Samsung Glyde Review - Usability & Performance

Usability & Performance

I tested Glyde on Verizon Wireless’ network in the San Francisco Bay Area and was impressed with its quality of sound during voice calls.  Signal strength was on par with other recent Verizon handsets I’ve tested, and calls sounded good with minimal hiss and static.  The built-in stereo speakers work well for hands-free calling, and also were handy for watching and listening to video clips.  Bluetooth worked well with mono and stereo headsets, and pairing was easy and reliable.

Glyde’s touchscreen was something of a mixed bag.  I had to change the display’s touch settings to the most sensitive option, and once I did things worked pretty well for the most part.  I was able to navigate menus, scroll through lists, and grab and drag my way around Web pages using a finger or thumb.  I liked the haptic (vibrational) feedback when I pressed the display, and scrolling was the smoothest I’ve seen on any handset this side of iPhone.

Problems arose, though, when I tried to press buttons along the edges of the display.  I had all kinds of trouble with these, and more often than not I either accidentally triggered the wrong selection or made no selection at all — even though I swear I was tapping the dead center of the button every time.  I also had a lot of difficulty clicking links and buttons when browsing the Web.  Zooming in on the link or button using the rocker switch helped some, and the zoom itself was always quick and smooth, but I still found myself drumming my thumb over and over on the screen trying to trigger links.  As cool as Glyde’s touchscreen was some of the time, it was just as frustrating at other times.

That said, Verizon and Samsung did a really nice job of merging VZW’s menus and icons with Samsung’s own Croix user interface.  Navigating through various features and options on Glyde was clean and easy, and I liked the customizable “My Shortcuts” menu as well as the home screen alert menu that provided status updates and one-click access to missed calls, new messages, and other on-time information.  The Croix system added a little panache to Glyde’s look and feel, and the pre-installed interactive wallpapers were fun, too (the Constellations one, in particular).

I also really appreciated the inclusion of auto-focus and a flash on Glyde’s 2MP camera.  The touch screen made it easy to tweak photo settings, switch to camcorder mode, and manage photos and videos stored either in the phone or on a memory card.  Photos taken on the phone came out well, and the flash made it possible to snap shots outdoors at night and in dark indoor environments — so long as the subject wasn’t more than a few feet away.

Glyde features a full HTML Web browser, and while text and images looked good on the phone’s 262,000 color screen, Web pages often took some time to render. Also, since the browser only works in widescreen mode, your screen is only 240 pixels tall during browsing which isn’t much when you’re looking at Web sites designed for high-res desktop monitors.  So while the inclusion of an HTML browser definitely opens up more of the Web to Glyde than you’d be able to see on the average handset, the phone is still better suited to quick information retrieval than heavy surfing.

Speaking of information retrieval, I really liked the new build of VZ Navigator that came on Glyde.  In addition to the mapping, navigation, and local search services VZ Navigator users are used to, this new version also includes one-click access to movie and event times.  The system uses GPS data to show movie times, concert listings, and other events in your area - handy for those, “I wonder what’s playing around here?” moments when you’re out on the town.

 

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