Samsung’s fastest-selling smartphone ever has finally landed in the United States. The GALAXY S II will be sold by Sprint, T-Mobile and AT&T, and Verizon is expected to offer a similar phone in the near future. Sprint’s model came to the market first under the Epic 4G Touch moniker and I have been using it nearly non-stop for the past week. The “Samsung GALAXY S II, Epic 4G Touch” has stiff competition among the ranks of Sprint’s 4G phones. Can it keep up? Read on for my full review during which, for the sake of brevity, I’ll refer to the device as simply as the Epic 4G Touch.
RIM didn’t envision creating a touch device. Yet here we are in 2011 with the company abandoning it’s prior failed attempts at making a touch-only smartphone, and instead copying the competition instead of innovating. The BlackBerry Torch 9850 is a no-frills touch phone. There’s no SurePress display, thankfully — just a regular capacitive screen. The device features a 1.2GHz CPU, a 5-megapixel camera, 4GB of built-in storage, and more. Does it stand a chance at competing with the iPhone and Android devices, though? Read on for my review.
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The Motorola DROID BIONIC for Verizon Wireless combines everything you might want in a phone into a single, lust-worthy package. From 4G LTE, to a supersized 4.3-inch display and 1080p HD video capture, this phone has it all. Verizon Wireless has launched several 4G phones now, but they have all arguably been lacking due to their shortcomings in either size (thickness), weight or battery life. Is the Motorola DROID BIONIC the first phone to bring 4G to the next level on Verizon? Check out the full review after the break to find out for yourself.
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RIM’s BlackBerry Torch 9850 is the company’s third smartphone to launch with a full touchscreen form factor, following the original Storm and the Storm 2, and it’s the first to launch on Sprint. The 9850 packs brand new hardware and the new BlackBerry 7 operating system into a thin industrial design, but is it enough of an improvement over the earlier Storm devices to warrant your upgrade? Can it compete with other touchscreen smartphones? I’ve been using the Torch 9850 for the past week and my full review of the smartphone follows below.
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The Thrill 4G is the second Android smartphone in the United States capable of recording and displaying 3D video and photos without the need for special glasses. We first saw the phone during CTIA earlier this year and, after delays, it will launch soon on AT&T for $99.99. I spent the better part of the last three weeks carrying the LG Thrill 4G everywhere I went. Are the 3D effects useful and fun or are they just a lame gimmick? Does the “4G” in its name equate to faster data speeds or does it surf on a par with 3G phones? All of this and more is answered in my review, so hit the read link to get started.
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Another BlackBerry out of RIM? We might as well consider them done and finished. Or should we? With a brand new take on BlackBerry hardware and an improved and enhanced operating system in BlackBerry 7, RIM hasn’t been sitting still. I have been using a BlackBerry 9900 for over a week, and as a reformed BlackBerry addict, I have some thoughts on this latest flagship smartphone out of Waterloo. Is this the device that’s going to save RIM? Is this the phone that’s going to make iPhone and Android users switch to a BlackBerry? Can RIM finally compete in the smartphone arena? Will it take RIM 9 months to make a BlackBerry 9900 in white? Is Will.i.am going to haunt me for eternity? Hit the break to find out. (And I sure as heck hope not on those last two.)
The Motorola PHOTON 4G is the company’s first 4G handset on Sprint, and even more, it is the first high-end Motorola device set to launch on Sprint’s network in a very long time. It’s packed to the brim on paper — specifically, with features such as a 1GHz dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor, 1GB of RAM, a 4.3-inch qHD display, an 8-megapixel camera with dual-LED flash and a VGA front-facing camera, 16GB of built-in storage, plus global-roaming and 4G WiMAX connectivity. In short, it’s probably the most feature-packed phone to ever launch from Sprint. I have been using the Motorola PHOTON 4G for a few days now and the question I really wanted to answer was: is this Sprint’s best smartphone? Hit the break to find out.
Motorola has been on a roll. With the introduction of the original DROID handset, a phone that we exclusively showed the world, Motorola has been set on a path of success with Android. The first Motorola DROID was innovative and brought forth a brand new version of Android, Android 2.0. The device featured a high resolution display with full QWERTY slide-out keyboard, and ran on Verizon Wireless’ solid voice and data network. Motorola and Verizon followed it up with an evolutionary upgrade in the DROID 2, but the Motorola DROID 3 is supposed to be the next big step in both hardware and software. I have been using a Motorola DROID 3 for over a week now, and my full review is after the break.
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It has been exactly 140 days since Hewlett-Packard first unveiled the TouchPad, and I think of it as the first device to emerge from a post-acquisition Palm team that has really been tested over the past few years. To be fair, it will actually be the third webOS device to launch since HP took over Palm, but the the Pre 2 was a leftover from before the deal went through and the Veer never should have been been released. But yes, the Palm team has been through a lot: from botched acquisition talks, to the brink of collapse, to resurrection through Elevation Partners’ investments, to a brilliant new web-based mobile operating system, to the announcement of the phone that would save the business from the brink of collapse, to BGR exclusively reviewing the phone that would save the business from the brink of collapse before any other site on the planet, to the launch of the phone that would save the business from the brink of collapse, to the failure of the phone that would save its business from the brink of collapse, and finally, to HP. Can a company that once lead the industry come back to regain mind share, market share and profit share following a roller coaster ride like that? Hit the break to find out if the TouchPad pushes the company’s mobile business in the right direction or if it is another dud from a company that could be dominating the market.
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Barnes & Noble took the wraps off of its latest eReader, the “All-New NOOK,” just last month. Its grayscale screen strays from the NOOK Color, and while the device still runs Android, it looks and feels much more like a traditional eReader. However, the new NOOK has a brand new E Ink Pearl display that not only works as a touchscreen, but refreshes less often than other eReaders and transitions faster. I’ve been using the new NOOK for the past week extensively, staying up late at night reading and pulling the NOOK out on the subway for quick page turns between stops. At $139, the NOOK is competitively priced with the Wi-Fi Kindle, but is it good enough to be your next (or first) eReader? My full review is after the break.
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Sprint took the wraps off of its EVO View 4G tablet during CTIA 2011 in March — the device is nearly identical to the HTC Flyer, save for its support for Sprint’s 4G WiMAX network. As an Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) tablet, the View 4G is a bit less versatile than Honeycomb products from Asus, LG, Motorola, and Samsung, but it does offer HTC’s custom Sense user interface catered to tablets, and support for HTC Scribe stylus input. I thought the Flyer was lacking in a few areas when I reviewed it, but has time with Sprint’s 4G version changed my mind? Read on to find out!
Editor’s note: We’re running this review ahead of schedule thanks to a broken embargo (WSJ). Photos and gallery will be up shortly! ^ze
The HTC EVO 4G is definitely one of Sprint’s most popular smartphones. In fact, even almost a year after its release, it’s still selling like hotcakes. Sprint faced serious demand issues with the EVO 4G well after the launch, and the nation’s first 4G smartphone is still one of the best. Let’s talk about the HTC EVO 3D, though. The follow up to the original HTC EVO 4G is packed to the brim with features, and will be the first 3D-capable device on the market when it launches. Is the HTC EVO 3D a better phone than the original EVO 4G? Does the addition of a 3D display add real value to the phone or is it just a headache-inducing novelty, as it is on other portable devices? Hit the break to find out.
