Verizon Wireless announces Samsung DROID Charge

By on Apr 21, 2011 at 12:07 PM
Breaking April 21, 2011

Verizon Wireless just took the wraps off of the Samsung DROID Charge, its latest Android 2.2 smartphone capable of running on the firm’s 4G LTE wireless network. The DROID Charge sports a 4.3-inch Super-AMOLED Plus display — which made its debut on the Galaxy S II — an 8-megapixel camera with LED flash, and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera for voice chats. It’s powered by a 1GHz processor and is also capable of sharing its 4G LTE connection with up to 10 Wi-Fi enabled devices (while connected to LTE). The DROID Charge will launch on April 28th for $299.99 with a new two-year Verizon Wireless contract. Hit the break for the full press release.

VERIZON WIRELESS UNLEASHES DROID CHARGE BY SAMSUNG

DROID Charge Joins Verizon Wireless’ Android Family as Samsung’s First 4G LTE Smartphone

BASKING RIDGE, N.J. – Verizon Wireless and Samsung Telecommunications America (Samsung Mobile) today announced that the DROID Charge by Samsung will be available for purchase on April 28 in Verizon Wireless Communications Stores and online at http://www.verizonwireless.com.

The DROID Charge is designed with Samsung’s 4.3-inch Super AMOLED™ Plus display, setting a new touchscreen standard for brightness, clarity and outdoor visibility.  The DROID Charge is equipped with both a rear-facing 8-megapixel camera with LED flash and front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera for both stills and video chatting.  The smartphone’s 1 GHz application processor and HTML 5 Web browser maximizes high-speed 4G LTE connectivity for faster downloads and graphics processing.

Additional features:

  • 4G LTE – Customers can expect download speeds of 5 to 12 Mbps and upload speeds of 2 to 5 Mbps in 4G Mobile Broadband coverage area
  • Android 2.2 platform – Support for Google Mobile Services including Gmailâ„¢, YouTubeâ„¢, Google Talk, Google Search, Google Maps and access to more than 150,000 apps available to download from Android Marketâ„¢
  • Adobe® Flash® Player compatible
  • Mobile Hotspot capability – Share 4G connection with up to 10 Wi-Fi-enabled devices or a 3G connection with up to 5 devices
  • Samsung Media Hub – Samsung’s own content service, offering a vast lineup of critically acclaimed films and TV programs for rent or purchase
  • Virtual QWERTY keyboard featuring Swype technology

Pricing and data plans:

  • The DROID Charge by Samsung will be available for $299.99 with a new two-year customer agreement.
  • DROID Charge customers will need to subscribe to a Verizon Wireless Nationwide Talk plan and a 4G LTE data package.  Nationwide Talk plans begin at $39.99 monthly access.  Unlimited 4G LTE data packages start at $29.99 monthly access.  Mobile Hotspot feature will be included for a limited time at no additional charge.

Find the DROID Charge

Beginning April 21, anyone over the age of 18 can participate in an exclusive DROID Charge Scavenger Hunt.  Follow the online clues to find hidden locations in 16 different U.S. cities to win a DROID Charge by Samsung.  For additional information about the DROID Charge Scavenger Hunt, visit: http://www.chargelanding.com.

For more information about the DROID Charge by Samsung, visit http://www.droiddoes.com/charge.  For additional information on Verizon Wireless products and services, visit a Verizon Wireless Communications Store, call 1-800-2 JOIN IN or go to http://www.verizonwireless.com.

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  • http://profiles.google.com/parabellum2000 j m

    Why the hell would anyone pay $300 for this?

  • Anonymous

    Hey Verizon, your CHARGING too much!

    • not kinster02

      Hey Kinster your spelling is terrible!

      “Your” should have been spelled you’re…because you are saying “you are.”

  • Droidman

    Won’t buy Samsung Android phone until they start releasing updates in a timely manner. Also, their Touchwiz GUI modifications suck. Do I even have to mention shipping some of their phones with BING search?

