I feel I should start out this by saying that this is my first phone in four (4) years. I have been using the LG enV before I picked up this Continuum. So it's probably safe to assume that any Android phone could blow me away compared to that thing.
It wasn't long ago that Amazon put up all Droid phones from Verizon on sale for only $1.00. So I read into that heavily trying to figure out what phone I wanted. Based on tons of user feedback, features, etc. etc. I landed on the Samsung Fascinate. The larger screen, but not too large, Super AMOLED screen and functionality seemed to be right up my alley. So I went into a Verizon store and played around with it and really fell for it. But, then he showed me another Galaxy S phone. The Contiuum. At first glance I didn't want it. The smaller screen compared to the FS coupled with a more narrow body didn't seem like it was for me.
But then I picked it up.
Wow! It felt amazing! Now, I have smaller hands, not that small small, but smaller. Not large either. Anyway, in my hand, it felt awesome. I loved the curves and the nice back shell. It just felt...solid! I remember shaking the FS up and down, side to side a little and hearing little clicks and the buttons swayed a bit. The Contiuum didn't have that at all. And it's sometimes small things like that that really ice the cake.
Anyway, after picking it up I started playing around with it. I was torn for quite some time. I kept going back and forth. But I gave in and got to the Contiuum.The deciding factor was in fact the size. The Continuum just felt COMFORTABLE. The FS was not BAD, but for MY hand it was just a bit TOO large. I traded a slightly larger screen for comfort. And why not? We're talking about phones now that you're going to be doodling with for possibly dozens of minutes on end and I don't want my hand to feel fatigued at all.
Boy am I glad I got it.
I LOVE IT! Simple as that. The ticker screen on the bottom wasn't a real factor for me when I bought it, but boy oh boy is it freaking COOL! Turning on the phone for the first time at my own place I found myself extremely capable of navigating Samsung's menu system. Everything was easy to find, including all system settings.
The first thing I did was customize the ticker display. You can do this via it's own menu system under "Ticker Settings". I unsubscribed from some feeds that it had me signed up for with just the click of a button and subscribed to "Reuters" news updates as well as "ESPN" updates. Both options are pre-loaded onto the phone along with about 10 others, including weather, FOX sports, etc. etc. Then, the user can add custom RSS feeds as well. For example I have RSS feeds come in on the ticker from "Idontlikeyouinthatway.com". I also set the ringtone I want and I put it to vibrate as well. You can also set a "sleep timer" on the ticker display. So I set mine to 12:30am - 9:00am so I don't get interrupted from sleep to find out that President Obama cut his lip playing basketball.
The ticker is really really cool and it's what really sets this phone apart from all the others, obviously. It's got a wealth of uniqueness. For example, I loaded up about 50 songs already from an App that I downloaded and had them playing through the Samsung player. Then I navigated away from the player and into the web browser. The ticker then reacts and displays itself as the media controls! The basic "Next, Previous, Play/Pause" are all there so you can control the media while you play games or navigate the web, etc. What's more you can play/navigate and if a call or text comes in, it comes in on the ticker display! This is sweet because you are then not distracted and brought away from what you were playing/browsing. You can choose to ignore the call or answer it, and it displays the person who texted you and a snipit of the text itself. Very cool and multi functional.
In the "Ticker Settings" screen you can also set up settings for MySpace, Facebook and Twitter, among other social networking sites. So all the tweets you subscribe to can come in through the ticker as well as Facebook updates and what not.
When a news-feed does come in through the ticker, you can click on this "History" button that then displays all your "Events" that have been happening, like missed calls, texts, RSS updates, etc. etc. To give you a very good snapshot of what you may have missed. You can clear if you want, or leave it and get a rundown of the day's events at the end of the day or what not. Very neat.
Last to note about the Ticker screen, I think, is that it is similar to your main screen. For exmaple when you turn on the phone, by default it will be on a screen that shows you the date, time and weather. Then you can slide your finger across and it goes to a new screen showing you any messages, voicemails, e-mails, etc. that you missed or have new, slide your finger across again and it shows you the latest RSS feed and has that "History" icon you can tap to view all the "Events" I talked about earlier. So it really is like two (2) screens.
