You have to feel just a little sympathy for the Samsung SCH-i520. Showcased next to handsets with names like Thunderbolt and BIONC, this poor little guy is only identifiable by his model name — it’s simply referred to as the “Samsung 4G LTE Smartphone” in Verizon’s official press release. Aside from the name, the device does boast a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus display, 1GHz processor, 8 megapixel rear-facing camera, 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera, and Android 2.2… so you can’t feel too, too bad for the device. We were given a few minutes with the i520 — which is all we need to form an opinion — and are ready to give you the skinny. Hit the bounce below and let’s do this thing.
The real star of this handset is — obviously — the display. The 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus display has the standard 480 x 854 pixel resolution, but has 50% more sub-pixels reducing the visual noise perceived by the eye — this screen looks extremely crisp. The bottom of the device comes to a slight point (it isn’t completely rounded) and draws your eye towards the center of the phone. Despite the device’s dimensions it looks smaller than it is. We’re not sure if this is due to the slight point we just mentioned or the device’s thin waist, but it looks great. The back of the device is glossy, finger-print-magnetic black and is made of plastic (consistent with most Samsung offerings). The device has an HDMI-out port (which we love) and a set of physical Android keys on the front (another bonus). As you may have guessed by the device’s generic name — Samsung 4G LTE Smartphone — the i520 also includes an LTE chipset to take advantage of Verizon’s soon-to-be-expanding 4G network.
This set is still, however, nameless, and we would guess that it will be launching in the later-half of the first-half of 2011. Hopefully by release time, the device will be rocking Android 2.3.
