Samsung Captivate Review
By Ruben Corbo on October 27th, 2011
The phone’s design embraces the same straight to the point approach of other Samsung models, with its 4 inch screen dominating the device. Overall the phone measures 4.18 inches in height, 2.5 inches in width and is 0.39 inch deep. Its trim figure comes as a nice surprise given the hardware that it packs, making the device a pocket-friendly size. The phone’s construction is one of quality, which becomes evident in both its appearance and feel. In particular, the black finish to the phone, contrasted to by the ‘Samsung’ logo tag, gives it an altogether attractive appearance.
The display benefits greatly from the phone’s 4 inch Super AMOLED capacitive screen. It supports 16 million colors and a WVGA resolution of 480x800. The high color contrast means the display delivers consistently rich and vibrant images. The screen’s response time is excellent and gives the phone an eloquent feel. Whilst the Capacitive can’t boast the same resolution as the iPhone’s Retina Display, it nevertheless remains sharp and clear throughout. Below the screen the user will find the iconic Android function buttons in touch form (Menu, Home, Back and Search).
Shipping with the phone is the Android 2.1 operating system with Samsung’s TouchWiz 3.0 interface. TouchWiz has received some needed improvements with this model, enhancing the experience over that of previous S Galaxy series models. Included in this new version is a widget called Feeds & Updates. This streams updates from the popular social networking website, including Facebook, Twitter and Myspace. The home screen can also be personalized with live wallpapers of your choice.
The Capacitive offers 16GB in internal memory, with the ability to boost this with an additional 32GB through an expansion slot. This allows plenty of room for media content.
Powering the phone is Samsung’s 1GHz Hummingbird Cortex A8 processor. The processor is a formidable piece of tech, delivering mostly consistent speeds and keeping up with demands. However, as with most phones currently on the market it can suffer from slight moments of delay when entering or exiting a demanding application.
The phone’s camera is a respectable 5-megapixel but it lacks LED flash. It comes ready with features such as Auto Focus, Smile detection, Digital Zoom and Multi Shot. However, without the LED flash the camera is severely let down. Pictures in dimly lit areas come across as lifeless and dull. The camera is capable of recording in 720p HD video.
