Not all that long ago, tapping into Verizon Wireless' rapidly expanding 4G LTE network meant choosing a huge, expensive smartphone with poor battery life. But oh, how things change in just a short time.
Billed as "a Galaxy S phone," the carrier's Samsung Stratosphere (aka SCH-I405) nicely fills a niche as the first 4G LTE-enabled smartphone for users who prefer an old-school slider QWERTY keyboard coupled with a 4.0-inch, 800x480 WVGA Super AMOLED touchscreen display.
Weighing in at 5.8 ounces and measuring 4.96 inches tall, 2.54 inches wide and a not-so chunky 0.55 inches thick, the Samsung Stratosphere offers a nice compromise for users who want a slightly larger display. However, it does so at the expense of being able to comfortably hold the device to your ear for any length of time while having a conversation.
The front of the Stratosphere features a thin earpiece slightly raised above the surface of the display, with a Verizon logo emblazoned below. A 1.3MP front-facing camera is embedded at right. At bottom are four capacitive buttons for Menu, Home, Back and Search, crowned by a Samsung logo.
Up top, the device features a lone 3.5mm headphone jack, with power/sleep button on the right side, placed just a bit too high for our thumb to comfortably press. The bottom features a lone micro-USB 2.0 port at center, while a volume rocker rests at the top left side.
The WVGA display on the Samsung Stratosphere is certainly bright and colorful, but there's no denying that this PenTile screen is old school by today's standards, especially with the proliferation of 720p HD devices. Given the potential midrange buyer for this device it's not much of a hardship, but the display was a tad on the soft side for our tastes.
Don't get your hopes up for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich: The Stratosphere comes with Android 2.3 Gingerbread (version 2.3.5 to be exact), and this particular handset is (sadly) not on Samsung's current list of devices to be upgraded.
Once you've made peace with that reality, users can find comfort in the loving arms of an unidentified flavor of TouchWiz, which very capably runs on the Stratosphere's 1GHz processor. We prefer Samsung's lighter touch when it comes to skinning Android compared to the likes of HTC's Sense.
A tap in the upper left corner of the home screen allows quick access to choosing a different home screen from four other pages, accessed by swiping left or right. All in all, a fairly fluid UI that's not overly cluttered with options.
Samsung phones get a good display with high definition, and therefore are good at play videos, but the video playing functions of there phones are not so power but just can play several video formats such as MP4, 3GP, so, if you get a Video Converter for Mac , or Video Editor for Mac you will be able to watch various videos on the smart phones.
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