The Fascinating Review of the Verizon Fascinate

So here it is.
I’ve lived with this phone longer than any other review phone I’ve ever had.
There are a lot of things to like about this phone, a few things to dislike about this phone, but all in all, we could be looking at Verizon’s best keyboard-less smartphone.

Let’s see what Galaxy S has to offer on Big Red…
Right off the bat, it’s very similar to the other Galaxy S phones on AT&T and T-Mo, in fact it’s nearly indistinguishable from the Vibrant. The Captivate has slightly harder corners, which I think looks better, but the rounded corners of the Fascinate (plus Vibrant and Epic) fit in the hand a little easier.

I’m not a fan of glossy cased phones. Within minutes of using the Fascinate, it had smudges, and setting it down on tables has already left scuff marks. This phone has NEVER been in the same pocket as my keys, but it has been in my car’s cup holder with some loose change. The screen is pristine (without a screen guard), but the plastic back looks a little abused. Were this my daily driver, I’d probably put a case or a skin on it.

This phone feels impossibly thin. In actuality it is a millimeter thicker than the iPhone 4, but it doesn’t FEEL like it. Held next to the Epic or the EVO, and it feels like you’re holding a wafer of a phone. Part of that perception is weight. I’m not sure how Samsung did it, but the Fascinate weighs almost a full once less than the Captivate or the iPhone 4. That wouldn’t seem like a lot, but it is an almost 20% reduction, and helps keep the phone (which is physically larger than the iPhone in every dimension) from feeling like such a pocket bulge.

If you’ve played with any Galaxy S phones you’ll recognize the layout right away, power switch on the right hand side, volume rocker on the left, charge port and headphone jack up top. The Fascinate does inherit the camera LED flash debuted on the Epic (and lacking on the GSM Galaxy S phones), but sadly it does not inherit the dedicated camera button. It also lacks the notification LED that I find so helpful on the Epic. Not really a huge deal, but I like knowing when I have a new message waiting, or when my battery is charged, without having to turn the phone on…

Just as I mentioned in my Epic 4G review, the processor in the Galaxy S phones is different than what HTC and other manufacturers have been using. Instead of going with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon, Samsung designed it’s own processor called Hummingbird. While the two process info very similarly, Hummingbird has a much more advanced graphics processor than the older Snapdragons. Putting a Galaxy S phone up against an EVO or a Droid, and you’ll be able to notice a much smoother experience in sliding through the Android OS, in watching videos, and in playing games.
This is important as Samsung has still yet to deliver on the newest Android OS updates. The Galaxy S phones currently run Android 2.1, and other phones that have received the Android 2.2 update have seen noticeable increases in speed and responsiveness, thanks to a whole series of optimizations from Google. Hummingbird on 2.1 is almost keeping up with Snapdragon on 2.2. We haven’t seen what this hardware is fully capable of yet…

Touchwiz is more colorful on the Fascinate than it is on my Epic, and I kinda like it. Of all the overlays, I still like Touchwiz the best. It doesn’t add as much functionality as Sense on HTC phones, but it tends to stay out of my way, and it’s much easier to navigate than Motoblur.
Verizon has added a bunch of game demos, and VCAST apps (which can be obnoxious when paging through your apps). Additions like Skype and Blockbuster are nice, and thankfully not too many widgets are auto-started on boot, so battery didn’t seem to suffer too much.

Call quality is superb. Calls came in loud and clear. Pairing with bluetooth headsets was easy. Unfortunately one of the drawbacks of the older Android operating system is we still don’t have voice dialing over bluetooth. It’s the feature I’m most looking forward to with 2.2, it’ll make all the time I spend in my car talking on the phone just a little safer.

I’ve been asked to comment on the GPS issue with Samsung phones. Looking through forums for Android, one would think that the GPS on Galaxy S phones is unusable. I haven’t had any of those issues. Both my Epic and the Fascinate have been perfectly usable, and fairly accurate not only for turn by turn navigation, but also for geocaching. Mind you, the more challenging the terrain, the less accurate GPS can get (especially when your view of the sky is partially obstructed), but I can usually get within 15 feet of my target without any issues. The issues I’ve noticed? There’s still a software bug related to properly showing elevation in certain GPS apps (especially calibration and nautical apps where you’d need that kind of accuracy), and this is still one of the slower phones to get a GPS lock. My Epic can generally get a lock in under a minute with open sky. The Fascinate can sometimes take two to three minutes to get a fix depending on terrain. Frustrating, but every time I’ve raced my wife’s Blackberry Curve, the Fascinate has beaten it to announcing turn by turn directions (though it’s always lost to the Epic).

