Conclusion
When placed against the other 4G LTE phones currently on the Verizon network, the Charge has both advantages and disadvantages. The greatest strength of the phone is without a doubt the display. It’s beautiful, bright, and (relatively) easy to use outdoors. There’s nothing like it available on other 4G LTE phones or, for the most part, other phones available on Verizon.
The quality makes media consumption far more pleasurable on the Charge than other devices – and that’s saying a lot, because the HTC Thunderbolt and LG Revolution both have displays that, judged without comparison to the Charge, are quite beautiful.
However, the excellent display is paired with a processor that simply doesn’t provide the performance expected from modern flagship smartphones. For most of the new Android phones, interface lag is truly a thing of the past. That wasn’t the case with the Charge, which felt more like a Droid X given a booster shot than a new cutting-edge device.
Samsung’s TouchWiz interface also continues to be a bother. Although reasonably functional, many of its included apps aren’t the best solution, and the aesthetic design of the interface really cuts against the Droid brand’s tough do-it-all image. Indeed, it’s hard to understand why this phone was given Droid branding at all. It certainly doesn’t seem any different from a normal Samsung handset, Droid wallpaper and audio clips aside.
And then there’s the price. At $300 with a two-year contract, the Droid Charge is $50 more than the HTC Thunderbolt or the LG Revolution and $100 more than the dual-core Motorola Droid X2. Oddly, this price increase doesn’t translate over to the full retail MSRP – all these phones are roughly the same if you aren’t reducing their costs with a contract, with the exception of the Droid X2, which has an MSRP of just $449.99.
Ultimately, as with the HTC Thunderbolt, the compromises are too many to label the Charge a must-have – but if you make heavy use of your phone for media consumption, or want a 4.3” device with a relatively light weight and good battery life, the Charge is currently your best option on Verizon.
I was told by Samsung support
I was told by Samsung support that the phone does not have an internal GPS, and uses other location based services that require that data network to be functional. Do you know whether this is true?
I Currently have a Droid
I Currently have a Droid Charge, took the offer for it from the call issue with the Fascinate, before that i had a Motorola Droid (D1). I am a member of several sites, most who know me will be from XDA, and http://www.droidcharge.net I am learning more about android every day and absolutely love this OS. I research and test anything i post and download any files to one of my online storage accounts, so you can count on links I post to work and anything posted was tested to make sure it worked at least reasonably close to as advertised. and all instructions will be thorough and easy to follow. After almost 10 years in the Army it was necessary to get good at explaining things so that even the DUMB AS HELL soldiers could get it, no I am not trying to insult anyone’s intelligence, it’s just the writing style I have become used to. I hope I can learn good stuff here as well as help those less experienced than myself.