    It’s a shame because their hardware is nice.

    • Protege55

      BING has nothing to do with Samsung…it has to do with Microsoft cutting a check to Verizon. Get your facts straight before you start hating LOL!! Touchwiz runs lean and fast, that was their intent. I hear you on the updates, but take this phone outside in the sun and put it up against ANY phone on the planet, and then come talk.

  • http://profiles.google.com/fatboifunny Anthony Thomas

    Wonder how often im going to have to stay next to my charger for this phone. This is clean then a mutha hubba tho. the shape reminds me of my first blackberry.

  • http://twitter.com/hooneyhova Hooney Heoh

    it’s funny how you can give such a masculine hard ass name to a phone that’s running touchwiz.

  • Anonymous

    $300??? for Android 2.2 and no dual Dual-Core??? If Verizon wants to break the standard $200 pricing for top devices… it better be an absolutely sick device which (while good) the Charge is not. Add Android 2.3 and dual A9s and I’ll buy it.

    • Anonymous

      Oh and get rid of that silly pointed bottom too, and the wasted space with the Sammy logo, If the bottom bezel was only as big as the top bezel that would be much better.

      • Protege55

        Well if Samsung could only hire a design genius such as yourself, they would be the #1 selling manufacturer in the U.S. Wait…they are. Btw, the Charge is the thinnest and lightest of all Verizon LTE handsets launching this year, with the best display, widest color spectrum, and more subpixels than any display in the world. Don’t hate cuz you can’t afford one lol

  • Jetnoir

    how are they even allowed to call this droid? aren’t there patent issues

  • http://twitter.com/BrokersLie BrokersLie

    I don’t like putting it this way, but the iPhone is the main and obvious competitor to all Android devices. I don’t understand what Motorola and Samsung are thinking. You simply can’t not beat Apple in marketing, they’ve already built a strong fan base and a strong desire for their products amongst the average person. The only thing that beats wise marketing is lower pricing.

    Back in the 90s, Sony Walkman’s were so popular that people eventually stopped calling them tape players. You had a tape player, or you had a Walkman. Eventually people started calling other tape players Walkman. It wasn’t that it was cheaper than everyone else’s, but it was well marketed and well recognized.

    If you release a product that is meant to compete with a product that is well marketed, you need an attractive price point. Unfortunately, this is crazy. It’s not the extra 50 bucks that matters much. Let’s take CA for example, tax is close to 10%. The retail price of the phone is 700 bucks, that’s $70 in tax. Not only is this is 50 bucks more than the HTC TB, it’s tax is close to $20 more. The average person don’t know what 4G is, they’re just going to compare it to the iPhone (in this case they don’t care about the difference between 16 and 32gb). So the base iPhone is $199. Not only is the Charge $100, it’s another $20 more in taxes in a state like CA.

    People are dumb, they don’t understand technical terms. Then on the other hand, aside from the Super AMOLED screen, the Charge doesn’t have anything that stands out. It supports up to 10 devices, but so what? It features a single core 1ghz processor found in the Fascinate, which is not much different than the HTC TB’s Snapdragon and it has less rams. So spec wise it’s far from anything better to begin with.

    My guess is, this phone was created to fill the need to display something as CES. It’s not mass produced and not expecting major sales. According to reports the Galaxy S2 was supposed to be coming to Verizon in May. The pricing of this device is designed to I guess push buyers away? Who knows, if this thing cost $300 then how much are they going to charge for the Galaxy S2? $500?

    • Protege55

      Actually, Samsung ships WAY more phones than Apple does, so I think you need to do your homework. Lower pricing devalues these devices. Remember, Verizon subsidizes these phones in order to stay competitive. That is not the manufacturer’s responsibility. Why don’t you go tell BMW to lower their prices since that is the only way to compete. LOL!

