Samsung Captivate Glide Review

Some phones are clearly designed for texters. Others are clearly designed for the full smartphone experience, providing fast access to apps and online data. Very few smartphones are able to put together the full package to please everyone, but that’s the attempt behind the Samsung Captivate Glide. With specs that can only be described as high end and a full suite of features that many users love, this phone still has some tremendous values today.

What Stands Out About the Samsung Captivate Glide?

The primary feature that is noticed at first with this smartphone is its sliding feature. The phone slides upward to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard that doesn’t have to be accessed on the screen. This allows those dedicated texters to be able to tap out a fast message or email in no time at all. The keyboard itself is a little flat and feels a little flimsy in the hands, but once a user gets used to the feeling, the texts are going to fly out at a rapid pace.

Although this smartphone was released in 2011, it still has the tech specs to stand up to many of the smartphones that are being sold today. The 4 inch display is bright and the colors are clear and sharp. Users can access their Gmail account with just the push of a button and put their favorite apps right on the home screen. It’s all supported by a 1 GHz dual core processor that allows for some multitasking capabilities and a 480p resolution that looks sharp with the support for 16 million colors.

Then there’s the primary camera to consider. The Samsung Captivate Glide is equipped with an 8 MP camera that allows users to record video in 720p HD. It has all of the features one would expect with a high end camera phone, but the Gingerbread operating system from Android does hold it back a little bit. The TouchWiz UI that Samsung typically puts on their phones allows for fast app access, but navigation is a little problematic because of the sliding design. You can sometimes access different menus accidentally as you move your hands into position to make the phone slide.

Users Can Connect To a 4G Network With the Samsung Captivate Glide

Initially released by AT&T, the 4G capabilities of this phone aren’t quite to the LTE standards of today, but it does run on the HSPA+ 21 network, so it is better than 3G. The design of the phone, however, doesn’t necessarily stand up to its overall functionality. That’s because the rounded corners and straight sides is a pretty standard, unexciting design. There’s a plastic band and metal accents around the camera, just like virtually every phone produced since 2010.

The one difference is the plastic, molded grip that has been included on the back of the phone. The intent is to give users some extra grip as they are working to slide the phone open, but the end result is that it makes the Samsung Captivate Glide a bit slippery. If your hands are just a bit clammy or sweaty, the palm tends to slip off of the back as users slide the screen upward to access the keyboard. This isn’t a deal breaker by any means, but certainly something of which everyone needs to be aware.

Although the keyboard might feel a little thin and fragile when punching away at the keys, the spacing that has been incorporated into the design is perfect. There is a light backlighting to the keys as well and the overall square shape allows for fast fingertip typing without much difficulty. Because of the thinness of the keyboard, however, the buttons are almost flat against the surface and this can make it really easy to slide fingers over to the wrong keys.

How Great Are the Features of the Samsung Captivate Glide?

With a 1650 mAh lithium-ion battery, the Captivate Glide is going to give most users about 8 hours of talk time during the day. Data consumption, especially GPS updates, can dramatically reduce the overall life of the battery on a single charge, however, so heavy data users will want a portable charger or battery pack to take along with them. There’s 16 days of standby time on a single charge as well.

SMS and MMS are threaded and a standard experience with this Samsung Phone. It connects to Wi-Fi, has Wi-Fi direct, and has settings for a VPN or tethering. It can also provide hotspot support for 5 devices. It connects easily to all of the popular social networking apps, like Twitter and Facebook, and multiple email accounts are supported so they can either be combined or stay separated. Turn by turn voice directions through Google Maps are available and so are all of the other standard Google services that you’ll find on a smartphone today.

As for the call quality on this smartphone, it is about average. The incoming lines are reasonably clear, but people who receive a call from the Captivate Glide sometimes feel like the sounds are a bit muddy, garbled, and unclear. You can access any app with fast speeds and the navigation system is very responsive. All in all, it’s a pretty good experience, especially since download speeds on this older phone still reach 1.5 Mbps.

There aren’t many phones on the market today that offer faster than 3G speeds and offer a full QWERTY keyboard unless you’re willing to invest into a Blackberry mobile device. If you’re looking for the features of a camera phone, the speeds of a smartphone, and the functionality of a Blackberry so that you can check your emails, modify documents, and take care of other business needs, then the Samsung Captivate Glide gets the job done quickly and efficiently. The ratio of cost to features here is good and although there are more modern phones available, this offering from Samsung still stands up to the tests of time.

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