Verizon is the first to announce it's Samsung Galaxy S2 variant!

[FreakyLocz14]

The Charge will be Verizon's S2 variant.

Full specs:
Samsung Droid Charge specs - Phone Arena

 

[SirKronan]

The Charge will be Verizon's S2 variant.

Full specs:
Samsung Droid Charge specs - Phone Arena

lolWUT?

Where do you get that this is a galaxy S 2 variant? It most certainly is not. Berizon is calling it another "Droid" and making it one of their Droid nameplate flagship phones, but I have seen nothing indicating Berizon implying it's their S2 device. I have seen some decent words on the street that Berizon can expect their S2 variant MUCH later this year, however.

I don't even think Berizon is calling this a Galaxy S variant. With the 8MP camera, HDMI output, LTE, vastly lower internal memory, physical buttons, thicker form factor, and SuperAMOLED Plus, it really isn't much like the Galaxy S other than having last year's CPU. In fact, that's the only similarity (other than shipping with an outdated OS) I can find with the original Galaxy S series.

Edit: Please remember this is not an attack towards you personally, just a little fact checkeroo.

 

[jinwons]

The Charge will be Verizon's S2 variant.

Full specs:
Samsung Droid Charge specs - Phone Arena

Who says that? The only thing Charge shares with SGS2 would be SAMOLED+ screen and possibly 4G LTE. SGS2 is much better phone in every other way, coming later this year.

 

[gwlaw99]

Thats like saying the Droid X2 is the Verizon version of the Atrix because it has a qHD screen.

 

[FreakyLocz14]

Verizon employee confirmed it!

 

[redraider1]

Verizon employee confirmed it!

And verizon employees are always so knowledgeable? smh I would get some backing info before posting something like this.

 

[wxman2003]

Gawd! Could Samsung have made an uglier phone?

 

[kujayhawks77]

I don't believe this is the SG2. I believe this is a "our bad" from Verizon to Samsung for binging up the fascinate. They gave them the honor of being the first LTE phone with the Droid branding. I think Samsung wanted to get something out there for Verizon's LTE network quickly and the SG2 wasn't ready.

 

[gwlaw99]

The current LTE radios won't fit in a SGS2.

 

[SirKronan]

I don't believe this is the SG2. I believe this is a "our bad" from Verizon to Samsung for binging up the fascinate. They gave them the honor of being the first LTE phone with the Droid branding. I think Samsung wanted to get something out there for Verizon's LTE network quickly and the SG2 wasn't ready.

Haha. I like my fascinate. Too much dev. support and too pretty a screen not to love. Took way too long to get official froyo, I admit, but it's been a good smartphone for me overall. I still prefer it to others I've owned - Droid X, Eris (by a long ways), and Omnia (by an even loooooonger way!)

This is an attempt at getting rid of an overstock of ARMv7 CPUs (last year's single core hummingbird) methinks. All while making as much profit as possible, of course ($300??!!?!? WHAT THE ... !)

 

[getlooks]

Got a TB last week and will be returning it within my 14 day window. Compared to my Fascinate, it's awful in many ways. This is a brick and I swear my bicep grew an inch lugging this dumb ball around.

If they had the TB's in Japan, they could of thrown a few out towards the ocean and about 6 TB's would have stopped the Tsunami dead in its tracks.

Thing about the TB I hate are:
1) Heaviest phone I have every held, seriously uncomfortable
2) Feels odd in the hand, slippery
3) Who was the rocket scientist at HTC that put the speaker on the back side of the kickstand? – brilliant work Taco-man!
4) Battery is worse than the EVO I once had
5) Laggy for a new phone
6) Off button is located on top and hard to reach
7) Phone is too BIG and I have BIG hands. Hard to text with one hand.

4.3” screens are too big. Eat the battery, can’t hold well with one hand, and texting keys are too far way. 4” screens are the sweet spot.

Going back to my Fascinate until something better comes out (it ain’t the charge). Prob going to be the GalS2.

 

[shadowdude777]

Got a TB last week and will be returning it within my 14 day window. Compared to my Fascinate, it's awful in many ways. This is a brick and I swear my bicep grew an inch lugging this dumb ball around.

If they had the TB's in Japan, they could of thrown a few out towards the ocean and about 6 TB's would have stopped the Tsunami dead in its tracks.

Thing about the TB I hate are:
1) Heaviest phone I have every held, seriously uncomfortable
2) Feels odd in the hand, slippery
3) Who was the rocket scientist at HTC that put the speaker on the back side of the kickstand?

 

[SirKronan]

1) Oh come on, I have a 120 pound friend with a ThunderBolt.
2) It does have that weird soft-touch material
3) This was incredibly stupid of them
4) Reports for battery are ranging from "3 MINUTES WHAT THE HELL" to "what are you talking about, this is fine"
5) A refreshed Snapdragon lags? I don't see how it's possible, but if you say so, alright
6) Most of us like the off button up there. I hate when they put it on the side, personally. Matter of preference though
7) The Galaxy S II is 4.3", and you're complaining about 4.3" screens?

