It’s even better than the leak from Costo suggested it: Verizon and Samsung have finally announced the Droid Charge today (vs. next week)! It’s an 4G LTE Android phone with a large 4.3″ display, dual cameras (8MP + 1.3MP ). There are two things that should particularly attract your attention: First, the Samsung Super AMOLED Plus display. Samsung has been extremely competitive with the quality of their displays as of late, and only IPS LCD displays are holding their ground in terms of overall quality. This is a big deal. Secondly, the 4G LTE support from Verizon should provide awesome download speeds at low latencies.
But… let’s hope that this does not come at the expense of the battery life like we’ve seen on the HTC Thunderbolt. The latter is a very good phone, but the battery depletion while using 4G is just too much for us to actively recommend it. We’ll have to test the Droid Charge for ourselves, before jumping to any conclusion.
In short, this is a very interesting phone from Samsung, which has been consistently releasing product that push the envelope one way or the other. We’ll have to see if the Droid Charge can live up to the hype, but we’re looking forward to taking it for a spin. At $300 (with a 2yr contract), it’s more expensive than your average smartphone. Obviously you should *always* look at the total cost of ownership, including the data plan.
Specifications highlight
– 4G LTE–5 to 12 Mbps and upload speeds of 2 to 5 Mbps (in 4G)
– Android 2.2 platform
– Adobe® Flash® Player compatible
– Mobile Hotspot capability – share 4G connection with up to 10 WiFi-enabled devices or a 3G connection with up to 5 devices
– Samsung Media Hub – Samsung’s own content service, offering a vast lineup of critically acclaimed films and TV programs for rent or purchase
– Virtual QWERTY Keyboard featuring Swype Technology
Filed in . Read more about 4G, Droid, Droid Charge, LTE, Samsung and Verizon.