Samsung Galaxy Indulge Review

Introduction:

Even though Verizon released its first 4G LTE smartphone last month, the HTC ThunderBolt, some of you may have missed the fact that the first ever 4G LTE Android smartphone in the U.S. was actually launched by MetroPCS about a month before that - the Samsung Galaxy Indulge. To be fair, Metro was also the first to out an LTE phone in the U.S., which, however, lacked a smart OS - the Samsung Craft, so this time, with the Galaxy Indulge, the customers of the carrier are really capable of taking advantage of those promised high speeds. But in a world where speed is indeed of utmost, does the Galaxy Indulge really deliver 4G speeds and show that it is worth the $299 price, or does it fall-short of other 4G phones on the market? Let’s take a look.

Included in the retail box is the Samsung Galaxy Indulge SCH-R910 smartphone, 1500mAh battery, 4GB microSD memory card with the Iron Man 2 movie installed, wall charger with detachable microUSB cable, and user guides.

Design:

The Samsung Galaxy Indulge is all-black in color, made out of shiny plastic, which feels very slick to the touch, but remains a magnet for fingerprints and dust. The Galaxy Indulge is about the same thickness as the Craft, at 0.60”, but is almost a half-inch taller.



You can compare the Samsung Galaxy Indulge with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

This extra height translates into a larger 3.5” display, up from 3.3”, but the quality has gone down from 480x800 resolution AMOLED on the Craft to only 320x480 resolution TFT on the Galaxy Indulge. So what does that mean? Simply that the display on the Galaxy Indulge is 0.20” larger, but the pixel resolution is less, which means text and images look more jagged, and that colors appear more washed-out looking since it is TFT and not AMOLED. Of course, we would have preferred that the Galaxy Indulge use the same higher-quality display that is on the Craft.


The physical buttons under the display have also changed, as there are now the standard four, used for accessing menu, home, back, and search. They are a nice size, but for some reason are not back-lit, which makes them impossible to view in the dark. Around the sides of the phone are the volume rocker, power/lock key, 3.5 mm headset jack, microUSB port, and camera shutter button. You have to remove the battery cover to access the microSD card slot.



The sliding QWERTY keyboard on the Galaxy Indulge is laid-out pretty much the same way as on the Craft. The keys are of a nice size, but there is very little space between them, and they are completely flat, which makes typing a bit challenging by touch alone. But they do provide some good feedback and noticeable “click” sound when pressed. The keyboard on the Galaxy Indulge is by no means the best that we’ve seen out there, nor is it the worst, but is easier to use than the smaller on-screen keyboard.

Interface and Features:

The Samsung Galaxy Indulge runs on Android 2.2.1 Froyo, and has as an updated version of Samsung’s TouchWiz interface, though it is not as advanced as other phones in the Galaxy S series, such as the Continuum and Fascinate. It allows for a total of 7 homescreens, and there is a basic selection of widgets that can be placed on them. The bottom of the screen has shortcuts for accessing the phone, contacts, messaging, and applications.


When going into the applications menu, you are shown all the apps in a familiar grid format, which you have to swipe left-and-right to access the other pages, or you can change them to a list view. There is also the option of manually moving the app icons around on the grid to change their location, as by default it shows the pre-installed apps first, then the ones that you have installed, instead of listing them all alphabetically.


Moving between the homescreens is pretty smooth, but there is some delay in opening apps. Though this is to be expected on a mid-level device that doesn’t come with the fastest processor out there.

Other parts of the software are pretty standard for an Android smartphone, such as syncing with your Google, Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace accounts, with all your contacts linked and shown in one place. E-Mail is also pretty straightforward, as you can add POP3 and IMAP accounts, as well as mail@metro, MS Exchange, Windows Live Hotmail, and Yahoo!


For those individuals with the affinity for instant messaging or social networking, you'll find all of your needs appeased with the “IM and Social” app, which is a centralized hub that aggregates a host of accounts, including Facebook, Twitter, AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, and Windows Live Messenger. Of course you can have your separate apps installed for each of those, if you so desire.


Additional software includes All Share, which is DLNA media streaming service, M Studio for downloading ringtones and videos direct from MetroPCS, Google Maps with Navigation, Write to Go, Google Talk, and Think Free Office for viewing Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Adobe PDF files.

Camera and Multimedia:

One area that hasn’t been improved upon since the Samsung Craft is the 3.2MP autofocus camera. Even though the software has a nice selection of scenes and shooting modes, the autofocus is slow and can take up to 5 seconds to focus on a subject, though saving the image is done in less than a second. Images that we took outside are mediocre at best, edges are soft and lacking fine detail, and color accuracy is poor, due to the auto white balance having issues. Indoor images aren’t great either, again having issues with the color and white balance. The device still lacks a flash, so don’t expect to use it much at night, even though there is a “night mode” which only slows down the shutter speed to allow more light in, but at the same time the image will be tend to be blurry.

