Galaxy S 4G First Impressions/Reviews

[ragnarokx]

Hey everybody!

The purpose of this thread, is to hear members thoughts & opinions on how the Galaxy S 4G stacks up amongst a suggested list of attributes:

Aesthetics
Screen
Hardware
Phone - including bluetooth & speakerphone usage
Overall User Interface
Widgets
Signal quality (Compared to other devices)
GPS
Social Networking
Email/Calendar
Battery Life
Performance
Media (music, movies, DLNA)
Keyboard's
Camera (both still & video)
How the Galaxy S 4G compares to your previous smartphone (if applicable)
Disappointments (if any)

Feel free to provide as little or as much detail as possible, while trying to make it as useful as possible. Hopefully this will help others who are considering the Galaxy S 4G, but would like to hear some user feedback first. Also, please do not review the Galaxy S 4G prior to having one.

And if you read a review that you found helpful, please use the Thanks button to show them your appreciation!

 

[SGS4G]

Impressions so far...

I have only had it since the release date Wednesday the 23rd. So far it's been fast and the battery life seems pretty good with moderate use. The display is nice and the 4" screen is perfect size. T-Mo's 4G is pretty fast, along with Froyo 2.2.1 I can live with the UI for now, I don't know if I will be modding it anytime soon.

I kinda like it the way it is. I don't think Verizon's LTE is going to be fast enough for me to change to their service. The only thing is if it was dual core and had some awesome graphics chip as well.

 

[MattMJB0188]

I just got the phone tonight. It's great and I love the UI. I DO NOT LIKE having 184MB of internal storage. The screen is absolutely gorgeous!!! Gonna take some time getting use to it. UPDATE: I noticed a little lag when tethering but when not tethering its very smooth. Can't report anything on battery life yet. The speaker phone sounds very nice but I wish it would go a little louder. Can't report anything on the 4G speeds because T-Mobile doesn't even have 3G here yet lol. Holds a very nice EDGE signal lol. Very pleased so far.

 

[MattMJB0188]

I just got the phone tonight. It's great and I love the UI. I DO NOT LIKE having 184MB of internal storage. The screen is absolutely gorgeous!!! Gonna take some time getting use to it. UPDATE: I noticed a little lag when tethering but when not tethering its very smooth. Can't report anything on battery life yet. The speaker phone sounds very nice but I wish it would go a little louder. Can't report anything on the 4G speeds because T-Mobile doesn't even have 3G here yet lol. Holds a very nice EDGE signal lol. Very pleased so far.

UPDATE: When viewing web pages with heavy content, you have to wait until its fully loaded to scroll and zoom or it will be laggy.

UPDATE: (Day 3) I am finding the phone to be laggy sometimes. According to several reviews, this is quite common. I am hoping Samsung addresses this later on in an update. It's not bad and the phone is excellent but its there.

 

[aparker813]

I'm going back and forth between the S 4G and my MyTouch 4G and the first thing I've noticed is the 4G speeds are way faster on the S...getting over 5mb/s every time I've run the Ookla speed test while the MyTouch only gets around 3.

Not liking the lack of a notification LED, camera button or camera LED flash (I use it as a flashlight real often). However the S feels like it weighs maybe half what the Touch does and the screen is just gorgeous...makes my EVO screen look really, really bad.

 

[phylo]

I just migrated from a iPhone 3gs and my one complaint is the battery life. Its been of the charger for an hour and the only thing I have done is check my email and already its at 95%... That worries me a little since I use the phone for work and rely heavily on bluetooth and talk quite a bit.. With the 3gs I could go all day without charging the phone with fairly heavy use.. It seems like Ill need to have the charger at hand and charge S at least once a day or more... Im not so happy about that...

 

[Melissa]

Day 1

Ok. First off, I am a newb to the Droid world. I have a lot of learning to do..I know that. So please bare with me because I will probably have 101 questions about this phone. I came from BB world and did not have all these bells and whistles on my phone.

First impression? I LOVE this phone. I like the display, the screen size, color and clarity are great. It has great organization ability.

After playing with this phone for a day there a couple of things that are kind of a turn off or probably should have been a no brainer when they were creating this phone.
1. No flash for the camera. Not a huge deal to me, because I do not take many pics with my phones.
2. The speaker is on the outter side of the phone. So if you have a case on it or put the phone down while using hands free its not that loud and even sounds a little muffled.
3. And this is really an issue with me...CREATING GROUPS IN THE ADDRESS BOOK! I must be missing something because this should be easy and it's not. It is very frustrating that I can not create groups from my contacts. I have followed the manual online and there is an icon they show that my phone should have and it is not there. If someone figured out how to make groups I would be forever greatful to you.

Thats all I have so far. I will keep updating for a few days after I get a good feel for all the features the Galaxy S 4G has.

