Samsung Vibrant price and reviews

Before I bought this phone, I had a simple, no data, no touch phone. All my friends have iPhones, so I use them or my iPod Touch on WiFi when I need connectivity. I'm extremely picky with spending money, so if I'm going to spend the money on something like a data phone, then it better do exactly what I want it to. Even though I think iPhones are overrated, I'm very fond of their ease of use and overall "wholesomeness." In addition, I have tested some Android phones before but they all felt so...incomplete? I'm not sure what the right word is, but all the Android phones I have previously tried have felt inferior to the wholesome design and usability of the iPhone. They just didn't "wow" me.

Now comes the Samsung Galaxy S Vibrant. I spent a week doing research and talking to people, including my unbiased friend who works as a third party technician doing service for both T-Mobile and AT&T. The end result: I decided to try the SGS.

From the time I walked into the T-Mobile store and picked up the floor model, I have been "wowed." The ultra AMOLED display is gorgeous. Some of you may be aware that Samsung manufactures various parts for many other companies, including Apple. In fact, Apple wanted to purchase the SGS display for the new iPhone 4, but Samsung turned them down.

And you won't just get this awesome display, because on the Vibrant you are also getting Avatar as a wonderful way to show it off to all your friends. :) To put the awesomeness of an OLED (organic light emitting diode) display in perspective for you, Sony released the first ever OLED television recently, and even though it is only 11", it costs $2500 dollars! With this phone, you are getting not just OLED, but ultra AMOLED (advanced matrix OLED) on a 4" display for only $199 with a contract! I can't stress this enough. Not to mention, on all Apple products I have had problems playing videos that are in various formats that I've downloaded from the internet. But the SGS will display any video format just fine. And you don't even need special software or Apps to do it. If you have lots of videos on your computer, then just add any file to your phone via MicroUSB, Bluetooth, or even the wireless server connectivity App that's already included, and then you can play any file right on your device in HD quality.

Ok enough about the screen, but I just love it, and you will too.

As for the GPS, It works better than my mom's Garmin in her car, with the added benefit of adding apps that can do just about anything. It comes pre-installed with something called Telenav GPS, but that's just a trial for something you have to pay for. Don't bother with that since the Google Maps App that it also comes with can already do turn by turn navigation. I can literally press on the Google voice search button on my home screen and say "Navigate to Starbucks" and it will proceed to navigate me to the nearest Starbucks. Very easy. As for the other GPS apps, I added one that will track and record my position, speed, elevation, etc, to Google My Maps. Sure, using GPS all the time drains the battery faster, but you still have plenty of battery time. For example, yesterday I went on a boat trip to an island and I wanted to see exactly where we were headed, so I turned on My Tracks, and recorded my position for 6 hours! All while I used Facebook, and took pictures and HD video. The battery made it through the whole thing!

Another cool GPS App is called Layar, which puts a "filter" on reality so when you look around, you can see new things. For example, the website allmenus.com made a Layar filter where you can look around and see restaurants in real space around you, and you can just click on them to see their menus! It's just like X-ray vision! lol. If you don't like the real space look, you can switch to map view. Other filters include WIkipedia articles, and YouTube videos that are from around you.

Another worry of many is that web browsing will lack compared to the smooth and intuitive design of the iPhone. Well worry no more because it's better. You can use multi-touch for zooming or just double tap. And some people had problems with getting the text to reformat to the screen when zooming but that's because they're doing it wrong. If you simply multi-touch zoom and then double tap, the text will automatically reformat to fit your screen! And there's no prob displaying flash or other media. Plus the pages load so much faster than on the iPhone!

For music, you can buy any song from the Amazon music store or get one of those apps that let you download for free. Or you can use a radio app like Pandora or Slacker, which will even let you cache the stations to listen when you have no connection.

All in all, I am so happy with my SGS and it definitely beats the iPhone. And with unlimited data from T-Mobile and unbeatable customer service, you can't go wrong! (And if you have the free Google Voice like me, then you can have unlimited minutes and texting too!)

Updated on Jul 20, 2010