Samsung Galaxy S phones have been a rave around the world with Samsung reporting that it has sold over 10 million of these devices.? Verizon Wireless sent us the new Continuum and the innovation and design behind this phone is bold and completely new.? The new Continuum features a ticker screen at the bottom of the phone which could completely change the way phones are designed today.
Along with the new hardware comes some revamped software and restricting Samsung apps that could be one of the hurdles in making this phone the next big thing.? Here’s our take on it:
Design: The new Samsung Continuum was engineered with a fabulous design.? It’s slim, light weight and has a cool new element with the dual screens; 1 large 3.4 Super AMOLED screen and the 1.8″ ticker below, completely independent from the screen above.
The phone is just shy of 5 inches tall (4.9) with a width of 2.3 inches and only half an inch thick.? At only 4.4 ounces, not only is this phone easy to fit in a pocket, it does not have a lot of weight on it as well.? I felt perfectly comfortable having it in either the front or back pockets of my pants, but I still had the ability to feel it vibrate which is always important.
The phone design has a volume rocker on the side which the swappable microSD port build around the frame and a 3.5 audio jack as well as a top power on/off button.? It’s one of the best designed phones I have felt in terms of size, “but the real kicker is the ticker.”
The new feature on this phone I am very excited about is the ticker that is below the actual main phone screen.
Below the main screen is the set of 4 Android buttons that we have all come to know and love.? Look no further south and you will find another screen running a completely different and independent display below.? It is designed to accept swipe inputs back and forth to switch between weather, Samsung apps and some other Verizon things such as SMS and GPS.? Before I give off too much praise, I’d like to inform you that the ticker is VERY hard to interface to with new apps and Samsung really does not have an open API for developers to make things integrate with it.? I love it for its new design and ability to keep stuff off the home screen, but it needs to integrate with products like Gmail or other mail clients besides the ones provided by Samsung.
The phone has the traditional 1 GHz processor with a 5MP HD enabled camera and an industry entry level 2GB storage.? The only faults I have is the back panel which is a plastic black cover that attracts fingerprints like no other.
Battery Life: Surprisingly, I thought with the new ticker and the super display this thing would die quick but it had a good battery life for its design.? I do not think this is a phone that can really make it far if you plan on using it for all the features it has, but it put out some decent numbers for something as power packed as it is.
Software: The one thing I hate about any software loaded on a piece of technology, from computer to mobile phone, is bloatware or complete custom software that does not integrate with ANYTHING else but itself.
Samsung took the cake here with poor software that overwhelms the ticker if you’re following a bunch of people on twitter or have too many updates that are constantly coming all the time.? While the screen can be customized to display certain feeds or updates, I think it needs a little bit more work before it becomes a prime time deal maker.
Samsung coupled this phone with their traditional suite of apps which I think are a bit cheesy and chunky looking.? I prefer the original Google icons like regular Android phones instead of the very cartoon ones that come on with the phone.
Overall: I think the Continuum has to be the best phone out on the market from Samsung.? It has great texting abilities with a nice large keyboard (swype enabled) as well as a beautiful display which is just an attention grabber.? The ticker is a cool feature which I am banking on to have more support in the future as well as more integration with other apps.
If you’re looking for a new Android phone, check out the Continuum and play with the new ticker.? If you have Twitter and RSS subscriptions, this is the phone for you!
