Coming from an HTC Touch Pro 2, it was pretty difficult not to impress me. I wont' go into that.. but that was far and away the most frustratingly shitty phone I've ever used.
After owning the Fascinate for a few days, it's an amazingly nice device, but there are a few quirks about it that might have it getting returned. I'll gloss over those in each section, and hopefully this can help a prospective buyer.
Overal build Quality: "Decent"
First look at this phone and it looks stunning. Absolutely the most "attractive" phone to date. The sleekness and overall shape of it makes it feel great in the hand. The overall size of it is about as large as you can make a phone before it starts becoming too big imo.
What detracts from the quality are a few things. Starting with the least annoying would be the battery cover. You have to slip your nail into a little groove and pry it off. Not really a big deal, unless you bite your nails like me, and then it's a huge PITA to remove. I'd prefer it was just a slide on / slide off cover.
The bad part of the build quality, for me, are the volume rockers and USB cover. Both are very loose on my phone. I was able to fix the vol rocker by shoving some paper in there (which you shouldn't have to do on a $700 phone), but the USB cover is a lost cause. The kicker for me is that whenever the phone vibrates, they rattle a ton, which makes for a very poor experience. NOT happy about that at all.
Ergonomics Phone Design - Good
The phone feels great in the hand. The size of the phone is perfect, imo, and anything bigger (DX) is just too big for a phone. I can easily navigate the entire phone with one hand, which is exactly what I want.
The reason I don't give it it an "excellent" is the poor placement and design of the screen on/off button, as well as the speaker. For one, the screen on/off button is recessed, which can make it difficult to find/press for me at times. Even worse, it's located directly opposite the volume rocker, so I inevitably wind up pressing the vol rocker every time I press the on / off button. Who designed that?! The speaker, as well, is horribly placed. When it's in your pocket, the speaker is pressed right against either the pocket or your leg, and muffles the volume down to 20% of what it should be. I rarely hear my phone ringing if there is outside noise.
UI - Excellent
I'm very happy with the overlay samsung has provided. It gives a very elegant look to an otherwise slightly boring android interface. Text messaging was well designed, calling was well designed. I rather like the puzzle-piece thing they have going on, it works well. My only complaints here are some various spelling mistakes I've run across, as well as some quirks (hitting back in a text message sometimes kicks you to the homescreen instead of just the messaging app). I'm also not a fan of Google deciding to sync entire lists of facebook friends without asking (I now have over 500 contacts in my phone when I only wanted ~30 of them), but I'm not sure if that's a Fascinate-thing or an Android-thing.
Performance - Good
On my last phone, I would literaly wait ~30-45 seconds to open a text, or to click on a contact. On this phone, it's near-instantaneous. The responsiveness of this phone, either it be the UI or on the web, is very impressive. My only complaints here are the random bits of lag or complete freezes I've experienced a few times.
Signal Quality - Poor
This is my big killer for this phone, and if no update addresses this soon, the phone is going back.
When I say signal quality, I mean more than just phone reception. I'm also including GPS and wifi in this.
The phone reception is pretty poor at times. I often find myself with 1-2 bars in a city that I got 4-5 in previously on my old phone. Often times the voice quality is fine, even with 1-2 bars, but it also often suffers. This device is a phone first and foremost for me, and that's an issue.
The GPS is awful. It takes upwards of 5 minutes to connect. I have tried everything Samsung tech support has offered, and nothing has fixed it. It's extremely annoying to need to use the GPS to navigate somewhere, and just have it sit there attempting to find it.
Wifi is meh. It's very fast, but I find the strength of it to be a bit lackluster. I can barely reach a small-business router on the other side of my house, whereas my old phone and laptop are able to achieve "good" to "excellent' signal at all times.
Text input - Excellent
So far, I've only used swype. It is THE BOMB. I can text insanely fast and with very high precision. I have no idea how it works so damn well, so I'm just going to assume black magic. The traditional style of typing on here is pretty average, and has no auto correct (big no-no on a touch screen phone).
Screen - Excellent
Not much to say here. The screen, for me, is the perfect size for a phone. Colors look great, no pixellation, and the brightness on auto is perfect at all times.
Battery Life - Excellent
Coming from my old phone, squeezing 8 hours out of the battery on the lowest screen brightness was a challenge. On this phone, with the screen brightness set to auto, I've been achieving ~14 hours before needing to charge, and that's with a good amount of playing around as well as a live background. I do keep the wifi and gpa off at all times, though. I'm very, very impressed at what the battery life has been on a device of this caliber so far.
So, there you have it. I know this review mainly harps on the negatives, but don't get me wrong, this is an outstanding phone with a few minor gripes and a few large issues. I think with an update ,this phone could be the best on the market. As of now, it has a few too many issues involving phone reception to really do that.