Videos can also be recorded up to 720x480 resolution at 30 frames-per-second, up from 640x480 at 15fps on the Samsung Craft. When played back on a PC, the quality is OK, but not as good as high-end HD video phones. Again, nothing that is worth more than a YouTube upload.

Samsung Galaxy Indulge Sample Video:



We were able to playback a wide variety of our own video files, up to 1280x720, and formats that include MP4, H.264, DivX, and XviD. They all played smoothly, but colors were washed-out looking, and there was some noticeable pixelation. One nice extra is that the microSD card comes with a digital copy of the Iron Man 2 movie.


The music player is also pretty basic for Android, as it can display your songs, playlists, albums, artists, and genres. There is also a Disc View mode that shows a nice cover-art flow when the phone is in landscape mode. Playback quality through the rear mono speaker is average, but can sound a bit distorted if the volume is turned up to the highest setting. Thankfully, you have the option of using 3.5mm wired earbuds or a Bluetooth stereo headset.



Internet and Connectivity:

Going into the phone’s settings, shows that the Samsung Galaxy Indulge supports CDMA voice: 800/1900MHz 1700/2100MHz AWS, and LTE data: 1700/2100MHz AWS 1900MHz PCS. What this translates for your data connection is that it uses MetroPCS’ 1700/2100MHz network with a 5MHz spectrum for 4G LTE, or will default to their 1900MHz PCS network for 3G. By contrast, Verizon uses the 700MHz band for its 4G LTE, but uses a larger 20MHz spectrum.

As we discovered, not all 4G LTE is created equal. When using the web browser to load the PhoneArena.com web site on the Galaxy Indulge, it took almost 55 seconds to complete (including all Flash content and ads), compared to only 22 seconds when using the HTC ThunderBolt with Verizon’s 4G service (of course, we shouldn't forget the significant difference in processing power between the two devices). One thing about using the web browser on the Galaxy Indulge is that most web page text is pixelated and unreadable, due to the lower resolution display, so you have to zoom-in for text to be readable.


When using the Speedtest.net app, the Galaxy Indulge would only get between 1.0-1.4Mbps download and upload speeds on the MetroPCS 4G network, while the HTC Thunderbolt would get between 8-10Mbps download speeds on Verizon’s 4G network. The Motorola DROID X would get about 0.75-1.2Mbps download on Verizon’s 3G EVDO network.


We also tried downloading the Angry Birds Lite Beta app, which is 11.44MB, from the Android Market to see how long that would take on each device. On the Galaxy Indulge it was a snail’s pace at 2 minutes 5 seconds to fully download over 4G, while the HTC ThunderBolt was lighting fast at 18 seconds on Verizon’s 4G network. But the Motorola DROID X took the longest at 2 minutes 40 seconds on Verizon’s 3G EVDO network.

What all these numbers tell us is that even though the Samsung Galaxy Indulge is technically a “4G LTE” device, its speeds are much closer to 3G (or maybe 3.5G in our opinion) and do not even come close to the faster 4G LTE speeds of Verizon’s network using the HTC ThunderBolt.

Performance:

One area that we were quite pleased with was the call quality on the Samsung Galaxy Indulge. Voices on our end were natural sounding, with no background hiss, and sounded clear even when the volume was turned up to high…something that the HTC ThunderBolt seems to have a problem with. Reception was also good, as we didn’t drop any calls and maintained a solid 4G signal-lock around south FL.

The 1500mAh battery is rated to provide up to 3 hours of talk time or 12 days of stand by time on a full charge. During our testing we were able to get up to 7 hours of continuous talk time on a charge, but under normal mixed usage, which includes some talk, web use, email, and apps, we would have the charge the phone after about 8-10 hours of use.

Conclusion:

For people who are looking for unlimited voice & data mobile phone service without having to sign a contract, the Samsung Galaxy Indulge from MetroPCS is a nice solution. Its current price is $299 (after rebate), which makes it $100 more than the Samsung Craft. Between the two, the Galaxy Indulge does have better software, since it's running Android 2.2.1 Froyo, where the Craft is just using Samsung’s own feature phone software, though we do like the AMOLED display on the Craft more. The QWERTY keyboard is handy to use, and call quality is also pretty good. Just keep in mind that even though the Galaxy Indulge is a 4G LTE phone, download speeds are about 1.3Mbps, which isn’t as fast as what Verizon’s 4G offers. The rate plans that MetroPCS has available are $40/$50/$60 per month, depending on which features you want, but only the $60 plan comes with 4G Web unlimited data, 4G Video with MetroSTUDIO, and Unlimited YouTube.

Software version of the reviewed unit: Android 2.2.1, Kernel 2.6.32.9, Build SCH-R910.EA29

Samsung Galaxy Indulge Video Review: