Samsung Captivate (AT&T)

Call quality: We found call quality on the Samsung Captivate loud and clear. Callers said we were loud and clear, as well. While, you can adjust the cell phone’s volume with the corresponding buttons on the side of the Captivate, we rarely needed to use this feature. When used with a Bluetooth headset, call quality sounded solid, though callers could knew we were using a headset.

Audio quality: The playback of music on the Captivate speaker is quite impressive; songs sounded loud, but not distorted or too tinny. However, if you turn the cell phone face down on a flat surface, the music gets louder but also a bit tinny. The Samsung Captivate sports a 3.5mm headset jack and comes with compatible earbuds for listening to music or taking calls. If you do listen to music using the headphones, select 5.1 channel that appears just above the album art on the main screen and the music gets a bit of a boost.

Menu/phone book: The Captivate is a Samsung Galaxy S phone and runs Google Android Operating System (OS) 2.1 (this phone will be upgradeable to Android 2.2) and has a speedy 1GHz processor so it’s one fast smartphone: loads web pages quickly (it also has pinch and zoom for web pages), plays streaming videos without any lag time, and switches between apps on the cell phone with ease. Overall, the user interface is fairly straightforward and icon friendly. Although, the Captivate has a slightly different approach to displaying applications; instead of listing all the applications on a single screen, they are separated by screens so you’ll need to slide the screen to the left to see more applications (it’s extremely similar to how apps are displayed on the iPhone). To access the cell phone’s applications simply select Applications at the base of the home screen. One nice feature is that at the bottom of the display you’ll see an icon for phone, messaging, application and contacts. These options appear on all 7 customizable screens on the Samsung Captivate. Additionally, when navigating through the cell phone’s seven customizable home screens dots representing each screen appear at the top of the display so you can just tap one of those and it will take you directly to the corresponding screen. The Captivate comes with Samsung’s Daily Briefing widget installed. Basically, this feature tells you what you need to know about the day (weather, news, and finance info) ahead including scheduled meetings from your calendar. There are a few things to note about navigation. If you’re in an application screen and want to go back to the previous screen simply press the back arrow. If you want to exit a program simply press the button with a picture of a house. Whenever you’re in an application and want to do more, press the Menu key and a set of options will appear.

The Google Android OS is really all about having all your contact information in one spot and constantly synched. When we say all your contact information we mean all – including social networking sites, multiple e-mail accounts, messaging (messaging is threaded – so you can see a complete text message conversation in one view), and even photo services where you may have accounts created. You can add all pertinent account information easily when you set up the device. If you want to sync with your computer simply connect it via the included microUSB-to-USB synching cable and the phone will appear as an additional drive on your desktop, making it easy to drag and drop files from a computer to the cell phone’s included 16GB of internal memory.

Messaging: The Samsung Captivate can handle multiple e-mail accounts, either corporate e-mail or web-based e-mail. Setting up an e-mail account couldn’t be easier. If you don’t do it when you’re initially setting up the Android phone, then choose e-mail from the menu, and follow the prompts to set up accounts. It’s just a matter of knowing the user name and password. The smartphone does the rest.

Camera/video: The Samsung Captivate has a 5-megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom. Overall, picture quality is acceptable and you can tap anywhere on the screen to focus on a specific item in the frame. We’re happy to report the camera has a fast shutter, just press the camera icon on the screen and it takes the picture. You can add the geo location for pictures, which will make them easier to organize. Colors are slightly washed out, but details are good. Once you snap a picture, you can save it, trash it, set it as wallpaper or the picture for a contact, or share it to a multitude of options including Picasa, Bluetooth, AT&T Online Locker, and various messaging options. As for camera settings, there are focus, timer, resolution, white balance, effects (normal, black and white, negative, and sepia), metering, ISO Settings, anti-shake, auto contrast, blink detection, the ability to adjust contrast, sharpness, and saturation, and scene mode selection (portrait, landscape, sports, night, party/indoor, beach/snow, dawn, firework, sunset, fall, candlelight and backlight). There are some editing features included such as cropping and rotating pictures.

Additionally, you can view and shoot short videos in 720p on the cell phone. Shooting videos is pretty easy and the quality is acceptable. Like a video you captured on your cell phone? Why not watch it on a TV or networked computer? If you’re home has a DLNA-compliant products you can watch it on a TV or computer over a WiFi network. If you’re interested in renting or buying movies or TV shows to watch on the Samsung Captivate’s beautiful AMOLED display, you can do that by checking out the Samsung Media Hub app.

Music: As noted, the Samsung Captivate has a music player. You can listen to MP3’s on the cell phone. There aren’t many music-centric features included in the player, but it has the ones we’ve come to expect: Repeat, Shuffle, and Playlists (you can even create playlists on the cell phone). The Captivate comes with a 16GB microSD card pre-installed and can accept up to a 32GB microSD card. Out-of-the-box you will have plenty of room to store music on this cell phone. However, if you want to add your own music to the cell phone via Bluetooth you’ll need to add a microSD card to the cell phone. Besides adding your own music to the cell phone, you can listen to music streaming over AT&T Radio or AT&T music application. There are quite a few free music applications that you can download from the Marketplace such as Pandora and Shazam.

Connectivity/Bluetooth/WiFi:The Samsung Captivate is loaded with connectivity options. Of course, it has Bluetooth and it can be used to connect to a Bluetooth headset (we found call quality was decent when we used the Motorola T505), and even transfer contacts, music, and pictures to other Bluetooth-enabled devices. It also sports built-in WiFi so you can use this smartphone to log onto available WiFi networks to surf the Web or send/receive e-mail. The only thing you need to know is the WiFi network you want to use and password if needed. Since this cell phone has AT&T’s HotSpot app, if you’re an area that has an AT&T HotSpot setup you can log onto that WiFi network.

Look and feel: We’re just going to come out and say it, the display on the Samsung Captivate is gorgeous: colors are bright and details and letters are crisp. Since it’s a Super AMOLED display it’s viewable in direct sunlight and designed to help conserve battery life. It’s also not too big. The 4-inch display seems to be the sweet spot for screen size when compared to the slightly larger 4.3-inch screen found on the HTC EVO 4G. Of all the Galaxy S smartphones currently available the Captivate feels the most solid in hand with its brushed metal back. The cell phone’s spine subscribes to the minimalist philosophy with just volume keys, a power button, 3.5mm headset jack, and a microUSB port. . Like other Google Android smartphones currently available there are only 4 touch keys for maneuvering through the cell phone’s features and none of them are a send or end key. Instead there are Menu, Home, Back, and Search keys. You’ll need to remove the back cover of the cell phone to swap out microSD card, but not the battery.

Keypad:The Samsung Captivate has a touchscreen QWERTY keyboard that can be accessed in horizontal or vertical mode. You can use either to send messages or write notes. We found it fairly easy to use and rarely had mistypes particularly when it was in horizontal mode. If you like Swype for faster input you’ll appreciate that feature found on the on-screen keyboard. Additionally, the on-screen dial pad is big and easy to read.

We found battery life on the Samsung Captivate acceptable for a smartphone. If you use the cell phone frequently to make calls, listen to music, as well as send/receive text messages and e-mail, this smartphone will last about two day before needing to recharge. If you use it less frequently, to occasionally check e-mail and text messages you’ll likely to get about three days before needing to recharge it. We should note that some downloadable applications might take a stronger toll on the cell phone’s battery life. Also, leaving WiFi or GPS activated can also drain battery life a bit faster. On the plus side, when you attach the cell phone to a computer via the included USB-to-microUSB cable it will charge the Samsung Captivate.

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