1- Be that as it may, I do appreciate slimmer, lighter weight phones. I'm plenty strong to hold up a thunderbolt and pack it around all day, and I owned a Droid X for a while, but the Fascinate is thinner, lighter, and much more pleasant to read with for long hours, or catch up on TV episodes in bed or on the couch. All about personal preference here. Is the TB too big? No, not really, and it's fairly ergonomic, like the EVO is, but thinner and lighter is still preferred, especially for packing around in a pocket or long hours of use.
2- I like the soft-touch material, but do miss some of the metal, like many do. Still a solid-feeling phone though, and the one gripe I have about the back of the Fascinate is that it will slip right out of your hand. Grippy material would make the phone less drop-prone.
3- Agreed
4- Also heard/read this, although there is much that can be done to improve it. Still, the reduced size battery is a little odd and disheartening for such a powerful phone.
5- Stock, out of the box, or with tons of widgets and junk installed and running, I have certainly felt lag on a Thunderbolt, but with it properly configured the refreshed snapdragon is a downright speedy processor. It's fantastic for a single core, substantially faster than hummingbird in everything except certain 3D graphics scenarios.
6- Yep. Matter of preference. I HATED the button at the top of the Droid X, and I LOVE it on the side of my Fascinate. You use that button all the time, so this was actually an important consideration for me when selecting a phone. One handed operation is important to me. I have kids to wrangle with. It's nice to be able to operate the phone ergonomically with one hand while grabbing a child. Of course if it were a serious occasion I would drop the phone to grab the kids, but it's nice to be able to handle both easily in non-dangerous situations around the house.
7- I wondered this myself... A big screen is preferred, if they can still pull off a thin bezel and ergonomic phone design. Should make it easier to text. It's notably easier to text on my 4" Fascinate than on the much smaller Eris I had for a long (and slightly painful) amount of time. And like you said, the SGSII and LG Revolution are both getting 4.3" screens with the standard resolution.

 

[navigatn]

Got a TB last week and will be returning it within my 14 day window. Compared to my Fascinate, it's awful in many ways. This is a brick and I swear my bicep grew an inch lugging this dumb ball around.

If they had the TB's in Japan, they could of thrown a few out towards the ocean and about 6 TB's would have stopped the Tsunami dead in its tracks.

Thing about the TB I hate are:
1) Heaviest phone I have every held, seriously uncomfortable
2) Feels odd in the hand, slippery
3) Who was the rocket scientist at HTC that put the speaker on the back side of the kickstand?

 

[FreakyLocz14]

If the TB is too heavy of a phone for you, u need a gym membership. Also funny how you have big hands but the power button is hard to reach and you have a hard time texting. Guess the Fascinate with smaller virtual keyboard is easier to text with your big hands. That makes sense lol?

Hopefully, the SGS2 won't be a Bing fail phone like the Fascinate.

Didn't FroYo replace Bing with Google?

 

[shadowdude777]

Personally, I don't see the big deal with Bing. But I guess that's cause I don't buy a phone unless it can be rooted.

 

[SirKronan]

Didn't FroYo replace Bing with Google?

You can select Google as your search engine of choice, but Bing is still there, using resources, and trying to sneak in a search here or there whenever it can. No matter how many times I selected Google in the 2.2 that I tried, Bing would still do searches for me almost daily. I couldn't ever completely get rid of it without rooting and renaming a few files.

That's why some of us are calling them "Berizon".

 

[ianmma]

The current LTE radios won't fit in a SGS2.

THIS ^^^ for any of you that don't know... The LTE hardware is MUCH to large to even come close to fitting the form factor of the SG2. I wouldn't be surprised if Verizon missed out on the SG2 completely because of this. Best case scenario with the current technology is it would come out as a 3G only device.

 

[shadowdude777]

So why not just make it a little thicker to accomodate the LTE radio? Their ad does say that the thickness will differ in different regions: Samsung makes sure you know the Galaxy S II is really, really thin with silly new ad (video) -- Engadget

Who cares how freaking thin it is? Would you really compromise functionality for the sake of saying you have the sexiest-looking device around? That niche has already been taken by our fruit-flavored brethren. Put the LTE radio in it and make it a full cm thick. See if anyone cares (they won't).

 

[jinwons]

I read somewhere that next generation LTE chip is much smaller, efficient than current one in phones like Tbolt, Charge. This is due to smaller semi-conductor manufacturing process. Also saw that Samsung is already working on integrating next small LTE radio into their high phones. But not sure if they can pull this out to SGSII for Verizon this year. The CDMA version of SGSII in Korea supports EV-DO Rev.B type 3G which is 3X faster than current Rev.A type on Verizon, so they should do that for CDMA SGSII at least if not LTE.

