I am a owner of Reau-bot Productions, a small video production company located in Toronto, and have operated without a smart phone until today.
Using the Samsung Instinct (which does have some Web-surfing capability) for two years I was able to be productive operating my business. But when I used the Galaxy S Vibrant for the first time, my eyes were opened as to how much it could assist my productivity.
Do you have a new piece of hardware that you are using to help you run your business or do your job? Let us know and we’ll publish your review.
The Galaxy S Vibrant operates on the Android 2.1 platform, which I found to be a very reliable operating system.
Phone specs
- Available on the Bell Network with 3G connectivity
- Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capability
- Runs on the Android 2.1 OS
- 1 Ghz processor
- Resolution is 480 x 800 pixel with 16M colours
- 3.7” touch screen
- Has a 5MP camera with a 4x optical zoom and HD video capable
My primary use with my previous phone was for business purposes. I used it for e-mail, scheduling and phone calls. I was able to get by but I found it to be very slow and the Instinct’s navigation was not laid out the best.
Android 2.1 is very customizable and very easy to navigate. The mail application is able to sync with my Outlook and Gmail contacts, which made the transition over very easy. The calendar and scheduling application helped with my productivity because it linked to the mail application, similar to the interface of Outlook.
My Instinct’s response time was so slow when using the e-mail application that I would often give up trying to send a message and just call a client. With the mail application on the Galaxy S Vibrant I was using the mail feature more because of the quick and easy layout of the application and the user interface of the keyboard.
The general interface of the phone itself was very easy to navigate with a keypad very similar to the iPhone. One experience that I liked about using this Android phone was the number of free applications available. One in particular was DataViz’s Documents To Go, which works seamlessly with Office and Google Docs. The free version allowed me to view Microsoft Word and Excel documents, and a paid-for premium version includes editing capability.
I have never really used a phone for entertainment before but I found that the number of Android applications for this purpose to be endless. I was able to try out a few games and other apps. One that I enjoyed was Google Skymap, which is able to render a 3D map of the sky through GPS positioning and digital compass. Some other notable apps were the dictionary and Wikipedia applications.
The Galaxy S Vibrant has a spectacular built-in camera that takes 5MP pictures and takes very nice HD quality video.
The main problem I had with the Galaxy S Vibrant is that the design of the body and layout of the Android platform on this phone is much too similar to the iPhone, which leaves it feeling like an imitation, rather than being a step up. The one thing that puts this phone above others is the amazing display quality. I did find that the Android operating system is very customizable so you have many options as to customize the layout if you are unsatisfied.
Overall I would recommend this phone as it exceeded my expectations and gave me a great introduction into the Android operating system.
This experience with the Galaxy S Vibrant increased my overall productivity and has made me seriously consider acquiring a smartphone for my business productivity.
Editor’s note: Danny Boudreau recently upgraded from the Samsung Instinct to an iPhone 4.
Do you have a new piece of hardware that you are using to help you run your business or do your job? Let us know and we’ll publish your review.
