The DROID Charge by Samsung is the latest 4G smartphone from Verizon Wireless. Does it stack up well against the HTC Thunderbolt on the same network? Here is our review.
Hardware & Design
The DROID Charge By Samsung comes with the high-end design that you expect from top-tier android smartphones made by Samsung. The 4.3 inch Super AMOLED Plus display is amazing to look at and the handset feels goods in the hands with its thicker but light body. There is a curve in on the bottom back which makes it rest in your hand nice. There is a front facing 1.3 megapixel camera for video chat and a 8 megapixel rear facing camera which I did a detailed review on and the camera is solid and the closes I’ve seen in quality since the Nokia E7
You have a HDMI port for plugging into your TV but no included HDMI cable which is lame the Infuse 4G included it and this should have as well. Internally there is a 1.0 Ghz application processor which is nice and fast, 1600 mAH battery and 32 GB SD card pre-installed. To round it up and great hardware package here.
Software & Usability
The DROID Charge runs Android 2.2 with Touch Wiz UI on top of it. It’s the earlier version of Touch Wiz and not the new Touch Wiz 4.0 which is on the Galaxy S II. You get your standard features that you would expect in Touch Wiz with the new Media Hub which like on the Infuse 4G lets you download movies and TV shows and watch them on the phone or on your TV through the HDMI port. The OS runs fast with no crashes but it doesn’t flow as smooth as I would like it. I think a software update will fix that because on the Infuse 4G running the same software with a processor that is only 200 Mhz faster runs much smoother and I have a hard time believing that minimal of a speed difference matters. Battery life is also great and some of the best I’ve seen on Android. The screen definitely helps as I’ve been able to get 2 days of real world usage out of it before grabbing a charger eve with 4G LTE on and using it as a hotspot. Speaking of 4G LTE its just plain fast as we’ve stated before. There has been some issues recently with the network but when it’s on its just plain fast.
Overall
Samsung and Verizon put together a great package here. As one of the new 4G LTE phones for Verizon it’s placed itself on the top of that list over the HTC Thunderbolt now with great battery life, design, software and speed. A couple of drawbacks would be the speakers are not that great and the current price tag of $299.99 on a two-year contract. Besides that the DROID Charge By Samsung is one of the best 4G smartphones available.
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