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First Impressions, post your first impressions of handling the phone here.

My first initial impressions. Well this phone was not officialy on display, I guess the 15th is only a "soft launch" with the real launch dated for the 21st. So the t-mobile store is not displaying the phone till then. In the mean time, they had a vibrant there not on display but they let me play around with it for a while.

Good:
Light Weight
Didn't seem fragile even though it was made of cheap plastic
Looks like it could deffinately handle a few drops without shattering the screen.
Perfect balance of size and functionality
Nice styling, even if it does look like an iPhone 3gs.
Light weight

The Inbetween:
Wasn't too impressed with the screen. I read so much hype about Super-Amoled from Samsung, I thought this screen was going to dazle the hell out of me.
Found the screen brightness too low, even at max setting. It also looked highly pixelated, I could make out individual pixels. Didn't notice any overwheleming difference between this screen and the Mytouch Slide. Tried launching avatar to really see the beauty of the screen, but battery was low, so it woudn't launch the movie. I'll go into a diff t-mobile store to play around some more, and maybe revise this statement.

Edit update: So like I said, I went into a different store to play with the phone today. My opinion of the screen has changed. I was able to launch avatar and watch like the first 2 mins, it really looked nice. The screen did however still look pixely to me, when not watching a movie, when just writing texts, or surfing the web..etc. Then I went litterly across the street to att, to see the iphone 4g for the first time ever and to compare the retina iphone display to the Super-Amoled. OMG, I freaking hate apple so much, but I have to admit, that phone was drop dead gorgeous. I was shocked, I couldn't believe my eyes, you can't see any pixels, none, it is out of this world, and the phone feels like it is operating at 5 ghz, fast and responsive. I also couldn't replicate the iphone 4 death grip, so i'm assuming the att store had some kind of signal booster. So i guess i'd have to say the iphone 4 has the most gorgeus screen in the world, followed by the super-amoled.

The plastic battery cover could use an upgrade to better quality material.

The Bad:
Some people say they notice a lag, others say they dont. I deffinately noticed a lag on the phone when switching between the 7 home screens. However, I do not think it is hardware related at all. I believe Samsungs Touchwiz just doesn't have the refined fluidity of HTC Sense. The Touchwiz interface was almost handicaping the phone in my opinion.

Signal strength, I noticed in the store, the phone couldn't hold even 1 bar, it was going in and out between 1 and zero bars. Maybe just an isolated case.

No Flash (big important for me)
No indicator lights (very important for me)
No FFC (not important at all for me, at the moment.)

Would I pay full retail for this phone? No way, I can't see the justification to pay 499 plus almost 10 percent california sales tax on this. 199 upgrade, sure. I feel like it was a horrible decision not to include a flash, if a flash was not needed on the vibrant, then all Galaxy phones would omit a flash.

Just for comparison, I went to Verizon to see the Droid X, released today also. That phones build quality was amazing. Built with the utmost quality control and build standards, but compared to the Vibrant, it lacked that perfect size and functionality factor. Just a little too big I think.
 
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Fair enough... we all have our own likes and dislikes.

A couple notes about your review though. I picked mine up this morning, so I've used it quite a bit.

- I'm not sure what you're seeing with the screen. It's very bright, vivid, and crisp. I'm not sure what you were seeing that looked pixelated. On the brightest setting, I had no problem using my phone outside in the sun today. My photos from Picasa look amazing, videos I recorded today looked amazing, and Avatar looked better than I imagined. It is a very impressive screen, and is receiving the hype for good reason.

- The lag. Turn off the Samsung widgets. They're pointless and dumb and are huge resource hogs. I do notice a slight hick up when using a few of those widgets, but without, it flies. My experience with the MT Slide's Sense widgets did the exact same thing. TouchWiz has Sense beat in terms of functionality, while Sense is a bit more customizable. It comes down to personal preference again, but TouchWiz 3.0 is very much improved from 2.0 and is actually very snappy.

- Signal strength. It's fine. I live in a small town, mostly rural like I said, and my reception is the same as it always has been on my previous phones. In fact, my wife has a new Nokia flip phone and there were spots in some stores today where I had service and she didn't.

- Flash. Check out the night mode if you can. The quality is literally the same as cameras with a flash at night. It's kind of impressive how well it works. But if you absolutely need a flash, that's your call.

In comparing with the Droid X, it is fair to say that Motorola has Samsung beat in terms of build quality. No one beats Moto in this department, period. Part of this is Verizon's standards being incredibly high, and Motorola's focus on this area. But that's not to say that the Vibrant is built poorly, because Samsung is probably just behind Motorola in this department, and definitely ahead of HTC.

So I guess these are some of my own impressions in response to yours. :)
 
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I got mine yesterday and I have to say I am really impressed. Of course the screen is as amazing as everyone said it would be and the 4" size makes for the perfect overall device size. The lack of flash is only a big deal in pitch dark. I went out last night to a bar and was able to take pretty good pictures with no flash that I could have never taken without a flash on my old Blackberry (sorry, not gonna post here since they are of people).

