Samsung Fascinate Review: Verizon's Galaxy S Smartphone
by Brian Klug on October 5, 2010 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Samsung
- Galaxy S
- Fascinate
- Mobile
Camera
The Fascinate packs a 5 megapixel camera with one LED flash. There's no front facing camera like the Epic 4G, however. Camera launch is relatively speedy, at 2.8 seconds from tapping the application icon to getting a live preview. Successive captures are moderately fast, at around 2 seconds between capture and another preview.
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Camera mode (left), Camcorder mode (right)
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Just like the Epic (and probably the other Galaxy S phones) the camera UI has a simple mode where everything goes away but very basic information and the control buttons. Like Anand said, the camera application repurposes buttons. Power becomes a lock button that stops input, volume controls digital zoom.
Tapping on the left brings up a small drawer with more settings - shooting modes, flash, exposure, and more settings. There's an outdoor visibility button in settings which increases brightness and contrast for composure outside, among all the usual resolution and quality options. Samsung has done a nice job providing lots of control if you want, or abstracting it away if you're inclined.
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Camera resolutions (left), Shooting mode (right)
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For a full tour of those settings, check out the gallery below:
Tap to focus is implemented on the Fascinate, including LED illuminated focus when it's dark. There's a confirmation sound when focus is reached as well.
The only nitpick I have about the Fascinate's camera UI is that the icons don't rotate when you switch into portrait mode from landscape. As a result, I was misled many times that images would be recorded rotated 90 degrees. There's rotation support in the captured image's EXIF header for sure, it just doesn't give any feedback in the camera application that acknowledges rotation.
The images captured on the Fascinate are impressive. There's very little distortion or edge falloff, and saturation is about right. There also isn't very much chromatic noise.
The photos taken in the lightbox with the lights on are a bit pink, however detail and dynamic range are quite good. The single LED flash on the Fascinate is actually surprisingly powerful - the photo taken with the lights off is overexposed, which is unfortunate. Apparently the Fascinate doesn't have extremely good short distance metering. This is one case where I wish my lightbox setup was a bit different, since the tradeoff is that photos taken at normal distances are very nicely illuminated. Even better, the camera application focuses with the LED on when you're in the dark, so you have good odds of actually getting focus - something the default Android camera app still doesn't do.
As usual, I've taken photos with the Fascinate in my usual bench locations, and in the lightbox. I've updated things a bit as well with new shots from the Nexus One. A number of readers pointed out that my Nexus One seems to have below average camera performance. I'm inclined to agree that performance seemed below average, and tried numerous times to improve it. I finally got HTC to replace my Nexus One, and reshot everything again, including the video tests. I'd say that the camera performance is largely unchanged between my replacement Nexus One and the old one - the Nexus One camera just isn't as impressive as other 5 MP cameras.
Video on the Fascinate is 720P in H.264 with AAC audio. I measured an average bitrate of 11.89 megabits/s in our bench video at the usual location. Quality is decent but it seems like there's a bit of edge blur and loss of high spatial frequency possibly due to noise reduction. Luckily, you can shoot video with the Fascinate's bright LED flash enabled in the dark. As per usual, compare for yourself with the videos below:
Samsung Fascinate
Motorola Droid 2
BlackBerry Torch 9800
Motorola Droid X
HTC EVO 4G
Nexus One (redux)
iPhone 4
HTC Droid Incredible
Motorola Droid
Nokia N900
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73 Comments
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Ethaniel - Tuesday, October 5, 2010 - link
Good thing you directly recommend rooting and flashing the device. That Verizon-pseudo Google-Bing combo is kinda creepy... and bloated.medi01 - Tuesday, October 5, 2010 - link
"Outside readability in practice is improved from the Nexus One. "Dare I ask whether it is improved from, God forbid, iPhone 4? :rolleyes:
deputc26 - Tuesday, October 5, 2010 - link
In the performance page,Loading Engadget Times
EVO Should be 2.2 not 2.1.
