I am 26 years old, I have spent few days doing research / comparing specs / reading review articles before I made the purchase, I guess that puts me in the league with most average users ----- we are neither completely clueless tech blind idiots or super techies who can write programs to alter our phone settings.
Just like everyone else, I want a capable phone with a big bright responsive touchscreen, a massive storage for media files, up to date hardware for new applications, Wifi browsing to keep up with social sites like Facebook / Youtube etc, which is why I bought the Samsung Captivate.
During the first few hours of tweaking, I was actually quite satisfied with the phone's big bright AMOLED screen and quick response time during switches or opening applications, Youtube runs like a champ as well. But the initial happiness was soon replaced by frustration as I attempted to connect my phone to the PC (a pretty standard home PC Core 2 Duo 4.0Ghz + 4GB Ram running Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit with latest updates) via USB cable. At first it won't get recognized at all, I tried using Samsung KIES to sync, no luck. Did some google search, turned USB debugging off, rebooted phone/PC few times, tried few different USB drivers and android syncing programs like Double_Twist, and finally got it to work as massive storage device. I have to say, that drag down USB connection menu is quite sneaky and it's quite a pain on the ass to do that and select mount everytime before you can start transferring file between two devices. The sky was already dark before I can finally exporting mp3s to the phone.
However that's not the end of my nightmares. As I dig further, it turned out the horrible customization in the phone UI is just the iceberg. I can't install third party programs like firefox browser even after I root the phone following five steps. And in order to remove all the junk wares from AT&T, I need to make like three more downloads and going through bunch of DOS commands just to rename them so they can be ignored by Android (not even talking about removal). The worst part, I can't download any app from the Android market. The phone always stuck at "Start dowloading" screen before goes completely dark. I tried everything including reset to factory settings still no solution. Oh and did I mention the GPS doesn't work and the phone doesn't come with a camera flash?
Sure this phone has a nice beautiful screen, but it's merely catching up with its competitions in specs. The phone feels cheap while being held, the software needs to be polished. The UI is absolutely horrible, AT&T junkwares are useless. There is very little freedom left with the phone after too many functions are locked away by AT&T, and the phone still runs Android 2.1. Looks like I am returning this for EVO 4G on Monday. I am not a hater but I can't afford to spend more than one weekend just to get my cellphone do its standard functions like every other phone on the market.
Just like everyone else, I want a capable phone with a big bright responsive touchscreen, a massive storage for media files, up to date hardware for new applications, Wifi browsing to keep up with social sites like Facebook / Youtube etc, which is why I bought the Samsung Captivate.
During the first few hours of tweaking, I was actually quite satisfied with the phone's big bright AMOLED screen and quick response time during switches or opening applications, Youtube runs like a champ as well. But the initial happiness was soon replaced by frustration as I attempted to connect my phone to the PC (a pretty standard home PC Core 2 Duo 4.0Ghz + 4GB Ram running Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit with latest updates) via USB cable. At first it won't get recognized at all, I tried using Samsung KIES to sync, no luck. Did some google search, turned USB debugging off, rebooted phone/PC few times, tried few different USB drivers and android syncing programs like Double_Twist, and finally got it to work as massive storage device. I have to say, that drag down USB connection menu is quite sneaky and it's quite a pain on the ass to do that and select mount everytime before you can start transferring file between two devices. The sky was already dark before I can finally exporting mp3s to the phone.
However that's not the end of my nightmares. As I dig further, it turned out the horrible customization in the phone UI is just the iceberg. I can't install third party programs like firefox browser even after I root the phone following five steps. And in order to remove all the junk wares from AT&T, I need to make like three more downloads and going through bunch of DOS commands just to rename them so they can be ignored by Android (not even talking about removal). The worst part, I can't download any app from the Android market. The phone always stuck at "Start dowloading" screen before goes completely dark. I tried everything including reset to factory settings still no solution. Oh and did I mention the GPS doesn't work and the phone doesn't come with a camera flash?
Sure this phone has a nice beautiful screen, but it's merely catching up with its competitions in specs. The phone feels cheap while being held, the software needs to be polished. The UI is absolutely horrible, AT&T junkwares are useless. There is very little freedom left with the phone after too many functions are locked away by AT&T, and the phone still runs Android 2.1. Looks like I am returning this for EVO 4G on Monday. I am not a hater but I can't afford to spend more than one weekend just to get my cellphone do its standard functions like every other phone on the market.