I did immediately switch to LauncherPro mostly because I hate the iphone look of touchwiz, its bad enough the phone looks like an iphone I don't need the interface to look like one too! It does seem a bit more responsive too. I do see the lag people talk about from time to time when launching or returning home from apps, the built in email app is really slow and I might try an alternate if I can't seem to speed it up. Overall it's not too bad and it sounds like its something that will be fixed over the next few weeks anyway and certainly when Froyo is released.

To me the biggest thing I don't like about the phone is the lack of any kind of LED notification. It does seem like there a group of 3rd party developers looking to try and make the capactive buttons light up for notification purposes and I hope they are successful because to me that is the only major disappointment.

I'd also like to add that T-Mobile is amazing. I was with Sprint for 11 years and I cannot believe the speeds I am getting on their HSPA+ network here in Houston. My speed tests at home, work and around the city are averaging 3500-5000kbps! Needless to say I am so glad I didn't accept the free EVO Sprint offered me in an attempt to keep me as a customer.
 
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Fair enough... we all have our own likes and dislikes.

- The lag. Turn off the Samsung widgets. They're pointless and dumb and are huge resource hogs. I do notice a slight hick up when using a few of those widgets, but without, it flies. My experience with the MT Slide's Sense widgets did the exact same thing. TouchWiz has Sense beat in terms of functionality, while Sense is a bit more customizable. It comes down to personal preference again, but TouchWiz 3.0 is very much improved from 2.0 and is actually very snappy.

How does one turn off these widgets? I'm a smartphone noob. Also, is there anyway to uninstall all the prepackaged crap (GoGo, Amazon, Mobi, TeleNav, etc) or must the phone be rooted first? All this crap keeps turning on by itself.... And on that note, is there a way to prevent apps from auto/self-starting? I can't seem to find it. Again, I'm a smartphone noob!

- Signal strength. It's fine. I live in a small town, mostly rural like I said, and my reception is the same as it always has been on my previous phones. In fact, my wife has a new Nokia flip phone and there were spots in some stores today where I had service and she didn't.

I went from having 4 bars (an old 2g phone) to getting 0-1 3G bars and 0-2 Edge bars. I've tried using pandora/last.fm and I get a song or maybe song and a half in before it dies. I'm hoping this is just some short-lived fluke. I live/work a mile outside a downtown urban area.
 
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-i dont like the chromed trim, its just so ugly and iphonish
-the thing is so light, weights almost nothing, but it doesnt feel hollow
-it also feels very thin in the pocket/hand
-i hate the icons
-i hate the apps drawer
-at times it kindda feels laggy
-screen is awesome, way better than the N1's screen unther the sun
-the location of the power button feels so right
-i hate how the captivity buttons turn off after a few seconds

***even thought there are many things i dont like this phone, the two things that make it worth to me are the screen, the gpu power and the mirror tvout
 
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I love it. Still trying to decide though if i should keep my N1 around or sell it. My only gripe is the wifi problems i and others have been having with wireless-N. Also does anyone know if you can remove the 7 dots on the top of the screen that show what page your on, without rooting? Thanks.


This !... and on a side note, is your username a Justice reference ? :D
 
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I absolutely love this phone. I had it in a gel case before I was out of the store... plan to keep it in there forever. The phone feels perfect in my hand. Just the right weight and form.

Everything I've done on the phone is extremely snappy, not sure where the lag that some speak of is coming from. I'm also experiencing no reception issues whatsoever.

I still can't get over the screen. It looks crisper than reality, haha.
 
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The phone doesn't feel cheep to me. I always felt like my iPhone 3G was a fragile piece of art. I was always too careful with it to the determent of actually using it. So I hope that this feeling more like a normal phone won't keep me from actually using it.

I like the interchangeable back. I can't wait for custom colors and styles. Makes me feel 15 again with an old nokia. ha!

TouchWiz isn't too bad. It looks kind of plain and simple. I like the look of SenseUI more. There are something too that take too many clicks to accomplish, such as editing the dock items.

The lock screen has a transparent overlay on the wallpaper and it always makes me think my phone's back light is wrong.
 
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Droid X girl here

I was in tmobile with my friend Scottie as he got his Vibrant

OH MY GOSH! that phone is super light lol. It literally felt like i was holding nothing

It seems like a good phone and if i was a tmo customer, i'd probably have that one(or the slide...but probably the vibrant)

I made sure this was the first place i came. I really love the phone's feel in my hand....

The only thing i hate is the weird placement of the power button(Sorry on the side? What android phone...Better yet what phone period has a power button on the side?)

And touchwiz did seem like it made the phone really slow!
 
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oh here is the picture he took with my X and the display vibrant on his old cliq(that phone is so tiny lol)
 

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