Samsung Galaxy Indulge Review

Samsung Galaxy Indulge Review - Phone Collection. 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.

This extra height translates into a larger 3.5” display, up from 3.3”, but the quality has gone down from 480×800 resolution AMOLED on the Craft to only 320×480 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.