Brian Klug - Tuesday, October 5, 2010 - link
I haven't included numbers from the EVO running 2.2 yet, although I've got them and will do so, those are current for 2.1 (as marked) ;)-Brian
Shlong - Tuesday, October 5, 2010 - link
it seems the Epic with Sprint is the best out of the Galaxy S line.alovell83 - Tuesday, October 5, 2010 - link
The Korean Galaxy S would beg to differ. FF cam + DMB. Yes, you do lose out on 4G, but you save hundreds on the life of the contract and it isn't as much up front either. Out of those available to the U.S. it's the $10 4G tax, without necessarily receiving a 4G signal which is the bummer, but you still get the best kit subsidized state-side. Living in a 4G city, the Epic is a no-brainer. Outside, we are talking about $300 more, assuming you don't get an amazon $.01 deal which would bump the contract life of the Epic to more than $400 more than the others...just for a FF camera and (cross you fingers, hopefully) to one day get a 4G signal in your city is just asking for too much.silverblue - Tuesday, October 5, 2010 - link
I have the UK version of the Galaxy S, and it's quite odd how many variants are out there. Differences on the UK version:1) no LED flash
2) sports an FF cam
3) the micro-SD slot is on the left inside the back, with the SIM card to the right and the built-in micro-SD above that
4) the buttons are confined to Menu on the left, Back on the right, and a physical Home key in the middle
5) the headphone socket has a black plastic surround instead of chrome effect (strangely, the review states 18mm - shouldn't that be 35mm?)
6) there's a "with Google™" logo on the back along with the SAMSUNG logo but no mention of Galaxy S; there's no mention of the carrier.
7) the phone weighs less at 118g
8) The default wallpaper isn't a Live one
deputc26 - Tuesday, October 5, 2010 - link
Interesting and yes that should be 35mmBrian Klug - Tuesday, October 5, 2010 - link
Yeah, I meant 3.5mm, 1/8 inches. Fixed ;)-Brian
chemist1 - Tuesday, October 5, 2010 - link
The single most important function of a phone is to, well, be a phone, i.e., do voice communication. And one of the characteristics most important to voice communication is the audio quality---both sending and receiving (via the earpiece or a headset; the percent of time spent listening via speakerphone is, for most, is less than for the earpiece or a headset). Yet, in a very long and otherwise thorough review, I could find only one sentence that addressed earpiece audio quality:"Earpiece performance and volume is adequate - voice quality is as good on the Fascinate as I've seen on other CDMA handsets in the testing I performed."
And I could find no mention of audio quality from the headset jack, nor any mention of audio quality for someone on the receiving end of a call from this phone.
It's sort of like reading a detailed review of a new camera, in which lots of attention is given to metering, focus, etc. (all parameters that affect image quality), but with only a single sentence on how good the images are after metering, focus, etc. is dialed in. Likewise, you have several paragraphs on issues that affect audio quality -- e.g., the dependence of signal attenuation on how the phone is held-- but again, only one sentence on how good the phone actually sounds (and nothing on how good I sound to someone I'm calling) after these secondary effects are taken care of. I.e., suppose I'm receiving a call under ideal conditions (say, it's from a land line, there's a strong signal, I am holding the phone optimally, etc.). In that case, do you mean to tell me that someone with a trained ear would hear no difference in audio quality when listening through the earpieces of different CDMA handsets? While this may be true, I certainly would not be convinced of that based on reading just your one sentence, since it does not give the impression that a serious attempt to assess audio quality has been made.
As you can likely tell, I'd like to strongly suggest that, in future reviews, the comparative audio quality of these phones is addressed in a more serious and discriminating manner, by someone with extensive audio expertise and a highly trained ear. The reason your site is so well-respected is because it brings an unusual level of sophistication to computer hardware reviews. I’d like to see that same sophistication applied to audio performance, when you are reviewing devices where audio performance should be central (phones and portable music players).
I've been following this site for many years, and I think you folks are the best --- you do a fantastic job. But your expertise is computers, it's not audio. And often, when you venture into audio, I don't see it approached it with the level of sophistication with which you approach computer hardware. You can see your site's extraordinary sophistication with computer hardware with, for instance, Anand's perspicacious reviews of SSDs, in which he identified 4K random read and write speeds (as opposed to sequential large-block performance) as being the key to real-world performance. Yet, by contrast, when Anand was reviewing the audio perfomance of the iPod Nano, he just cookbooked the standard set of Rightmark Audio Analyzer measurements (http://www.anandtech.com/show/3903/apples-ipod-tou... he didn't demonstrate the audio expertise to first listen, and then make an informed decision of which measurements needed to be done. If he had, he might have realized that problems lie in areas that would only be revealed by a different set of measurements. Anand then went on to say "I believe we've hit a ceiling for PMP audio playback quality." Well, no, it could still be improved quite a bit. It is informative to contrast how Anand approached audio with, for instance, Marc Heijligers' astute analysis of iPod audio performance, at: http://homepage.mac.com/marc.heijligers/audio/ipod...
[I did mention this in the comments for Anand’s review, but it was towards the end of the thread, so they may not have been noticed.]
I suspect that, if you want the audio component of your reviews to be up to the high level of sophistication you show for computer hardware, you're going to need to bring in someone with years of audio expertise and a highly trained ear.
Thanks for listening to this very long comment!