The screen is simply great. I find myself smiling at it as I play games or browse the web. It's just so vibrant! But I'm assuming you all know that given it's the same screen as the FS. I personally do NOT find it "too small" at all. The FS and Droid X are too big for me. I'm very glad I didn't succumb to the FS larger screen. Sure it's great to watch things on over the Contiuum, but I am so glad I reasoned with myself to get the phone that felt better in my hand.
The Swipe feature is great too. It rarely messes up on me. I can see this being an issue, however, with anyone that has larger hands. Would imagine it'd be kind of frustrating if you have larger fingers to get the words to come in that you want.
Setting up my e-mails accounts was a breeze and also very conveinent to have come in through the ticker as well. I set up my Hotmail in about 5 minutes and all new e-mails come accross within a minute or two of it being sent to me. You can also setup your Corporate e-mail as well (work e-mail).
The touch screen is extremely responsive. I really don't know what to compare it to since this is my first touch screen, but it registers even the slights tap.
Another small thing that I love is the power button placement. When I was fooling around with the FS I did note in my mind that I didn't like the side placement of the power button. The Continuum button is at the top, off-right. I think that is much more ergonomic than on the side and is just another icing for the cake.
Call quality seemed to be great as well. People came in very clear. Although I asked a couple people if I sounded more clear than that of my enV phone and they all said they couldn't tell a difference. I guess I just don't have a great speaking voice?
All applications that I have downloaded have been working fluently. Google Maps never messes up and neither does the GPS yet. Found my spots just fine.
I love the menu system too. It resembles what I have played with on the iPhone. Many call it a rip off of the iPhone almost to a "T". I guess so, it is pretty much the same thing. Black background with colored apps that you can slide your finger left and right and view more pages. Very very similar, but hey, if it looks nice might as well copy it?
Camera and video were amazing. Again I have to say look at what I had to compare it to, the enV. But wow they are sharp! I recorded some video in 720p and played it back on the PC and it was damn good for a PHONE! Very happy with both quality of pictures and videos. I also hear that a dedicated camera button is not on other phones, this one has it, and I'm glad it does.
There are a couple things that I found to be a little lame though:
1. Battery life. Now granted, this is my first new-cool phone in quite some time so I have been playing with it NON STOP for a week now and have had to charge it every night. I also do not have any Power Save function enabled, and I have it at max brightness (LOVE THAT SCREEN!), but I still thought it would last longer. It lasted about 6-8 hours of heavy usage. Charge time took about 3 hours.
2. Yes, it is 2.1. Again, it's not like I know any better right? Well, apparently when 2.2 comes out, the Ticker display is going to be utilized by a TON of more app's and websites that support it, or the other way around. In any case, it's a big part of the phone. So I want 2.2 NOW. Unfortunately I have no idea when it is going to be released. I have been told though that it WILL get 2.2, and that's what reassures me. But yeah, it's 2.1 for now.
3. It's been Binged? I say it like that because I don't understand what the big deal is. I already deleted all Bing references off my phone pages and only can "see" them when I view "All Programs" or whatever type of screens those are that list everything. Otherwise, I have Google setup for everything on browser. I'm not sure why everyone is so annoyed with the fact that it has Bing on there. Is it just because you can't get the embedded Google search bar on the phone screen? Meh. I don't mind at all I guess. Not a big deal to me. Buuuut, it would be nice to have Google embedded, so I guess it's a small negative.
4. Things like Twitter. I write this one in on behalf of other people. I, myself, only just began following the Twitter craze once I got this phone. So I don't have many followers yet and I don't subscribe to many people yet. HOWEVER, I guess if you are popular with Twitter, there is no way right now to make the Ticker activate ONLY when you get a direct message? Apparently EVERYTHING comes across the screen right now and it can become quite over-active. So they say anyway. But again, 2.2 is suppose to fix that and let you get more intuitive on what you want coming across. Just know that if you go crazy on what you want coming through, you could be inundated.
That's all I can think of off the top of my head. Please feel free to pop questions at me, I'll answer them all as best as I can.