I can not stress enough how good this screen is. Samsung’s Super AMOLED display simply outclasses EVERY other mobile screen out there  when it comes to color saturation and contrast. The blacks are like looking into pools of ink, and reds are almost unnatural. I would highly recommend checking one out in person. In terms of competing against the “Retina Display”, Apple does have the higher resolution display, which will be better for text if you hold your phone close to your face, but I think everything else looks better on SAMOLED, especially movies. Firing up a Pixar film was a jaw dropping experience. The phone doesn’t ship with a copy of Avatar to play with like the Vibrant does, but I promise you, movies look GOOD.

Screen size is also important. Anything smaller than a four inch diagonal just feels small now. I know it gives other phones a superior pixel pitch, but it’s starting to feel cramped. Droid X, EVO, Galaxy S, they give your fingers a little extra room to stretch out. It makes using software keyboards (even the glorious Swype) a little easier. I don’t feel like I NEED to hold the phone as close to my face. It even helps make reading on your phone (like through the Kindle app) feel just a little more like reading on a book. I hate to say it, but size matters…

One thing I didn’t mention in my Epic review is the headphone jack. Music playback on the Fascinate is surprisingly good. I didn’t have an iPhone handy to do a proper comparison, but the exact same MP3’s sounded better on my Fascinate than on my two generations old Nano. Not exactly a fair fight, but telling enough when going head to head with a dedicated MP3 player.

The camera is fantastic. Stills easily compare to anything released by Sony, Nokia, or Apple. My complaint for video still stands though, as I wish it saved to a slightly higher bit rate. It is good 720p video, but I just want it to be a little bit better. One interesting issue with the Fascinate though, it’s white balance was really inaccurate. Doing video tests with the Epic and Fascinate side by side, color on the Epic was always more accurate.

Battery life has been great, and with a few simple tweaks (controlling back-light intensity, using dark themes, stopping widgets that auto-update), it’s pretty easy to get all day use out of this phone. Even though I often find that 3G speeds are faster on Sprint, I do find Verizon has slightly wider coverage.

All around, it’s a premier phone, so what could be bad?

Well Verizon Wireless has a (some would say “deservedly”) poor reputation for “tinkering” with their smartphones. During the glory days of Windows Mobile, VZW would do things like cripple the GPS so you could only use Verizon’s turn by turn navigation, or would cut the amount of RAM in their phones to make them cheaper to buy in bulk (though their prices for consumers have always been comparable with other carriers).
On the Fascinate, Verizon has decided to make Microsoft’s Bing the search engine of choice, and has not installed Google Maps, to which out of the box you can use Bing Maps. When I first got the phone, it even had software which prevented me from installing and using Google Maps, but thanks to a tremendous amount of negative feedback, a recent software update has removed that block, but Bing search is still the default unless you root the phone (which isn’t something I would recommend for the average user).

It just feels weird. It’s a Google operating system. There’s actually nothing wrong with Bing, Microsoft actually writes a pretty decent search app, but it doesn’t feel right, and the fact that I can’t change it on a supposedly “open” phone is frustrating. That’s the curse of “open” software though. A carrier can decide to do anything they want. Ideally it can lead to increased competition of features on a platform (like when Linux goes through exciting spurts of growth), but it can also mean that a distributor like VZW can decide to lock it down if they want. I think we’ll be seeing more of it too, as rumors point to Verizon’s world Android phone (made by HTC) being similarly “Bing-ed” when it gets released. Apparently if the phone is a “Droid” it’ll be left alone, otherwise…

So the wrap up?
If you’re on Verizon, and need a hardware keyboard, get a Droid 2. If you don’t need the keyboard though, the Fascinate is my top pick. It might lose to the Droid X in terms of screen size, but not by much, and it feels less monstrous in your hand and in your pocket. Add to that the SAMOLED screen and more powerful graphics processor, and you eke out a slight victory (though both really are premier handsets).

Unfortunately, you’ll just have to deal with it being “Bing-ed”…

Tags: Android cell phone fascinate galaxy s phone Samsung smart phone verizon verizon wireless