Samsung Stratosphere 4G Android Phone (Verizon Wireless) - Get the Best Deals of Cell Phones with and without Plans

Pros:
Fantastic Screen
Good camera
Good build quality
4G
Really nice keyboard
Android 2.3

Cons:
A bit on the chunky side
Battery life could be better
No 1080P video recording

Summary:
My wife and I recently ditched our OG Droids. She got a Droid Charge, and I got the Stratosphere.

As far as:
Speed, mine is as fast as hers.

Software, mine has the advantage of Android 2.3.

Screen, you can’t tell a difference in image quality, but her screen is a little bigger (although hers is almost too big to manage with one hand).

I’m really liking this phone so far. They keyboard is really nice (much nicer than on my Droid). Build quality is very good (although a little more plasticy than my Droid).

The camera actually is pretty good. You’re not going to get DSLR pictures out of it, but it’s very servicable.

The battery on the Stratosphere is bigger than on the Charge, but it doesn’t seem to last much longer. Still long enough to get through a work day with pretty heavy use (I stream podcasts and books to my bluetooth headset all day). I sure miss the pre-smartphone days of recharging twice a week though. I ordered the extended battery to stretch this out a little more.

I haven’t hit any performance snags yet, everything seems to be pretty buttery smooth.

I would highly recommend the Stratosphere to anyone wanting to upgrade to a new keyboard-packing smartphone.

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So, it’s not actually free as I needed to sign up for 2 more years of Verizon. But who cares, I needed to sign up with someone anyway…

I’ll just hit on a few pros/cons.

Pros
-MUSIC – I downloaded the Power Amp app and the resultant audio quality on this thing is amazing. I can safely pull the card out of my Sansa Fuze and drop it in the Stratosphere. I won’t miss the Fuze (which had unbelievably good sound) a bit. This is the main reason I went with this phone. I no longer need to carry both a phone and MP3 player to the gym – don’t cry Sansa; you served me well
-Video playback is excellent as well.
-The screen is beautiful.
-The phone/dialer GUI is beautiful as well – so good in fact that Apple is suing Samsung because the Samsung overlay (over the Android OS) looks a little ‘too’ good (a copy of Apple’s)
-4G – LTE, this is noticeably faster for downloads than my wife’s 3G Motorola Droid X 2.
Although the phone itself, running apps, etc. isn’t faster (or if it is, I can’t tell the difference)
- Android OS; highly customizable. Layout the screens exactly the way you want.
- Apps galore; seriously, what App (actual useful app that is) can you get for an iPhone that you can’t get for an Android now?
-Room for 36GB total (4 internal, 32 on micro SD) – getting a smartphone without a Micro SD card slot is like getting an SUV without a luggage rack.

Cons
-ergonomics. This phone is difficult to handle when trying slide out the hard-key keyboard. Also, the keys themselves are difficult to press. I don’t have large fingers, but I can’t press individual keys without using my thumb nails. It’s not a big deal – it will just take getting used to it.
However, once the keyboard is open, it has very good balance in your hands
- NO external notification LED when a message or voicemail has been left. This seems like a no-brainer add on.
- can’t tell what it’s doing when plugged in. It would be nice if it would at least show the battery status when in that semi-standby mode when charging

If you’re not concerned about the cons; consider this a 5 star phone

****UPDATE 12-1-11 ****
I downloaded the NoLED app and it now shows a small colored square on the screen (when off) to notify me of a new voice mail or email! (thank you Jan for the tip!) I therefore would give this phone 4 1/2 stars and the keyboard ergonomics are still a little questionable, although now after having it for a couple weeks, I can hunt-and-peck type pretty fast.

****Updated 12-6-11****
I bought the Empire hard case and it greatly improves the handling of the phone when opening the hard keyboard. This phone is about perfect for me now.

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This is my first smartphone, so my review comes from that point of view.

Overall, I like it.

This phone is big. I’m a smallish female, and this phone is bulky and almost downright awkward in my hands. I can’t put it in a pocket or my wristlet wallet. It will only fit in my big purse. I highly recommend a screen protector for these reasons. I can carry it around in my hand, but it’s so big it feels like an extra appendage and not just an extension of my arm like my old phone was.

The main reason I wanted this phone was for the slide out keyboard. I was a super fast texter on my old EnV Touch, and thought I would continue to be if I found a slide out keyboard. I was wrong. I don’t know if it’s the spacing of the keys, or my small hands, but I make many, many mistakes when I try to text fast, and have experienced some frustration because of this. This is the most disappointing thing about the phone, for me.

Also, regarding the keyboard; the sliding function feels a little flimsy when I slide it in and out. It honestly doesn’t feel like it would withstand careless “sliding” and I’m starting to doubt it will even survive the length of my new 2 yr contract.

This is actually my second Stratosphere. The first one arrived and took about 4 hours to activate; it couldn’t find a signal. Even after activation the signal was HORRIBLE and at times I even roamed, even though I was sitting in my living room. Spent a couple of hours on phone with Tech Support two different times and they finally sent me to a VZW store for hands-on support. They couldn’t fix it, either. Called Amazon and they overnight shipped me the new one without issue. When this current phone activated within a minute, I was extremely happy!

I’m surprised by how fast the battery drains. But apparently this is typical of all smartphones. I need to recharge about every 36 hours.

Some positives: it’s super fast, looks nice, great camera. There seem to be lots of apps and fun little things like that. But since this is my first smartphone, I’m still trying to figure it out. I do have lots of fun using the scanner when I’m price matching items when I’m out shopping!!

Overall, I would probably buy the phone again. I would just go in to the deal with lower expectations for the keyboard/texting. If VZW would offer a FLIP keyboard instead of a slider (and make the keys similar to the enV’s), I would probably be in phone heaven.

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