Samsung Fascinate / Mesmerize (Galaxy S)
Phone Scoop Review
Sep 9, 2010 by Philip Berne
The Samsung Fascinate brings the Galaxy S family to Verizon Wireless, and The Network teaches this Android every trick it knows. Is this the Galaxy to explore? read review ›
User Reviews
Average Ratings
95%COMPUTER 5% PHONE DOES NOT FLY
Great gadgets!! Wonderful display,nice & clever apps!!!
Got the charge dock ,works well as both a safe keeper and charger!
The interface is mostly straight forward!!
I have had few problems with the device!
The main issue for me has been phone reception and ease of use to make or receive a call. This requires a fair amount of focus !
The practicalities elude me however!
Do you network among your friends / access internet / buy an airplane / set the entire worlds agenda or make a call?
In short i would recommend this for the gadget type not the verbal communicators!
Excellent Device!
This is my first Android phone, previously I've used iPhones and the Palm Pre plus. The most notable thing to me is the battery life. It is quite excellent for such a full featured phone with such a beautiful and bright screen. The iPhone is about equivalent in battery; the Palm Pre is just terrible compared to the Fascinate.
I've only had it a couple days and live/work in an area with low signal (Southern KY), but it has not missed or dropped a call yet. Call quality has been perfect so far.
Pros:
- Beautiful Screen
- Battery Life
- Very light, but doesn't feel cheap
- Swype input
Cons:
- No Google Search, only BING... ack.
- Only came with Android 2.1
- Wish I didn't have to remove the entire back of phone to change battery or access Micro SD card.
Think that's about it. No real problem so far.
Decent Phone
Nice phone out of the box. Charges quickly looks really good, great screen, nice and thin. However, after using it for four days, I noticed that the back was getting scratched pretty bad. I only had this phone on my car console, desk at work, and the kitchen counter. If this material is this weak it will look two years old in about a month. By the way, I don't think that you should have to put a silicone case on the phone immediately for it not to look crappy. Defeats the purpose of the phone being slim.
Pros:
Good battery life.
Great screen.
Charges quickly.
Good reception.
Cons:
Back of the phone scratches really easy.
Sound quality on call is sub par for the price of the phone, especially when in the car.
GPS navigation really slow.
I also own the Droid X and it still outshines the Galaxy
My Pick
I am a Blackberry convert because I was too cheap to pay for the Enterprise priveledge. I bounced around with the incredible, droid, x, ally(best bang for buck b4 fascinate). The fascinate does everything I need. It syncs flawlessly with Exchange and POP3 accounts. All calendars, contacts.It notifies me of upcoming appointments. The screen is unbelievably clear. Battery not like a BB but its running a whole lot my stuff too. This is a keeper. I dont game, watch movies, or launch space ships with my phone so all that other stuff doesnt matter to me. If you are doing a ton of email, texting, need your appointments/contacts in your palm and like a fast gateway to the internet this is it.
Terrible Disappointment
Coming from an iPhone, I was anxious to try an Android phone. Would not recognize WI-FI, Facebook would not load posts, and several apps would not open. The browser is very slow and sometimes inoperable. Voice quality very poor when making and receiving calls. Very inconsistent performance. Back to the iPhone.
Blackberry Users Stay Put!!!!
After using a Blakberry for the last 7yrs. I longed for the cool screen and downloadable apps the android phones offered. I had a BB Tour and loved it. What I learned is the Android Phones are cool Toys! If you wanna play on your phone when your waiting at the Doctor's Office this is the ticket. If you wanna use this for business and sync contacts and calender with Microsoft Outlook forget it. The phonebook on this device is the worst ive seen on any phone since the 1990's. If you wanna call john doe you have to search for john. If you search for doe you won't find it. Another thing I didnt enjoy as having to hit several buttons to get to a screen. If you must have this phone do leave the store without atleast 3 extra chargers because this thing drinks batteries. I had to constantly charge mine. If Blackberry & Palm can make software to sync with Microsoft Office why cant Google? I shouldnt have to buy an app to have a normal phonebook. In the meantime Ill keep purchasing RIM stock.
Not quite perfect
I just finished a 2 month experience with the LG Ally. It was a good Android device. Nice phone but slow and limited in memory. Ringtones were very easy to assign to contacts and the contacts were synced seamlessly with my gmail account.
Then I got the Fascinate. What a screen. Much faster than an Ally. The form factor is the closest thing to an iphone I have seen. But what did Samsung do to the sync? The short story is that the phone has contacts on the phone and contacts in gmail accounts. The two are separate and can be linked but require a separate step to do so. When you get your new phone, you activate a gmail account and your contacts are automatically on the phone. Or are they. It turns out that those contacts from the gmail account are separate from the phone contacts and don't have all the attributes of the phone contacts. You cannot, for example, assign a ringtone to a gmail contact like you can a phone contact. There is no option for ringtones in gmail contacts. The only way to do that is with third party apps. I understood the Bing and Mapping issues when I got the phone. Those issues are easy to circumvent with bookmarks and downloads. The ringtone problem is not so easy, and it is clear that Samsung, or Verizon, or both made contact management more complicated when they created this scheme. I can't figure out what they were thinking.
Pros
Screen
Form factor
Battery life
Speed
Cons
Bing
Bloatware
Contact management
Another dud by Verizon
Just like the HTC Droid Incredible, this phone fails MISERABLY on earpiece sound quality. There is a constant backround noise in the earpiece that sounds like the crashing of the ocean's waves!!!!
What does it take to be able to get an Android phone on Verizon other than a Motorola that has good sound quality in and out????
Skip this one!!!!!!!!
Needs work!
The screen is super. The over all system very good. Now for the bad. Wi-fi would show full bars and connected and would say no connection. Would only work half of the time. Gps would not work with bing and not very good at all with Google maps. Took first phone back and second phone did same. It is a shame because it could have been a great phone.
Awesome Phone!!!!!
To the previous review: LRN2WorkDroid. Bing is the default search engine but you can easily change it in the menu. As far as gps goes google maps is nowhere near the best gps app for droid. In fact it is near the bottom as far as performance goes. Im guessing this is your first smart phone. Next time lets stick to an iphone until your ready to take the training wheels off.
