Samsung Captivate Glide Review

With the market brimming with dual-core phones, Samsung Captivate Glide for AT&T has been targeted towards users hate typos.This dual-core Android slider has been released on AT&T’s 4G network and is the only dual-core smartphone with a physical keyboard in the market. If we just move away from the keyboard, then does Captivate Glide has it in itself to take on phones such as iPhone, Galaxy S2 etc. Check out our Samsung Captivate Glide review to know what this phone has in store for you.

Samsung Captivate Glide Looks And Design

The front of Captivate Glide looks very much the same as that of Samsung Galaxy S II. Samsung has used high quality plastic in construction of the device though we would have liked a metal clad body for the phone.

The phone is pretty compact and at dimensions standing at 124 x 64 x 13 mm, the phone is very much pocketable. It weighs 147 grams, 10 grams heavier than Apple iPhone. The rear of the phone is covered in black plastic which ensures a firm grip on the phone. Overall, Captivate Glide design and looks is quite simple and plain and Samsung has stuck with the same formula which has worked for it previously.

Samsung Captivate Glide Display

Glide boasts of a large 4 inch Super AMOLED display which displays pictures of 800×480 pixels. The images displayed were quite sharp and the colors were pretty deep. The brightness of the display measured by us was higher than what we found in HTC Vivid and LG Nitro. High contrast and wide viewing angles are characteristic for all Samsung phones which have AMOLED screens and Captivate Glide is no different. The screen is made up of gorilla glass which protects the screen from scratches and smudges.

Below the screen lies the four touch sensitive buttons like other high-end Android offering from Samsung. The ambient light and proximity sensor lies above the screen. On the left side of Captivate Glide, you get a volume rocker button while the power/lock key is located on the right hand side. On the top of the screen, we get a 3.5mm audio jack along with microUSB port.

Samsung Captivate Glide Features/User Interface

Just like Galaxy S II devices, Captivate Glide runs on Samsung’s TouchWiz4.0 interface using Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread platform. Uses get 7 customizable home screens and pre-loaded resizable live widgets. One can remove the lock screen by swiping it in any direction and the home screen has plenty of tweaks. There are rectangular designs for the widgets and the application launcher has also seen a lot of improvements. It permits you to create folders inside it and the task manager offers a lot of functionality.

The dual core processor made it a delight to watch Youtube videos on the phone and it helped carrying out most of the operations quite effectively. With 8GB of internal memory, you can store a large amount of data. The memory can be increased to a mammoth 32GB.

Samsung Captivate Glide Keyboard

One of the great features of Captivate Glide is the presence of large physical QWERTY keypad which offers large keys with good amount of space. During typing we did not make any mistake and we liked the fact that there are dedicated keys for Search, Home, www. and .com. The keys are quite flat and sometimes we had to press them hard in order to get the right feedback.

Apart from the physical keyboard, Captivate Glide also features three touch-screen keyboards. The Android’s keyboard was quite tiny in portrait mode, but in landscape mode, they were quite large. Samsung’s own keyboard offered big keys in both portrait and landscape mode. The Swype keyboard offered easy admission to alternate symbols and punctuations. The haptic feedback was also very light.

Samsung Captivate Glide Apps

Most of the applications found in Captivate Glide. With the Media Hub application, you can buy or rent movies. The Social Hubaggregates Twitter and Facebook updates at one place and with the All Share application, you can wirelessly share multimedia contents with DLNA compatible device. We were impressed by the Mini Diary application, which allowed users to create digital entries. Some of the other third-part apps include

• Amazon Kindle
• Google Talk
• Youtube
• YellowPages.com

Apps from AT&T include

• myAT&T
• Code Scanner
• FamilyMap
• Live TV
• Navigator

Samsung Captivate Glide Audio

The speakers on the backside of Captivate Glide are capable of filling a small room with crisp audio. We could hear songs pretty clearly. However, the lack of bass disappointed us to some extent.

Samsung Captivate Glide Camera Quality

Samsung Captivate Glide AT&T is equipped with a 8MP auto-focus camera which shoots photos up to 3264×2448 pixels. The camera comes with a LED flash but there is nothing to protect the lens or the shutter key. The interface of the camera looks very much the same with a couple of shortcut bars on either side of the viewfinder. In terms of features, the camera offers almost everything- touch focus, geo-tagging, image stabilization, smile detection, metering mode etc. The pictures came out really good and there is plenty of details. However, we noticed that in some cases, the camera was a bit slow to react. The phone is also equipped with a front facing 1.3MP camera which is great for carrying out video conference.

Samsung Captivate Glide Video

Unfortunately the camcoder of Captivate Glide AT&T is not capable of recording full HD videos. You have to be content with 720p videos. This is quite surprising considering the fact that the phone has enough horsepower to handle full HD videos. The interface of the video camera is very much the same as that of the camera. The front camera too is capable of recording videos. The videos are quite good and offer good amount of details.

Samsung Captivate Glide Connectivity

Connectivity is quite robust with Captivate Glide. You get quad band GSM/GPRS/EDGE and tri-band 3G. Some of the other connectivity options you get with the device are

Bluetooth

The phone is equipped with Bluetooth 3.0 with High Speed which offer transfer speed up to 21Mbps.

Wi-Fi

Wireless connectivity in the device is enhanced by Wi-Fi support which includes a/b/g/n versions. Wi-Fi direct has similar technology which offers pairing of the devices at a good speed.

NFC

The phone is also NFC equipped which helps you to connect it with NFC enabled devices.

With the All share application you can stream contents to and from a TV, computer etc. Web browsing also is a great experience and the internals make it a delight to surf net on the phone. The browser supports double tap and pinch zooming.

Samsung Captivate Glide Accessories

During unboxing, we found Captivate Glide to be equipped with following accessories:

• Samsung Captivate Glide
• Charger
• USB cable
• User Manual

We were disappointed to find that there are no headphones or microSD card in the box.Download Samsung Glide Manual/User Guide.

Samsung Captivate Glide Call Quality

In our testing, the phone delivered robust call quality. We were able to hear the audio loud and clear and receivers at the other end too did not report any distortion in calls.

Samsung Captivate Glide Battery Life

The phone is equipped with a standard Li-Ion 1650 mAh battery which provides a talk time of around 8 hours.

Samsung Captivate Glide Price

Captivate Glide price in the USA is approximately $ 200 while price of Glide in India is not yet known.

As of now, if you are looking for an Android device on AT&T, then Captivate Glide is one of the best options available at your disposal. The phone offers solid performance with a bright display and great audio. The major drawback of the phone is its lack of 4G LTE support. But overall Captivate Glide is surly worth a look.