subject: Introducing The Feature Rich Android Phone, The Samsung Captivate [print this page] Until now, if you didn't want to purchase an iPhone 4 because of the antenna issues, there was no recourse when it came to AT&T being able to offer you viable options. Consumers who wished to purchase an iPhone are now looking closely at the new Samsung Captivate as well as Samsung Captivate accessories and what they bring to the table. It may suffer in a few basic features when compared to the iPhone 4, but with everything that it has under the hood, the comparison turns out to be a very close one.
Design The Samsung Captivate features Android 2.1 amenities, including WiFi, a 1GHz processor, a 5 megapixel camera an HD video recorder, Bluetooth 3.0 capabilities, a 6-axis sensor for gaming and motion detection, and 16GB of internal memory to name a few. As soon as you pick up a Samsung Captivate you'll notice that the screen, at 4 inches, is larger and brighter than the iPhone's 3.5-inch LCD display. The screen boasts more contrast, better resolution and upgraded technology to the iPhone. Reading text on the Samsung Captivate is actually easier to read than reading on the iPhone 4. One drawback to the design is the faulty backlighting that quickly goes off behind the menu, home, back and search buttons. This backlighting tends to go off while the display is still on, which makes the menu buttons hard to use in the dark. It is recommended that you look into Samsung Captivate cases and Samsung Captivate screen protectors to protect the touchscreen.
Multimedia AT&T packed the Samsung Captivate with many kinds of multimedia options. There are options available to use subscription-based streaming media, such as the Samsung Media Hub, where users can download movies and TV shows. As with most 3G phones, YouTube videos are defaulted to display in standard resolution. YouTube videos look crisp and clear on the AMOLED touchscreen in high definition mode. Samsung also includes the application, AllShare, which allows one to play files from the phone on other media players through a WiFi network.
Functionality & Web The applications menu has changed from a portable slide to one with 4x4 icons that span the screen horizontally. You can arrange the order of your applications by alphabetical order. While AT&T's 3G network is currently much faster than it has been in the past, the Samsung Captivate loads webpages slower than the iPhone. In fact, the iPhone loaded webpages about twice as fast as the Captivate on average.
Camera If there is one area where the iPhone completely dominates the Samsung Captivate, it is with their built in cameras. Where the iPhone creates crisp, colorful pictures, the Captivate's pictures look bleached and amateurish. There is also no flash with the Samsung Captivate. The difference between video capture is less pronounced, with both phones being about equal. The 30 fps frame rate of the Captivate is well above average for mobile phones.