Also, this is my first post here; so let me say HELLO TO ALL!
It wasn't long ago that Amazon put up all Droid phones from Verizon on sale for only $1.00. So I read into that heavily trying to figure out what phone I wanted. Based on tons of user feedback, features, etc. etc. I landed on the Samsung Fascinate. The larger screen, but not too large, Super AMOLED screen and functionality seemed to be right up my alley. So I went into a Verizon store and played around with it and really fell for it. But, then he showed me another Galaxy S phone. The Contiuum. At first glance I didn't want it. The smaller screen compared to the FS coupled with a more narrow body didn't seem like it was for me.
But then I picked it up.
Wow! It felt amazing! Now, I have smaller hands, not that small small, but smaller. Not large either. Anyway, in my hand, it felt awesome. I loved the curves and the nice back shell. It just felt...solid! I remember shaking the FS up and down, side to side a little and hearing little clicks and the buttons swayed a bit. The Contiuum didn't have that at all. And it's sometimes small things like that that really ice the cake.
Anyway, after picking it up I started playing around with it. I was torn for quite some time. I kept going back and forth. But I gave in and got to the Contiuum.The deciding factor was in fact the size. The Continuum just felt COMFORTABLE. The FS was not BAD, but for MY hand it was just a bit TOO large. I traded a slightly larger screen for comfort. And why not? We're talking about phones now that you're going to be doodling with for possibly dozens of minutes on end and I don't want my hand to feel fatigued at all.
Boy am I glad I got it.
I LOVE IT! Simple as that. The ticker screen on the bottom wasn't a real factor for me when I bought it, but boy oh boy is it freaking COOL! Turning on the phone for the first time at my own place I found myself extremely capable of navigating Samsung's menu system. Everything was easy to find, including all system settings.
The first thing I did was customize the ticker display. You can do this via it's own menu system under "Ticker Settings". I unsubscribed from some feeds that it had me signed up for with just the click of a button and subscribed to "Reuters" news updates as well as "ESPN" updates. Both options are pre-loaded onto the phone along with about 10 others, including weather, FOX sports, etc. etc. Then, the user can add custom RSS feeds as well. For example I have RSS feeds come in on the ticker from "Idontlikeyouinthatway.com". I also set the ringtone I want and I put it to vibrate as well. You can also set a "sleep timer" on the ticker display. So I set mine to 12:30am - 9:00am so I don't get interrupted from sleep to find out that President Obama cut his lip playing basketball.
The ticker is really really cool and it's what really sets this phone apart from all the others, obviously. It's got a wealth of uniqueness. For example, I loaded up about 50 songs already from an App that I downloaded and had them playing through the Samsung player. Then I navigated away from the player and into the web browser. The ticker then reacts and displays itself as the media controls! The basic "Next, Previous, Play/Pause" are all there so you can control the media while you play games or navigate the web, etc. What's more you can play/navigate and if a call or text comes in, it comes in on the ticker display! This is sweet because you are then not distracted and brought away from what you were playing/browsing. You can choose to ignore the call or answer it, and it displays the person who texted you and a snipit of the text itself. Very cool and multi functional.
In the "Ticker Settings" screen you can also set up settings for MySpace, Facebook and Twitter, among other social networking sites. So all the tweets you subscribe to can come in through the ticker as well as Facebook updates and what not.
When a news-feed does come in through the ticker, you can click on this "History" button that then displays all your "Events" that have been happening, like missed calls, texts, RSS updates, etc. etc. To give you a very good snapshot of what you may have missed. You can clear if you want, or leave it and get a rundown of the day's events at the end of the day or what not. Very neat.
Last to note about the Ticker screen, I think, is that it is similar to your main screen. For exmaple when you turn on the phone, by default it will be on a screen that shows you the date, time and weather. Then you can slide your finger across and it goes to a new screen showing you any messages, voicemails, e-mails, etc. that you missed or have new, slide your finger across again and it shows you the latest RSS feed and has that "History" icon you can tap to view all the "Events" I talked about earlier. So it really is like two (2) screens.
