Tuesday 19 July 2011

Samsung Infuse 4G (AT&T) Review

The good: The Samsung Infuse 4G features a large and vibrant 4.5-inch touch screen that's great for browsing and videos. The Android smartphone is ultrathin and has an 8-megapixel camera and snappy performance.


The bad: The lower-resolution screen makes text look a bit pixelated. AT&T's 4G data speeds are slow.


The bottom line: The Samsung Infuse 4G disappoints in some areas, but it's still a very good Android smartphone for AT&T customers as long as you're OK with the larger design.


First introduced at CES 2011, the Samsung Infuse 4G finally reaches AT&T's network on May 15 for $199.99 with a two-year contract. The Infuse 4G is the carrier's latest Android device, and it sure is getting a lot of fanfare. Not only is it being marketed as the thinnest smartphone available in the U.S., but AT&T says the Infuse is also its fastest 4G handset. Is it all hype or does the Infuse actually deliver? Read on to find out.


Design

On the opposite end of the size spectrum from the petite HP Veer 4G, the Samsung Infuse 4G has a massive 4.5-inch Super AMOLED Plus touch screen. The rectangular slab of a phone is admittedly large at 5.2 inches tall by 2.8 inches wide, and its size will certainly be a turnoff for many. That said, it's only 0.35 inch thick, which Samsung claims makes it the thinnest smartphone available in the U.S., so despite its looks, the phone feels rather manageable once in hand.

Plus, the Infuse 4G weighs just 4.9 ounces, so it also feels light. This is largely due to its plastic construction, and though we've been very critical of Samsung in the past for putting too much plastic in its Galaxy S phones, the company at least added a textured surface to the Infuse's battery door to give it a more high-quality feel.



The 4.5-inch Super AMOLED Plus display is the main attraction of the Infuse 4G. It offers 50 percent more subpixels than the previous generation of Super AMOLED touch screens, so you get better contrast and outdoor visibility. The display is indeed stunning, with its rich and vibrant colors and deep blacks, so videos and images looked exceptional. Plus, it offers good viewing angles and is still readable outdoors.


There's also the fact that the Infuse 4G has one of the biggest screens available on a smartphone. As you would imagine, the extra screen real estate helps when viewing Web pages and enhances the multimedia experience. It also makes for a spacious onscreen keyboard (you have a choice of using either the Swype, Samsung, or Android keyboard), and the extra-large text makes for easy reading. That said, with a WVGA resolution (480x800 pixels) stretched across such a large screen, text and Web images can look a bit pixelated. It's certainly not a deal breaker, considering the other benefits of the Super AMOLED Plus display, but it's something we definitely noticed.



Below the screen, you get four touch-sensitive buttons for the menu, home, back, and search functions. The top of the device houses the headphone jack, while the Micro-USB port is located on the bottom. There's a volume rocker on the left side, and the power button is on the right. We've said it many times before and we'll say it again, but it would be nice if there were a dedicated camera button. The smartphone's 8-megapixel camera and flash sit on the back, and on front just above the display on the left side is the 1.3-megapixel camera.


The Samsung Infuse 4G comes packaged with an AC adapter, a USB cable, a preinstalled 2GB microSD card, a wired stereo headset, an MHL-to-HDMI adapter, and reference material. We should note that the first 500,000 Infuse customers will also receive a $25 voucher to use with Samsung's Media Hub video store from which you can rent and buy movies and TV shows.



Software
The Infuse 4G uses Android 2.2.1 with Samsung's TouchWiz user interface. A majority of the smartphones shipping today run Android 2.2 so we're not particularly surprised that the Infuse does the same, but still, it would have been nice to see Android 2.3 Gingerbread on the smartphone. Samsung would not comment on future updates (perhaps after learning the hard way about sticking to update plans), but we expect to see Gingerbread come to the Infuse in the future.



You get a total of seven home screens that you can customize with various widgets and shortcuts. TouchWiz now also has a feature similar to HTC's Leap screen in which you can pinch the screen to get a thumbnail view of all your home screens or menu pages. The main menu of applications is shown in a simple grid layout with bold icons. It's a very simple presentation of Android and definitely makes the OS easier to use for newbies, but we're sure Android purists will have a very different opinion of TouchWiz.




Features
The Samsung Infuse 4G offers quad-band world roaming, a speakerphone, speed dial, voice commands, conference calling, and text and multimedia messaging with threaded chat view. The smartphone can handle video calls using its front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera. The handset doesn't come preloaded with a video chat client, but you can find options such as Fring in the Android Market.

Thank you :
http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/samsung-infuse-4g-at/4505-6452_7-34468418.html#reviewPage1
http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/05/samsung-infuse-4g-announced-for-atandt-4-5-inch-super-amoled-plus/
http://www.sysdigg.com/samsung-infuse-4g-another-att-4g-smartphones-goes-on-sale
http://androidspin.com/2011/06/13/samsung-infuse-4g-source-code-released/

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