 

[yacoub]

Great phone.
Only downsides so far are:

#1 - Spotty web coverage, and I'm in the heart of supposedly quality 4G coverage here in the DC Metro area. I can go a block or two from my residence and it's terrible, webpages don't even load at all in the browser. Here at home it's brilliant, and I also can turn WiFi on so it can just rip through loading web content without a problem.

#2 - Can't seem to get any of the T-Mobile contacts the store loaded onto the device from my old phone into Groups at all. No option anywhere in the Contacts system to set them up into Groups or move them over to GMail or any other Contact type. Really annoying. I guess I may have to manually enter them and then join them or something? Quite frustrating.

#3 - No external LED to alert about email, SMS, voicemail, etc. Sort of a basic feature every phone should have since the 21st century began, no?

#4 - Bug with Gallery and DoubleTwist that takes your nice hi-res wallpaper photos you load onto the phone and shrinks them into massively compressed lousy versions of the images. Can be worked around as per this post, but do hope this bug gets fixed.

Other than that, it's been fantastic.

 

[GQ50]

Seriously, no one will address the GPS question? Okay, can some of you here with this phone use the GPS for a few days to see 1. if it works, 2. if it stays locked and isn't spotty? I mean it was one of the biggest problems with last years model phone. Thanks for any response for those that have one.

 

[ragnarokx]

Take a look at this thread.

 

[GQ50]

I see...hope this doesn't plague the Infuse...

 

[nukeaggie]

battery life is great. got it wed. it went 13 hours yesterday until the battery died, I used it all day long: downloading my apps, pandora in the car, setting up all my perferences. Today, I have listened to pandora for 5 hours straight and still have 25% left, while listening to pandora I have been playing with everything else.

 

[zuben el genubi]

I bought the phone for the screen and processor speed. I use the phone as a PDA and have lots of PDF information sheets and tutorials stuffed on the card.
It's unlocked and rooted, only to get rid of all the stupid social apps. I don't need it as a music player.
The GPS does work. I installed a new astronomy app and it found the right latitude and longitude immediately. It does far better than Nokia and Ovi maps. I still prefer the Garmin in the car. Most of my passengers will work with the Garmin as it's not as personal as a phone.
I only locked the apps when I rooted, but Doubletwist and Airsync, while they might not have been using data, they were using battery.

You can create groups in your contacts, but I'll be damned if you can access them as groups like you can with a BB.

As to alerts, you can set a vibration for them. Some of us don't want alerts. We answer in our own time, and use missed calls.

That screen is great!

 

[travisjames]

Had the MyTouch 4G for quite a while until one day it stopped receiving a data connection. I called T-Mobile and they had run out of replacements so they asked to send me a brand-new Galaxy S 4G instead, which I happily accepted.

There are a few quirks about the phone that I am not too happy about, the lack of the notification LED and the LED flash are two.

Out of all though, I would give the phone a 4/5

 

[crank0901]

I am very new this so please bear with my obvious lack of technical knowledge.
1. I am supposed to be in great reception area, at least when I check out TM coverage maps, however every time I get on the internet my phone drops from "4g" to E. I don't know if that is carrier or hardware.
2. I actually like the feel of the phone, my first android was a metro pcs Huawei Ascend. I wanted an inexpensive phone to see what the rage was all about.The Galaxy seems more intuitive.
3. The screen is great from the little use I have given the phone thus far, Inception looked wonderful for the 10 minutes I could actually spend watching it.
That is my inexperienced first impression.

 

[Marper]

Aesthetics - I think the design is well fitted
Screen - above average
Hardware - Depends (is it really quality ? I would not be able to tell you)
Phone - including bluetooth & speakerphone usage - CRAP - bt problems, speaker sucks
Overall User Interface - I wish it was pure android - let me decide if I want to customize
Widgets - don't use them
Signal quality (Compared to other devices) - (only my opinion, just as bad as the Vibrant)
GPS - Same as signal, bad
Social Networking - Not used
Email/Calendar - Stock is really limited in functionality
Battery Life - Good
Performance - Out of the box 5-stars, real world with apps - SUCKS - Laggy as hell.
Media (music, movies, DLNA) - OK
Keyboard's - Swype rocks
Camera (both still & video) - I like the camera
How the Galaxy S 4G compares to your previous smartphone (if applicable) - I had a number of smartphones since they came on the market (can't stand up to the ithingy), however, this phone as with its predecessor Vibrant is sub-par quality based on "real world" use. The wifi/bt/speed of the device is sub-par any other phone I've used.
Disappointments (if any) - That this vendor (Samsung) and others like them are reaping huge profits for sub-par operational devices. All the hype about the look, feel and the genius of its design really does not ensure the OEM not only support the device but fix the issues. Most companies would make an attempt to keep their customers happy, but with the hype, why should they care.