Samsung Vibrant (Galaxy S) Review (T-Mobile)

Pros: AMOLED screen, thin profile, nice edges, pocketable, media friendly, fast, Android 2.2 compatible

Cons: plastic casing, no flash (!!!), battery life, Touch Wiz

Summary: This definitely the best Android phone available for T-Mobile, so if you have no interest in switching carriers this is definitely a phone worth checking out.

One of four variants of the Samsung Galaxy S, the Samsung Vibrant has now arrived to the T-Mobile network. Sporting a 4″ AMOLED screen, 1GHz Hummingbird processor, and entertainment store the Vibrant is Samsung’s first strong attempt at entering the smartphone market in recent years. The Vibrant is offered from T-Mobile for $199.99 with a two-year contract starting July 15^th.

Design and Hardware:

The Vibrant is quite an elegant phone, with a thin profile, rounded edges, beautiful screen, and clean look. It measures 4.82 inches tall by 2.54 inches wide by .39 inches thick and weighs 4.16 ounces, making a lightweight phone that falls in between the iPhone and the Droid X in terms of size. Unlike the new generation of giant phones (Evo 4G, HD2, and Droid X) the Vibrant easily slips in and out pockets, while fitting nicely in any size hand. To cut down on weight the Vibrant is made of plastic, which we are not too happy about. Personally we have found that denser phones (although heavier) tend to feel sturdier. We greatly prefer the construction of the Nexus One, which is made of metal, in comparison to the Vibrant.

The Vibrant is almost entirely black with the exception of some silver trimmings. The back panel of the phone has a textured look and a silver “Galaxy S” logo. Other than that, users will also be able to find a 5-MP camera sans flash on the rear of the phone. The front of the phone is occupied with a 4″ screen, as well as four touch-sensitive buttons below the display (your typical Android keys).

The Vibrant has a beautiful AMOLED screen that can output over 16 million colors and should be quite comparable to the iPhone 4 in color quality and sharpness. The screen was responsive and did not lag when touched. The pre-loaded Avatar movie looked great on the screen. We wish Samsung had included an HDMI-out to this phone like many of its competitors.

Some other things you will find on the phone are a volume rocker, 3.5 mm headphone jack, lock/power key, mini-USB port, Accelerometer, and Swype keyboard. The phone also comes with 16 GB of internal memory that can be expanded with a micro-SD card.

Software and Features:

The Vibrant runs Android 2.1 skinned with Samsung’s TouchWiz 3.0 interface. We must admit we have not been fans of the Touch Wiz interface in the past and often found it clunky and useless in comparison to HTC’s Sense UI. However 3.0 brings some great improvements to the interface, but it is still no match for Sense. Samsung has added some new widgets such as Feeds and Updates which streams updates from all of the user’s social-networking sites. The feature allows lists to be updated up to every 30 minutes, but it may be wise to lengthen the refresh rate in order to conserve battery.

Just like other Android phones the Vibrant supports live wallpapers and has 4 main function keys present at the bottom of the screen. Pressing the application button brings up a list of all installed applications. Instead of scrolling up and down, this menu now navigates from left to right much like the iPhone. The Vibrant lacks some of the cooler features of HTC Sense like the Leap Screen, and “live” weather. The Vibrant will be upgradeable to Froyo (Android 2.2), but Samsung has made no mention of when the update will be available. Also, although Froyo is compatible with the Vibrant and Touch Wiz 3.0, there is no guarantee that future updates of Android will be.

The Vibrant easily synced with our Outlook and Gmail accounts (it can also sync with Yahoo and Twitter), but like most Android phones we had to delete a couple repeat contacts. Samsung utilizes a swipe feature when viewing contacts. If users swipe to the right the contact is called and if the user swipes to the left a message box opens.

The Vibrant is a quad-band world phone that offers the typical slew of features that most smartphones do such as speakerphone, conference calling, voice dialing, Bluetooth, 3G, GPS, groups, and photo caller ID. The main focus of the Vibrant is clearly multimedia. The phone ships with a free copy of Avatar and also includes program such as Kindle for Android, Sims 3, MobiTV, Slacker Radio, and a month of Gogo Inflight Internet. Samsung will also be launching the Samsung Media Hub which will allow users to purchase media content such as videos—a feature that is sorely lacking from most Android devices.

Performance:

The 5-MP camera on the Vibrant is a mixed bag. If used outside or in great lighting conditions it produces fantastic pictures such as the one below on the left. This picture could easily pass of as a photo taken with a point-and-shoot camera. If the lighting conditions were poor the pictures were not very good to say the least (picture on the right). Why there is no flash on this phone is puzzling. On the upside, the features available when taking pictures are great. They include: auto focus, white balance, ISO, and scence modes, effects, and adjustable exposure.

T-Mobile signal in Philadelphia is spotty at best. Coverage can drop in and out as you walk through a single building. However when it did work call quality was good and internet speeds were what we expected.

Avatar looked amazing on the phone and played without any skips or pauses. Other clips we loaded on the phone also played flawlessly which was great. The 5.1 surround sound that is available on the phone sounds great when plugged into a stereo system.

Unlike most phones coming out recently, the Vibrant does not sport a Snapdragon processor, but rather contains a Hummingbird Cortex A8 processor. Thus far, the processor has worked flawlessly and has kept our phone running smoothly and quickly.

The Vibrant’s battery life isn’t very good. Much like the EVO 4G, we found that it could easily drain completely after a few hours of moderate to heavy usage. This is not a good sign. Is it is possible battery life will improve over time as the battery drains completely and replenishes. Hopefully an extended battery will be released for the phone that does not add much size or weight to the device.

Design and Hardware Rating: 8.3/10

Software and Features Rating: 8.5/10

Performance Rating: 8.0/10

Overall Rating: 8.27/10 – Very Good

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