After owning the Fascinate for a few days, it's an amazingly nice device, but there are a few quirks about it that might have it getting returned. I'll gloss over those in each section, and hopefully this can help a prospective buyer.
Overal build Quality: "Decent"
First look at this phone and it looks stunning. Absolutely the most "attractive" phone to date. The sleekness and overall shape of it makes it feel great in the hand. The overall size of it is about as large as you can make a phone before it starts becoming too big imo.
What detracts from the quality are a few things. Starting with the least annoying would be the battery cover. You have to slip your nail into a little groove and pry it off. Not really a big deal, unless you bite your nails like me, and then it's a huge PITA to remove. I'd prefer it was just a slide on / slide off cover.
The bad part of the build quality, for me, are the volume rockers and USB cover. Both are very loose on my phone. I was able to fix the vol rocker by shoving some paper in there (which you shouldn't have to do on a $700 phone), but the USB cover is a lost cause. The kicker for me is that whenever the phone vibrates, they rattle a ton, which makes for a very poor experience. NOT happy about that at all.
Ergonomics Phone Design - Good
The phone feels great in the hand. The size of the phone is perfect, imo, and anything bigger (DX) is just too big for a phone. I can easily navigate the entire phone with one hand, which is exactly what I want.
The reason I don't give it it an "excellent" is the poor placement and design of the screen on/off button, as well as the speaker. For one, the screen on/off button is recessed, which can make it difficult to find/press for me at times. Even worse, it's located directly opposite the volume rocker, so I inevitably wind up pressing the vol rocker every time I press the on / off button. Who designed that?! The speaker, as well, is horribly placed. When it's in your pocket, the speaker is pressed right against either the pocket or your leg, and muffles the volume down to 20% of what it should be. I rarely hear my phone ringing if there is outside noise.
UI - Excellent
I'm very happy with the overlay samsung has provided. It gives a very elegant look to an otherwise slightly boring android interface. Text messaging was well designed, calling was well designed. I rather like the puzzle-piece thing they have going on, it works well. My only complaints here are some various spelling mistakes I've run across, as well as some quirks (hitting back in a text message sometimes kicks you to the homescreen instead of just the messaging app). I'm also not a fan of Google deciding to sync entire lists of facebook friends without asking (I now have over 500 contacts in my phone when I only wanted ~30 of them), but I'm not sure if that's a Fascinate-thing or an Android-thing.
Performance - Good
On my last phone, I would literaly wait ~30-45 seconds to open a text, or to click on a contact. On this phone, it's near-instantaneous. The responsiveness of this phone, either it be the UI or on the web, is very impressive. My only complaints here are the random bits of lag or complete freezes I've experienced a few times.
Signal Quality - Poor
This is my big killer for this phone, and if no update addresses this soon, the phone is going back.
When I say signal quality, I mean more than just phone reception. I'm also including GPS and wifi in this.
The phone reception is pretty poor at times. I often find myself with 1-2 bars in a city that I got 4-5 in previously on my old phone. Often times the voice quality is fine, even with 1-2 bars, but it also often suffers. This device is a phone first and foremost for me, and that's an issue.
The GPS is awful. It takes upwards of 5 minutes to connect. I have tried everything Samsung tech support has offered, and nothing has fixed it. It's extremely annoying to need to use the GPS to navigate somewhere, and just have it sit there attempting to find it.
Wifi is meh. It's very fast, but I find the strength of it to be a bit lackluster. I can barely reach a small-business router on the other side of my house, whereas my old phone and laptop are able to achieve "good" to "excellent' signal at all times.
Text input - Excellent
So far, I've only used swype. It is THE BOMB. I can text insanely fast and with very high precision. I have no idea how it works so damn well, so I'm just going to assume black magic. The traditional style of typing on here is pretty average, and has no auto correct (big no-no on a touch screen phone).
Screen - Excellent
Not much to say here. The screen, for me, is the perfect size for a phone. Colors look great, no pixellation, and the brightness on auto is perfect at all times.
Battery Life - Excellent
Coming from my old phone, squeezing 8 hours out of the battery on the lowest screen brightness was a challenge. On this phone, with the screen brightness set to auto, I've been achieving ~14 hours before needing to charge, and that's with a good amount of playing around as well as a live background. I do keep the wifi and gpa off at all times, though. I'm very, very impressed at what the battery life has been on a device of this caliber so far.
So, there you have it. I know this review mainly harps on the negatives, but don't get me wrong, this is an outstanding phone with a few minor gripes and a few large issues. I think with an update ,this phone could be the best on the market. As of now, it has a few too many issues involving phone reception to really do that.
I love rice 
Assume I do the root / voodoo lag fix, and then 2.2 rolls out (or whatever update). Do I have to return my phone to stock before I can get Verizon's update, or can the two exist simultaneously on the phone?
NP. Its kinda hard to find. I think we need to suggest to Frisco to edit the thread title to draw more attention to it and remove the date thing
