My new T-Mobile’s Vibrant
Its been a couple weeks now since I decided to retire my HTC Hero and buy a Samsung Galaxy S model phone. I’ve been intrigued with the Galaxy S since I first saw the coverage of the phone from this year’s CTIA. The phone offered the best in class screen resolution and processor. Samsung is bring the phone to all four US carriers and around the world. In the US the first carries were T-Mobile and AT&T.
Both carriers now offer a Samasung Galaxy S phone but the Vibrant (T-Mobile) and Captivate (AT&T) are not identical phones. Both phones run the same Touch Wiz UI overlay but have different form factors. The Vibrant is closer to the standard Galaxy S but is missing the front facing camera. The Captiva has harder lines and a metal back cover that amplifies the antenna. I prefer the look and feel of the Vibrant over the Captivate and I’m not a fan of AT&T so I went with the T-Mobile version.
The Vibrant is an impressively large phone with a beautiful 4” Super AMOLED screen. It is also incredibly light at 4 ounces. The form factor of the phone makes it very easy to carry and place in your pocket. It’s screen is so large it’s easy to watch videos and read websites. If the speakers on the phone were better it would be a great multimedia device. The speaker quality is fairly poor and really requires the use of headphones for audio or even a call using the speaker.
The Galaxy S is an Android phone running a custom UI, Touch Wiz, over the stock OS. This gives you the additional features in the notification shutter for turning on and off GPS, WIFI, Bluetooth and Audio. The customization to the notification shutter frees up screen slots by not having to place widgets on the screen to turn off these options. It also gives the Galaxy S a custom task bar and app drawer. These additional features make the Galaxy S phones more friendly to use. I prefer the horizontal scrolling in the app drawer over the standard vertical scrolling in other android phones. I find this a bit easier to know which page apps are on in the drawer.
The customizations Samsung has made with Touch Wiz are a great enhancement to the android experience. Samsung did not go to the extent of changing the android feel, they made changes that are slight but valuable. I prefer this feel compared to the stock look some phones ship with. To me this gives the Galaxy S phones a key advantage over other android phones. Fortunately for others software can be copied and ADWLauncher offers a similar app drawer view. Hardware is tougher to copy and the Samsung Galaxy S phones are top of the line in that area.
Both carriers now offer a Samasung Galaxy S phone but the Vibrant (T-Mobile) and Captivate (AT&T) are not identical phones. Both phones run the same Touch Wiz UI overlay but have different form factors. The Vibrant is closer to the standard Galaxy S but is missing the front facing camera. The Captiva has harder lines and a metal back cover that amplifies the antenna. I prefer the look and feel of the Vibrant over the Captivate and I’m not a fan of AT&T so I went with the T-Mobile version.
The Vibrant is an impressively large phone with a beautiful 4” Super AMOLED screen. It is also incredibly light at 4 ounces. The form factor of the phone makes it very easy to carry and place in your pocket. It’s screen is so large it’s easy to watch videos and read websites. If the speakers on the phone were better it would be a great multimedia device. The speaker quality is fairly poor and really requires the use of headphones for audio or even a call using the speaker.
The Galaxy S is an Android phone running a custom UI, Touch Wiz, over the stock OS. This gives you the additional features in the notification shutter for turning on and off GPS, WIFI, Bluetooth and Audio. The customization to the notification shutter frees up screen slots by not having to place widgets on the screen to turn off these options. It also gives the Galaxy S a custom task bar and app drawer. These additional features make the Galaxy S phones more friendly to use. I prefer the horizontal scrolling in the app drawer over the standard vertical scrolling in other android phones. I find this a bit easier to know which page apps are on in the drawer.
The customizations Samsung has made with Touch Wiz are a great enhancement to the android experience. Samsung did not go to the extent of changing the android feel, they made changes that are slight but valuable. I prefer this feel compared to the stock look some phones ship with. To me this gives the Galaxy S phones a key advantage over other android phones. Fortunately for others software can be copied and ADWLauncher offers a similar app drawer view. Hardware is tougher to copy and the Samsung Galaxy S phones are top of the line in that area.
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