In a hall filled with European handsets, Samsung had a treat in store for us North American visitors: the Galaxy S Blaze 4G for T-Mobile. The Blaze is a mid-level offering that’ll appeal to feature phone owners and current smartphone owners looking to save a buck. It won’t compete with the HTC One X, but it’ll hold its own in T-Mobile’s Android lineup.
The Galaxy S 4G sports a 1.5 GHZ dual-core processor which handles the Android 2.3 operating system without any hiccups. There’s also Samsung’s familiar TouchWiz UI, if you like that particular overlay. Also on board are a variety of pre-installed applications like Dropbox, Evernote and LinkedIn which may appeal to customers who want a phone that’s ready to go out the door.
The Blaze 4G has a nice feel in your hand. The back and sides are just grippy enough that the phone won’t slip out of your hand, but slick enough it’ll easily slide in and out of a holder. Buttons are easily accessible and there’s an external microSD slot which is great for users who switch out storage cards frequently. On the back is a 5-megapixel camera with 720P video and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing web camera. You can store all your media on the handset’s 16 GB of internal storage.
Any seasoned mobile owner will notice the display on the Blaze 4G as soon as they pick it up and that’s a not a good thing. The Blaze 4G has 4-inch Super AMOLED screen with a 480 x 800 resolution that leaves us wanting more. It’s the same as the Nexus S, but that’s just it. The Nexus S is almost a year old and shares the same quality display as the not-yet-released Blaze.
If you can overlook the display, the Blaze 4G is a decent handset. It won’t “wow” you, but it will be a solid performer from Samsung which has a good track record with its cell phones. The Blaze 4G will hit retail shelves in March with a $149.99 price tag after a $50 mail-in rebate and a two-year customer agreement.