The screen is simply great. I find myself smiling at it as I play games or browse the web. It's just so vibrant! But I'm assuming you all know that given it's the same screen as the FS. I personally do NOT find it "too small" at all. The FS and Droid X are too big for me. I'm very glad I didn't succumb to the FS larger screen. Sure it's great to watch things on over the Contiuum, but I am so glad I reasoned with myself to get the phone that felt better in my hand.
The Swipe feature is great too. It rarely messes up on me. I can see this being an issue, however, with anyone that has larger hands. Would imagine it'd be kind of frustrating if you have larger fingers to get the words to come in that you want.
Setting up my e-mails accounts was a breeze and also very conveinent to have come in through the ticker as well. I set up my Hotmail in about 5 minutes and all new e-mails come accross within a minute or two of it being sent to me. You can also setup your Corporate e-mail as well (work e-mail).
The touch screen is extremely responsive. I really don't know what to compare it to since this is my first touch screen, but it registers even the slights tap.
Another small thing that I love is the power button placement. When I was fooling around with the FS I did note in my mind that I didn't like the side placement of the power button. The Continuum button is at the top, off-right. I think that is much more ergonomic than on the side and is just another icing for the cake.
Call quality seemed to be great as well. People came in very clear. Although I asked a couple people if I sounded more clear than that of my enV phone and they all said they couldn't tell a difference. I guess I just don't have a great speaking voice?
All applications that I have downloaded have been working fluently. Google Maps never messes up and neither does the GPS yet. Found my spots just fine.
I love the menu system too. It resembles what I have played with on the iPhone. Many call it a rip off of the iPhone almost to a "T". I guess so, it is pretty much the same thing. Black background with colored apps that you can slide your finger left and right and view more pages. Very very similar, but hey, if it looks nice might as well copy it?
Camera and video were amazing. Again I have to say look at what I had to compare it to, the enV. But wow they are sharp! I recorded some video in 720p and played it back on the PC and it was damn good for a PHONE! Very happy with both quality of pictures and videos. I also hear that a dedicated camera button is not on other phones, this one has it, and I'm glad it does.
There are a couple things that I found to be a little lame though:
1. Battery life. Now granted, this is my first new-cool phone in quite some time so I have been playing with it NON STOP for a week now and have had to charge it every night. I also do not have any Power Save function enabled, and I have it at max brightness (LOVE THAT SCREEN!), but I still thought it would last longer. It lasted about 6-8 hours of heavy usage. Charge time took about 3 hours.
2. Yes, it is 2.1. Again, it's not like I know any better right? Well, apparently when 2.2 comes out, the Ticker display is going to be utilized by a TON of more app's and websites that support it, or the other way around. In any case, it's a big part of the phone. So I want 2.2 NOW. Unfortunately I have no idea when it is going to be released. I have been told though that it WILL get 2.2, and that's what reassures me. But yeah, it's 2.1 for now.
3. It's been Binged? I say it like that because I don't understand what the big deal is. I already deleted all Bing references off my phone pages and only can "see" them when I view "All Programs" or whatever type of screens those are that list everything. Otherwise, I have Google setup for everything on browser. I'm not sure why everyone is so annoyed with the fact that it has Bing on there. Is it just because you can't get the embedded Google search bar on the phone screen? Meh. I don't mind at all I guess. Not a big deal to me. Buuuut, it would be nice to have Google embedded, so I guess it's a small negative.
4. Things like Twitter. I write this one in on behalf of other people. I, myself, only just began following the Twitter craze once I got this phone. So I don't have many followers yet and I don't subscribe to many people yet. HOWEVER, I guess if you are popular with Twitter, there is no way right now to make the Ticker activate ONLY when you get a direct message? Apparently EVERYTHING comes across the screen right now and it can become quite over-active. So they say anyway. But again, 2.2 is suppose to fix that and let you get more intuitive on what you want coming across. Just know that if you go crazy on what you want coming through, you could be inundated.
That's all I can think of off the top of my head. Please feel free to pop questions at me, I'll answer them all as best as I can.
Also, this is my first post here; so let me say HELLO TO ALL!
....you sure do hop from carrier to carrier and phone to phone...i wish i had that flexibility with my plans/phones 
