Samsung Droid Charge (Verizon Wireless)

The Samsung Droid Charge boasts a gorgeous display, blazing 4G speeds, and longer battery life than the Thunderbolt.

Verizon now has a second 4G LTE smartphone joining its ranks, the Samsung Droid Charge. This sweet Android handset delivers some of the fastest data speeds we've ever seen, has a beautiful 4.3-inch super AMOLED display, and a great camera. But is this $299 smartphone worth 50 bucks more than the Thunderbolt?

Design

Flat with softly tapered edges and a gently pointed bottom lip, the Samsung Droid Charge is one massive surf board of a smartphone. Black in the front and what Samsung calls Mirror Gray in back, its plastic design doesn't scream high-end. The smooth back surface is pleasantly iridescent, changing color in different angles, but it's slippery and attracts fingerprints easily.

That said, the Droid Charge is trim, measuring just half an inch thick, and it weighs just 5 ounces. The HTC Thunderbolt, Verizon's other 4G LTE device, is slightly thicker (0.56 inches) and heavier (6.2 ounces), but it uses sturdier, more premium materials. At 2.7 inches across, the Droid Charge is wider, making the device a little uncomfortable to hold one-handed. Considering its size, we wish the Droid Charge had a kickstand like the Thunderbolt does.

The Charge's power button is on the right side within easy thumb reach for right-handed users. Also on the right is a microHDMI port under a plastic flap. The opposite side holds a microUSB port and two volume keys, which small hands may find a stretch to operate. Above the 4.3-inch display is a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera. Four physical Android buttons with familiar icons for Back, Home, Menu, and Search sit below the screen. These buttons are backlit but are too dim for our tastes.

The phone's fat chin houses a speaker. On the back you'll also find an 8-MP camera with flash. Removing the back cover reveals a microSD card slot occupied by a sizeable 32GB card and a separate Verizon 4G LTE SIM card slot, both accessible without having to remove the battery.    

Display, Keyboard, and Audio

A huge part of the Samsung Droid Charge's appeal is its gorgeous Super AMOLED touchscreen. Measuring a vast 4.3 inches (800 x 480), it offers amazingly high contrast with deep blacks and vibrant colors. The HD trailer of The Green Lantern on YouTube looked spectacular. Another upside is this screen's virtually unlimited viewing angles, so sharing with a crowd isn't a problem. We preferred the Droid Charge's display to those on HTC's Thunderbolt (4.3-inch LCD, 800 x 480), the Evo 4G (4.3-inch LCD, 800 x 480), and the Droid Incredible 2 (4-inch Super LCD, 800 x 480). We had no trouble viewing the Droid Charge's display outdoors in bright sunshine, either.    

Instead of the stock Android keyboard, the Charge uses Samsung's keyboard. Its large square keys are easy to hit and provide a slight buzz of haptic feedback. In portrait mode, we also appreciated the long space bar. Long-pressing within any text field will give users the option of switching to Swype, a text-entry method that uses lines to connect letters and swiftly spell words.       

The large speaker at the phone's base played music that was loud enough to fill a medium-sized room. That said, bass was noticeably lacking when we played the booming dance track "Paper Romance" by Groove Armada.  

Software and Interface

It's a bit of a downer that a premium smartphone such as the Charge ships with Android version 2.2 Froyo instead of the latest flavor, Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Still, Samsung spruces up the older OS with its TouchWiz user interface. The lock screen displays the current time, date, pending notifications, and network status. To unlock, users simply drag a puzzle piece horizontally across the screen, fitting it in a virtual hole.

There are seven customizable home screens which users can populate with widgets and apps of their choosing. By default, the main home screen features a Sense-like weather clock by WeatherBug. Sorry, no full-screen weather animations here. Swiping left or right cycles through the screens. In addition, pinching any home screen brings up a view of all seven at once.

The fifth home screen is pre-loaded with micro widgets for weather, stocks, news, and calendar, providing bite-sized chunks of current info. A Feeds and Updates widget lets you know what your Twitter friends are up to, and lets you make quick status updates. A Buddies Now widget lets you add thumbnails of favorite contacts for fast calls and messaging. 

On the bottom of each home screen are four virtual buttons for Applications, Contacts, Messaging, and Phone. Swiping a finger from top to bottom from within any app or screen displays the notification shade. It highlights system-wide alerts and has buttons to toggle Bluetooth, GPS, mobile data, screen auto-rotation, and Wi-Fi.