An early version of the Samsung Captivate -- the version of the Galaxy S that's coming to AT&T -- has made its way into a New York City Starbucks, and Engadget give the phone a quick go.
The body is obviously a little different than the Galaxy S that we've had our hands on (a couple times now, actually), but the 4-inch Super AMOLED display certainly looks vibrant here. Again, we've used Super AMOLED, and it's really something you're going to have to see for yourself.
TouchWiz 3.0's on board, just as we've seen before, and Swype was pre-loaded, which is good, since AT&T's had a habit of disallowing applications from outside the Android Market, which means you can't easily get Swype on the side.
We expect the Captivate to be a pretty speedy device, but Engadget didn't have the best results, with the demo phone showing an 800MHz processor instead of the 1GHz model we're told will be on the phone. Again, it's an early piece of hardware, they say, so take it all with a grain of salt.
Need more? Check out video after the break, hit up the source link, and get ready for Samsung's big event next week in New York. [Engadget]
Reader comments
Early version of Samsung Captivate gets an early hands-on
Watch them underclock it.
They Already got Got Rid of the Front Facing Camera!... Im sure they got some more nonsense up their sleves
Ok so it is underclocked to 800 Mhz meaning that that is the speed of the A4 SoC in the iPhone 4. They removed the front facing camera to give the nod to the iPhone 4. Wonder if they will epoxy the MicroSD card slot shut and JB Weld the battery in place? AT&T FUCKING SUCKS. Plain english. Go to another carrier, your choice, they all have awesome Android handsets. These articles about AT&T Android handsets just make me sick. They go out of their damned way to cripple these things.
Absolutely right...they just have to cripple every android phone they have. Buddy of mine with an iphone said he didn't like android cause he tested the Backflip. I just laughed, pulled out my Evo, and put his phone to shame. Now he wants to junk his 3gs for an Evo. ATT wants to hide the power of android and take away any hardware that beats out apple. I'm also weary of the UI. My omnia running touchwiz was slow. I put SPB mobile shell on it and it got much faster. I'm sure thats not helping the underclocked processor
At&T doesn't want to "hide the power of android". (Silly statement).
AT&T, like almost every major carrier who subsidizes a phone wants to lock you in for life. They do that by locking down the phone. Its that simple.
They removed the camera for two reasons. One was to get the cost down and offset the cost of their new case which is quite different than the normal Galazy case, the second was (I speculate) Steve Jobs demanded it.
There is also the problem of selling TWO video chat phones that could NOT VIDEO CHAT TO EACH OTHER. This was bound to engender a LOT of customer confusion and bitching. Better to avoid the problem.
But the big issue here is AT&T STRONGLY believes in the lock-in.
The sooner you guys understand the fact that you should not buy an android phone from a carrier, the happier you will be.
You really are delusional. AT&T cripples Android handsets, plain and simple. No untrusted sources, removal of front facing camera which is horseshit. Don't even go with the whole video chat to eachother BS. The EVO can chat with EVO, PCs, Streaks and Galaxy S. So if AT&T customers are that fucking stupid, read as "Apple in the assified" then they shouldn't reproduce and further dilute the gene pool. AT&T believes in ONE thing and that is Uncle Steve's nutsack. They carefully cradle the iJewels on their tongues to keep Uncle Steve happy and because of this you will never see a real, competitive, high end Android device on AT&T.
Chill out man. They're just phones.
"AT&T, like almost every major carrier who subsidizes a phone wants to lock you in for life. They do that by locking down the phone. Its that simple."
If that's true, why does every other carrier allow what AT$T doesn't? That's because AT$T is still playing by 1990's rules. Verizon used to do the same thing. They've learned that if you give the people what they want, they'll pay the exorbitant rates the company charges.
The worse Sprint did with the EVO was changed the name and made the earpiece silver instead of keeping it red. What AT$T did to the Galaxy S doesn't compare even remotely with Sprint or Verizon. And as people become more aware and realize the iPhone is nothing more than last year's OS in a new body (folders????? Come on! We don't just have folders, we have LIVE folder that do more than store icons), they're going to figure out they've been getting jerked by AT$T.
That's the problem with AT&T. They have ONE real phone that also happens to be their biggest seller, the iPhone. AT&T cannot and will not jeopardize that in fear of losing the iPhone to another carrier. If/when that happens in the U.S. you can almost guarantee AT&T losing MILLIONS of customers nearly instantly. The other problem is that want to placate Jobs as much as they can to milk as much out of the iPhone as they can. Problem with the whole strategy is that they are not building up a smartphone base strong enough to supplement the iPhone when it is no longer exclusive.
I don't understand why Google allows Steve Jobs to dictate anything on any Android phone on any carrier? If ATT / Jobs won't allow fair competition? Then Google should just say no to ATT. It hurts the Android brand to allow anyone cripple any Android phone. I keep hearing of people seeing a Android phone on ATT & saying Iphone is better. But when a former Iphone user sees Android on another carrier? They say Android blows away Iphone. So Google should just say NO to ATT. & keep it a fair competition.
If only they could. Google is all about choice and having the choice to let both carriers and consumers alike change their phones as they please is part of the choice philosophy.
does anyone else think it looks just like the storm 2?
the day this was announced and i realized that they removed the front facing camera i ported my number over to verizon. even though verizon has its issues, at least they give android a fighting chance. watch tmobile release the galaxy s with a front facing camera
End of July cant get here. Im getting a unlocked Streak from Dell. Cant wait and ATT wont have their dirty lil hands on it.
I have an iPhone and I am kind of bored with it. I mean it does mostly everything I want so I can't complain all that much but I just enjoy the openness of android and how everything can be on the home screen and the notifications and such. It is badass. Now for the issues with att: I love their service. I used to have verizon and didn't like the service or the customer service. I have absolutely no complaints about them other than what they are doing with the android devices and how there are barely any to choose from. I saw this samsung and its sweet other than no front facing camera (not for video calls but taking a self portrait would be nice with it). I love the droid x and evo 4g. I want something like that verizon or sprint doesnt have simultaneous voice and data and that is a huge deal. I use it every day (help people with directions when they are lost while on the phone is a nice feature). I know the evo you can with 4g but that is few and far between! anyone know when verizon or sprint will be able to do this (when the LTE network will be up and running)?
Thanks in advance