Got a chance to play with with the Samsung Infuse for ATT. Off the bat I was smitten with the beauty of the phone. I think I like where Samsung is going with their design direction. The phone is slim and sleek with a 4.5 inch screen. Read on for my impressions of the device.
Likes:
Form Factor
this phone is definitely not the biggest phone, but it is still up there among the big boys at 4.5″. At first glance it looks like only the manliest of men will be handling this phone. However, when you pick it up, its not heavy at all and its very thin. This gives the feeling that the phone is manageable for those of us with smaller hands. A few of my female coworkers remarked how well it fit in the hand.
The back cover of the device is still plastic, however, its sort of recessed in the back taking up very little space. The rest of the phone is solid. The speaker worked better than I thought which I attribute to the thin plastic back cover.
Battery Life
I played around with the phone for two days straight which, sorry to say, is unheard of for many Android devices. I kept gps, auto-sync, and wifi on. The brightness was about medium. I didn’t do a huge amount of calling but did do a bit of internet surfing and it performed well.
4G Goodness
Pulling up websites was pretty snappy with AT&T’s network. I had no major issues with it in NYC and found it to add positively to my experience with the phone. Videos came up quickly and was even able to video chat without wifi using Tango and Qik though it was a little choppy at times.
Dislikes:
OS
I am an Android fan, but Google updates so frequently that new phones feel obsolete in mere months. This phone is based on Android 2.2 (Froyo) which is already behind Android 2.3 (gingerbread). Since Samsung skinned it with their touch flo UI, Infuse users may have to wait a bit until the phone OS is upgraded. This can be a pain when you have a lot of power under the hood but have to wait a bit for the latest and greatest.
Screen Resolution
The 4.5 inch AMOLED screen is quite beautiful to behold. It’s super bright and makes all the icons and videos come to life. However, when comparing to other phones with smaller screen resolutions like my G2 the Infuse’s images look slightly blurred. The resolution is 800×480, which is pretty good but for some reason I felt like something was missing while watching video clips.
Summary:
Overall, I really liked using the phone. I was most impressed by the phones sexy curves and slim physique. Was a little let down that it was running on Froyo rather than gingerbread, but there really isn’t a huge difference functionality-wise. I just have to have what the Jones’ have! With an 8 MP camera with LED Flash and front facing 1.3 MP camera as well as 4.5″ inch AMOLED screen and a 1.2 GHz processor under the hood – you really can’t go wrong.