      “People are dumb?” Sounds like you are dumb my friend. The Super AMOLED PLUS display has over 1 million subpixels, the thinnest touch sensor on the planet, lower reflectivity than the iphone, faster frame rates than the iphone, wider color spectrum than the iphone, more vivid colors and crushed blacks due to the LED technology and it is LTE. If you haven’t used LTE, please don’t even chime in. It is fast. Much faster than your iphone haha.

      Btw, Apple is one of Samsung’s biggest customers, do your research. Samsung actually makes their processors, screens, batteries, cameras, etc. Who else is doing that? Motorola? No. Apple? Definitely NOT. Apple is good at marketing, I’ll give them that. I use and love their products, but for you to try and make some uneducated statement like that on bgr…you’re asking for it. Pricing is set by both Verizon and Samsung. Consumers such as yourself are spoiled into thinking these are $200-$300 devices. They cost A LOT more than that to build. You want to talk about pricing? Let’s see what Apple is doing…

      Thanks for representing for all the “dumb people” out there!

      • http://twitter.com/BrokersLie BrokersLie

        They ship more but who sells more? Plain and simple, the average person that doesn’t follow a site like BGR, will not know the difference between the Charge and the iPhone aside from physical attributes they can see and feel.

        If you’ve read the entire post, you’ll see I did specify that the phones are much more expensive to build. Read again. The Charge cost $700 retail, that’s the MSRP set by Samsung. Verizon will only subsidize so much of the phone. I’m not blaming Verizon one bit, that’s an expensive phone that Verizon needs to subsidize. This is strictly Samsung believing their phone is worth much more than it should. Because they got screwed on production cost doesn’t mean consumers will acknowledge getting screwed either.

        The general public don’t understand what an A4 chip is, what Super AMOLED is, what LTE is. They understand the simple terms. Single-core, dual-core, 4G etc.

        You can go out and interview the people walking into the Verizon or AT&T stores, and ask them whether or not they know what the Droid Charge is. Or you can ask them whether they know what an iPhone is.
        Plain and simple, Apple has designed a marketing scheme that you can have a smartphone or an iPhone.

        I’ll say it again. This phone features nothing, outside of the Super AMOLED display, to deem it’s worth. $300 subsidized is a lot of money to ask for considering spec for spec it’s hardly any better than phones currently released. Especially with the hype on up coming dual core phones.

        Are consumers spoiled by highly subsidized price isn’t my argument. Neither is whether or not Apple purchases Samsung components. So no research needs to be done there as nothing out of that is there to support what I’m arguing for.
        It’s a matter of making a competing product at the right price. I’m not saying free is the answer, or next to nothing is a solution. However, spec for spec this phone has nothing compensate for the extra cost they’re asking.

  • http://profiles.google.com/otakujb Jonathan Baldwin

    I don’t get what is so special about this phone, everything is coming out dual core nowadays…and why is it $300???

    • http://profiles.google.com/otakujb Jonathan Baldwin

      its not even 2.3…sigh what a ripoff

  • Anonymous

    So this is what Verizon focuses on instead of giving us a WP7 device?

    You got 3 weeks, Big Red. 3 weeks to prove to me that you’re worth it. If not …

  • Anonymous

    I’d rather get the thunderbolt for cheaper if I were dumb enough to get a single core

  • Anonymous

    Three hundred bucks is a little steep for a phone IMO, even if it’s 4G and has the specs mentioned in the release.

  • Anonymous

    I’m not gonna lie. I clicked this article because I thought verizon was tacking on an extra charge to hook up this phone.

    What a horrible name for a device. Think of all the fun with headlines to be had.

  • Joe

    Will probably never get updated to 2.3 because vzw n samsung because they suck at providing updates

  • http://profiles.google.com/aplusdesigners Lee Baldwin

    Wish this would have been out back in December when I bought my Motorola Droid Global. I would have bought this instead. I was satisfied with the Droid when I first got it, but now its like it has a mind of its own. My wife has the white version and it has the same issues. Mine has a lot of apps on it, several email accounts, twitter, facebook, and wordpress client. Hers has almost nothing extra on it. I just dont know if Motorola can make a good phone or not.

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