 

[SirKronan]

So why not just make it a little thicker to accomodate the LTE radio? Their ad does say that the thickness will differ in different regions: Samsung makes sure you know the Galaxy S II is really, really thin with silly new ad (video) -- Engadget

Who cares how freaking thin it is? Would you really compromise functionality for the sake of saying you have the sexiest-looking device around? That niche has already been taken by our fruit-flavored brethren. Put the LTE radio in it and make it a full cm thick. See if anyone cares (they won't).

Please lookup Moore's Law.

I am excited for their voice command software. I hope it works over bluetooth as well. And again, I hope Berizon doesn't SCREW UP any of the coolness that this amazing new phone is going to have, INCLUDING the form factor. I care how freaking thin it is. I have to carry this thing around in my pocket all day. The thinner it is the more comfortable it is in there, and easier to use as a reader, too. The fascinate is thin AND lightweight. It's an amazing 4 inch video player and eReader. I put it in night mode and get grate battery life. The SGS2 is rectifying the one main complaint I have about the body of the Fascinate - the slick backside. They make this extremely thin lightweight and pocketable device that is wonderful to hold, IF you can keep a hold of it. I've dropped my fascinate so many times, and it has no shell, case, or even screen protection. Thank goodness for gorilla glass.

Even a rubber skin adds too much thickness to the device for my tastes. You can have whatever personal preference you choose, but I have to pack the thing around all day. I want to be the form factor I want. Period. AND I want it to have the latest and greatest. Honestly I would rather have a thin device than LTE. LTE can kiss my butt. My region won't even get it for at least a year, probably two. Even if I could get it, I don't need it. I can stream non-HD video, check email, download mp3's, stream pandora, etc. all I want just fine on 3G, without killing my battery or making a thicker device. It's a freaking 4"-ish screen. 3G is still worlds faster than dialup, and with Berizon I get signal all over the place. It works good for phone calls, and email is instant when I need it. Hell, I'd be tickled pink for 6 or 7 meg speeds. That would still be more than double 3G speeds, and fast enough to stream hi-def vids (5 meg is the minimum.) I really don't need to watch HD streaming on a 4" screen. Obviously with HDMI out it would be nice to have, but the HDMI out will likely be 720p, and a 5 meg connection is more than enough for that.

This push to 20 meg speeds on cellphones with little batteries is a bit ridiculous. Chugging down that much data not only hits your cap faster (when Berizon goes to tiered, which they eventually will) and kills your battery faster.

But to each his/her own. I can certainly see why you want 20 meg speeds if you're a frequent tetherer.

 

[FreakyLocz14]

AT&T has announced their S2 variant, the Samsung Infuse 4G!

 

[SirKronan]

AT&T has announced their S2 variant, the Samsung Infuse 4G!

Lol. NOPE.

 

[shadowdude777]

Please lookup Moore's Law.

That's the law that the amount of transistors that can fit on an IC doubles every two years. What does that have to do with thickness of an LTE phone?

 

[SirKronan]

That's the law that the amount of transistors that can fit on an IC doubles every two years. What does that have to do with thickness of an LTE phone?

Well, since you seem to have not read too much into it, I'll place a little more here so you can follow my logic:

The number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years.[1] This trend has continued for more than half a century and is expected to continue until 2015 or 2020 or later...

The capabilities of many digital electronic devices are strongly linked to Moore's law: processing speed, memory capacity, sensors and even the number and size of pixels in digital cameras...

Now here's the important part:

Several measures of digital technology are improving at exponential rates related to Moore's law, including the size, cost, density and speed of components. Moore himself wrote only about the density of components (or transistors) at minimum cost.

Transistors per integrated circuit. The most popular formulation is of the doubling of the number of transistors on integrated circuits every two years. At the end of the 1970s, Moore's law became known as the limit for the number of transistors on the most complex chips. Recent trends show that this rate has been maintained into 2007

These new devices with SoC's (system on a chip) still follow Moore's law, continuing to increase the number of transistors that can fit on an integrated circuit. In short, we get smaller devices that continue to do more things, or smaller devices that do the same things but cost less to manufacture, and other related results of Moore's law. Pixel density is also related, and as a result we are seeing some simply amazing photographic results captured by increasingly small sensors on small devices, such as cell phones. Samsung and Apple make smartphones that take simply astounding pictures, considering how tiny the camera is and the fact that it's embedded on a cell phone. HTC has now firmly caught up to the race with their new camera on the TB/Desire.

So in short, we want smaller devices - devices with better form factors, as I called it above - that are more powerful and more capable. I am confused as to why you were unable to relate that to the desire many consumers have, including myself, for thinner, lighter weight hardware.