This week the brand new T-mobile Samsung Galaxy S Blaze 4G goes on sale with T-Mobile’s own brand of 4G connectivity and a Qualcomm S3 dual-core processor under the hood. This device represents what was fantastic throughout 2011, what’s going right with the industry today, and a good look at what it means to pay slightly less cash for a device that by all means should be considered a hero device, but isn’t because there can only be one: the Galaxy S II. You can get this device in the store today – now lets have a heavy look at what it means to own it.
Hardware
This device is fantastic for your everyday average Android user. We’ve reached a point where a dual-core processor like this one has is normal yet the camera isn’t quite as powerful as its siblings. Samsung has done this because with a slightly less powerful camera, a few down-grades from the Samsung Galaxy S II, this device is able to be offered at a relatively low price. That said, you’ll see below that the camera does wonders regardless of its less than the best rating.
Next notice that this device looks quite a bit different from other Samsung devices on the back – actually looking more like a touchscreen BlackBerry than anything else. The back casing is a little bit slippery if you’re used to Samsung’s otherwise textured line of Galaxy S II devices which fit in the hand fantastically and slip-free. That’s the only downfall of this entire device’s physical build.
Software
The user interface you’re seeing here you should remember quite well from each of the different iterations of the Galaxy S II we’ve seen, especially the T-Mobile versions. This is the most recent version of TouchWiz from Samsung over Android 2.3 Gingerbread – a great vision for Android if I do say so myself, complete with many customizable features and nice additions by the big S. Have a peek at the device’s software (and a bit of the hardware) here:
The network speed here is 42Mbps HSPA+ via T-Mobile and it certainly appears to be doing better than ever. It’s certainly not the fastest and most complete network we’ve seen, even here in the Twin Cities in Minnesota, but it’s certainly pretty good. This example is a good average for what we’ve been seeing with the device thus far: