen keys are large and not cramped together.




Internet and Connectivity:

Since we’ve been using the HTC ThunderBolt for a few weeks now, we’ve become accustomed as to what speeds to expect from Verizon’s 4G LTE 700MHz data network, so we were naturally interested in seeing if the Samsung Droid Charge would have similar speeds.

When loading the PhoneArena.com web site, the ThunderBolt only took about 22 seconds to fully load (including all Flash content and ads), but the Droid Charge took a bit longer at about 30 seconds, while the Motorola DROID X was the slowest 45 seconds using Verizon’s EVDO Rev A network. One thing that we noticed was that the Droid Charge has difficulty handling web pages that contain a lot of Flash content, such as our own web site, as it will almost lock-up the web browser, where you can’t even scroll the page or zoom in. The only work-around is to go into the browser setting and change the Plug-ins from “Always on” to either “On Demand” or “Off”. This will allow web pages to load quicker and will also make them much easier to scroll without the browser locking up. Hopefully this issue will be fixed, as most other Android phones do not suffer from this problem.



We were able download the Angry Birds Lite app at 11.44MB from the Android Market on the Droid Charge, which took 20 seconds, while the ThunderBolt only took 18 seconds, and the DROID X took a whopping 2 minutes 40 seconds.

When it comes to the SpeedTest.net app, the newest version is 2.0.3 and appears to be inaccurate with the Droid Charge and ThunderBolt, as it shows download speeds between 0.5 and 1 Mbps. Because of this, we removed it and tried the older 1.7.4 version (which also lacks the ads) and were able to get a download speed of 8.56 Mbps and an upload speed of 4.46 Mbps on the Droid Charge, though we have seen the downloads hit as high as 12 Mbps. These speeds are also about the same that we’ve seen while using the ThunderBolt.

The 4G Mobile HotSpot app allows you to connect up to 10 devices to the Droid Charge via Wi-Fi, which in turn uses the phone’s 4G connection for data. We tested this with the DROID X connected to the Droid Charge, and were able to get 8 Mbps download and 3 Mbps uploads using the SpeedTest.net app.



All of these speeds are fine and dandy, but both the Samsung Droid Charge and HTC ThunderBolt appear that they do not hold onto the 4G signal very well. When we have used other Verizon 4G devices, such as the Samsung HotSpot, Novatel MiFi, and Novatel USB Modem, those have all stayed locked onto 4G in our area and never went down to 3G. But when we use the HTC ThunderBolt in the same area (Ft Lauderdale to Boca Raton FL) it will cycle through 4G, 3G, and 1x for no reason. We talked about this in this article, as other people have reported the same issue, and we also described how to put the ThunderBolt in LTE only mode, which will significantly cut-down on it going to 3G or 1x – though it still happens some. With the Samsung Droid Charge, the problem is slightly different. If we are outside, it will stay on 4G most of the time, but as soon as we are indoors (such as a house, restaurant, or even a car) it will drop down to 3G within a minute, and will occasionally cycle between 4G and 3G back-and-forth. We have noticed that when we are inside and see that the Droid Charge is using 3G, we can toggle the Airplane mode, which will then kick the phone back to 4G for a while, but it will still drop to 3G sooner or later. This is truly unfortunate, as neither phone seems to be completely reliable in maintaining a constant 4G connection. We are unsure if this is a Verizon issue, or is a problem with the phone’s software or hardware/antenna, but we can only hope that it is resolved – as it happened before and after the Verizon 4G data outage that occurred on 4/28/11.

Camera:

It seems that most high-end phones are now coming with an 8MP camera (or larger), and the Samsung Droid Charge is no exception, as it also employs auto focus and a single LED flash. The camera menu is pretty similar between other Samsung phones, giving you options for changing the resolution, scene modes, timers, white balance, effects, ISO, and light metering…among others. When we reviewed the Samsung Fascinate last year, we weren’t impressed with its 5MP camera, as outside images looked hazy and out of focus, but the Samsung Continuum’s 5MP did a much better job. The 8MP camera on the Droid Charge does even better, as images are noticeably sharper and colors are more accurate, though it still suffers from losing detail in bright areas – which have a tendency of being completely washed-out. When taking pictures indoors, we noticed that they were somewhat blurry (almost out of focus), even though when we took them the center focus-square on the screen turned green. The single LED flash does help some in low-light, but still isn’t as bright as we would like. There is also a 1.3MP camera on the front for taking self portraits, but the quality is pretty low, and reminds us of cameras from years ago.






For capturing videos, the Samsung Droid Charge can record up to 1280x720p resolution at 30 frames per second. When played back on a PC, the video was smooth, but we noticed that the color was lacking and the image was soft and not in-focus. We recorded a second video, and it too looked the same way. Because of this, we can’t see using it to record any videos of high importance.





Multimedia:

Even though the Samsung Droid Charge is lacking in its video recording quality, it makes up for it in being able to playback pretty much every file you can throw at it. The tabs on the top of the music player allow sifting through your collection by artist, album and playlists, or display all at once. The landscape mode brings along some nice eye candy, like CD cover flow or an alphabetical wheel, to pick your music from. Sharing the song via email or Bluetooth is done from the context menu while playing. The current song keeps going in the background when the screen is locked, and you can even pull down the notification area to display the controls - not a bad idea, but we wish there was also a desktop widget. Aside from showing the album cover while playing a selection, we like how there's an option to enable a visualization to run above it. We're happy to say that music quality from its rear speaker was more than vibrant with some serious power to make every tone extremely audible to the ear, as there is a nice selection of equalizer settings and effects to choose from. If you prefer to keep your tunes to yourself, you'll be surprised to hear the level of quality when using a pair of ear buds along with a 5.1 channel sound effect, which makes everything sound more full bodied and natural.



