Verizon has the widest range of offers for their customers, as always. Not only did they finally get Apple to sign a deal for their iPhone 4, but they’re also offering some of the best Android devices, as well. The Droid Bionic and Motorola Xoom are the brightest two examples, and now they’ve added something for those who prefer some style on their smartphone work horse – meet the Samsung Droid Charge.
Exterior
The Droid Charge looks very stylish on the outside: it has a shield-like shape, which makes it look durable and reliable, with 4 hardware navigation buttons below the display, which a lot of people will like (you can’t accidentally click these like the touch buttons on most newer smartphones). The phone is very sturdy, despite its almost huge size (but that’s because of the 4.3 inch screen, so it’s forgivable), and the materials feel high quality (it’s a mix of metal and plastic).
Display
The display is one of the main attractions of the Droid Charge – it’s a big 4.3 inch, 800×480 Super AMOLED Plus unit, which looks simply amazing even at this resolution – there’s really no other screen that has the same insane contrast, brightness and vivid colors – Samsung have truly outdone themselves in this regard!
Hardware specs
The Samsung Droid Charge is one of Verizon’s 4G LTE enabled handsets, which means you’ll be able to surf the Web and transfer data at speeds of up to 30 Mbps download and 15 Mbps upload and even higher in the future. That is definitely very fast, and no current 3G or WiMAX network can even get close to those speeds.
The processing power of this big boy may disappoint a lot of people, however, as it’s provided by a single core 1 GHz Hummingbird processor, which is still pretty fast, especially in games with its PowerVR SGX540 graphics adapter, but will be overtaken by dual core platforms as soon as Android updates its multithreading capabilities (they’re there, but need to be better optimized).
The storage space will have to be provided by the user via a micro SD card, which is a bit weird, seeing as this is one of Verizon’s more expensive offers, but on the other hand, you can have up to 32 GB of memory (and even more in the future), which is better than being stuck with 8 or even 16 GB of internal space.
Software
Obviously, Droid Charge runs the Android OS, in this case it’s version 2.2 Froyo, with Samsung’s custom Touch Wiz interface (for which they’re being sued by Apple – you have to admit, the icons and layout do look iPhone-y :-). There is supposed to be an update to 2.3 in the near future, but with Samsung’s previous track record, I don’t know if it will ever come. Still, even Android 2.2 is more than enough on this device – users will certainly not miss any features that the newer versions offer – you can always get what you need from the marketplace, anyway.
Conclusion
The Droid Charge looks like an attractive package, though it’s a bit too expensive for the hardware and software features being offered. I think it’s intended for those who want a reliable Android smartphone that also looks stylish and distinguishable from the crowd – and that’s exactly what the Droid Charge does best.
