Photo: Samsung
The Fascinate, available today from Verizon for $200 with a two-year contract after rebates, is the fourth smart phone from Samsung's Galaxy S line of phones. Like the other Galaxy S phones, the Fascinate has many good points, including a brilliant 4-inch Super AMOLED touch-screen display that's exceptionally good in bright light.
While it's an impressive phone, overall, I was disappointed to find that Verizon inexplicably meddled with a core Android phone feature, the Google search box, hurting performance in the process.
Here are my first impressions of the Fascinate.
Search box. Big surprise: The Fascinate's search box, the ubiquitous data field Android phone users rely on for universal searches, is powered by Microsoft's Bing instead of Google (the only other phone that came out of the box running something other than Google was the Motorola Backflip, on AT&T, which launched with Yahoo). Bing is fine for Web searches, but I found it less thorough for finding things on the phone, such as contacts and apps. What's more, Bing works with Bing Maps, which does not provide voice-activated, turn-by-turn directions to your search results. If you want that capability, the phone presents you with the option of using VZ Navigator, a service Verizon charges an extra $10 per month to use. Fortunately, there's a free workaround for the Navigation problem. You can just download Google Maps directly into your phone from the Android Market. But you can't change the Bing-powered search box. If you want to search via Google, you'll have to bookmark the Google home page and paste a shortcut to the desktop.
Navigation. Search-engine issues aside, the Fascinate's display is incredibly responsive and brimming with applications and widgets to tie you into the Web-based, e-mail, and social network accounts. There are lots of way to connect. A Feeds and Updates widget shows your Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter accounts on one screen, and allows you also to simultaneously update all three with a single post. You can also blast your thoughts to anyone (e-mail, text message, social network) via the Write & Go app. The Buddies Now widget presents all important contacts on a virtual Ferris wheel that you can "rotate" by swiping your finger up or down. And, as with Palm devices, you can see appointments from multiple sources (Exchange Server, Facebook, etc.) on one customizable calendar.
Notifications. Thanks to widgets, which you can easily add to any Android phone, it's easy to monitor the status of almost anything, from the weather to your favorite sports team. I liked the pre-installed Daily Briefing, which simultaneously presents the local weather, stock prices, and the AP newsfeed.
Window Shade update. Besides showing you all of your new e-mails, messages, or updated applications, which you can access with a touch, the Window Shade now allows you to view and change the phone's wireless connections, such Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS. Tapping the Airplane button lets you shut them down all at once.
Phoning. I leave it to our engineers to assess voice quality, but several people I called with the Fascinate complained they couldn't hear me very well, although I heard them just fine. The phone's big display allows for a large, well-spaced keypad that makes dialing numbers easy. One nice feature: As you type a number, the phone scours your contacts to make a match. If your party's unavailable and you don't want to leave a message on their cell phone's voice mail, just tap the Envelope icon on the bottom right corner of the keypad to send them a text message.
Keyboards. The Fascinate gives you a choice of two virtual keyboards for data entry. One is the Android keyboard, which has one of the best predictive-text implementations and the ability to perform voice searches and message dictation. There's also a Swype keyboard, which allows you to type words quickly and accurately without lifting your thumb off the screen. Both worked well on the Fascinate's large screen, though I found the Android keyboard's predictive text feature slightly more efficient for entering long words.
Camera. The 5-megapixel digital camera worked well, and like those on the other Galaxy S phones, has advanced controls such as tap-to-focus and a bevy of shooting modes to make the most of your efforts. This model includes a flash (not found on the Vibrant and Captivate Galaxy phones). The video camera, which has the ability to shoot in 720p at 30 frames per second (fps), provides plenty of options for sharing your pictures and videos: e-mail, text messages, Picasa, and the leading social networks. You can also beam your content to a computer or printer via Bluetooth or wirelessly stream it to any HDTV that supports the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) standard. (On Samsung products, this feature is called Allshare.)
Size and feel. The Fascinate measures about 5 in. x 2.5 in. x 0.4 in. and weighs about 4 oz. That's on the large side, though the rounded edges make the phone reasonably comfortable to hold.
Bottom line. With its large, brilliant display, sensible interface, and well-integrated applications, the Fascinate should please many Verizon customers contemplating an Android-powered phone. But Verizon's bizarre decision to replace the phone's native Google-powered search box with Microsoft's less-capable Bing has prevented a very good phone from being even better.
—Mike Gikas
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