One of the main features of the Droid Charge is the Super AMOLED Plus display, and it truly does a wonderful job showing ripped-videos or even ones streams from YouTube. We tested the video player with files of various resolutions and bitrates, encoded with H.264, MPEG-4, XviD and DivX, and all of them were able to play without a problem.



All of your multimedia files get organized in the Gallery, which offers some nice 3D effects, batch view by date/time, and grid view. It automatically indexes the pictures and videos stored on the memory card and on the phone, which cuts down on thumbnail load times. Images can be rotated and cropped right in the gallery, uploaded to Picasa and Facebook, or sent via email, MMS or Bluetooth. The Samsung AllShare function is also here, if you happen to have a home Wi-Fi connection and a DLNA capable TV to watch the pictures or videos from the phone. Videos can also be uploaded straight from the gallery to YouTube. Also, with the included HDMI port, you can connect the phone directly to your HDTV, and view pictures and videos directly on the big screen.



For streaming video over the 4G network, there is Bitbop, which can play pre-recorded clips and full TV episodes. We tested a couple, and after about 10 seconds of buffering, the video will start to play. You can also jump to other parts of the video, but it has to re-buffer each time. At first we had it set to the highest setting of 9MB/min, but noticed that the video wasn’t playing smoothly and there were some audio-sync issues. We lowered it down to 5MB/min, which did improve the smoothness of the video, though there was still some audio-sync problems, so we’re not sure if that has to do with the way the videos were encoded, or with the data connection. You also have the option of subscribing to VCast Video, Blockbuster, and Samsung’s Media Hub, all of which have their own fees involved. Thankfully there is a YouTube app, which works quite well over the 4G network and doesn’t require a subscription fee.



Software:

For GPS guided driving directions you have a choice of using Google Maps, which is free, or VZ Navigator, which is $10 per month. Both provide you with turn-by-turn directions and audio prompts, though their layout is slightly different. Our choice between the two is Google Maps, as it doesn’t have a monthly fee, but this is our personal preference. We’ve used it in the South FL area, and with the 4G connection it is accurate and shows satellite images without having to wait for them to load (unlike with EVDO on the DROID X).



There is also a demo version of Lets Golf 2 and Rock Band included on the Droid Charge, though you have to upgrade to the full version of Rock Band for $10 to have access to the MultiPlayer mode. Both games work as expected and look really nice on the Super AMOLED Plus screen.

For viewing your Microsoft Office files, there is the ThinkFree Office app, which can view Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and even Adobe PDF files.



We are glad to see a 32GB memory card included, as this allows ample room for saving picture, videos, music, and pretty much anything else you can think of. Unfortunately, the Droid Charge only comes with 1.17GB of internal memory, of which 1.10 GB is available for installing downloaded apps. We would prefer to have at least 2GB of internal space for app storage.

Performance:

The second-generation 1GHz Hummingbird processor and 328MB of RAM do a good job on the Samsung Droid Charge – for the most part. When moving between the 7 home screens, they are usually fluid; though we did notice a few times they did lag behind our finger. We preformed the Quadrant Benchmark on the Droid Charge, which tests the CPU, memory, I/O, 2D and 3D graphics, and got a score of 1014, which is better than the Fascinate’s score of 892, but is still much lower than the ThunderBolt that got 1863. When we ran NeoCore, the Droid Charge would get 56.8 fps and the Thunderbolt would get 59 fps. Finally we ran AnTuTu System Benchmark, which got 1886 on the Droid Charge and 1991 on the ThunderBolt.



One area that we were not impressed with on the HTC ThunderBolt was its lower than average voice quality, as we could hear on continual “hiss” in the background, and there was also a buzzing distortion in the earpiece speaker whenever someone would talk. Thankfully, none of those issues are present on the Samsung Droid Charge, as there is no background noise, and voices sound clear and natural, just like on the Fascinate and Continuum.

Signal reception was good in the South FL area (despite the issue with the device going between 4G and 3G modes) and showed 2-3 bars with -89dBm to -94dBm signal strength, as we didn’t drop any calls.

The included 1600mAh battery with the Droid Charge provides 200mAh more capacity than the battery with the ThunderBolt, so it comes as no surprise that the device lasted longer between charges. It is rated at 11 hours of talk time or 11.6 days of standby time. During our testing, we were able to get up to 10 hours of continuous talk time on the Droid Charge, which is 3 hours longer than on the ThunderBolt. And with mixed usage, which includes some talk, text, email, web, app use, and standby, we were able to get up to 12 hours of use before charging, while the ThunderBolt would only last 5-6 hours. It is clear that the Droid Charge is the clear winner between the two when it comes to battery times.

Conclusion:

Before, there was only one choice if you wanted a Verizon 4G LTE smartphone: the HTC ThunderBolt. Now with the Samsung Droid Charge, the bar is raised and there is some competition on the field. We love the large 4.3” Super AMOLED Plus screen, and the 8MP camera does OK for most outside pictures, even though the video recording is a bit of a disappointment. Some of the issues we have with the ThunderBolt are not present on the Droid Charge, such as the poor voice quality and battery life, but unfortunately the Droid Charge likes to drop down to 3G whenever we are indoors. Hopefully this problem can be resolved within the Verizon network and isn’t a hardware issue on the phones. At this point we would recommend you try both of them out at a local store before deciding on which one to purchase, as the Samsung Droid Charge is $299.99 (after rebate) with a 2-year contract, which makes it $50 more than the HTC ThunderBolt.

Software version on the reviewed unit:
Android 2.2.1
Baseband: i510.06 V.ED1
Kernel: 2.6.32.9 se.infra@SEI-28 #1
Build: SCH-I510.ED1
PRL: 15011

Samsung Droid Charge Video Review: