Samsung Captiva

Part of the Galaxy S series, the Captivate is by far AT&T's most powerful and feature-rich Android device, boasting a gorgeous Super AMOLED touch screen, a 1GHz Hummingbird processor, and some great multimedia features. Captivate delivers and is a great alternative to the IPhone 4.

Like many of today's touch-screen smartphones, the Samsung Captivate features a slate design that's not particularly sexy. In fact, it's rather lackluster, but the look is clean and simple. At 4.18 inches tall by 2.5 inches wide by 0.39 inch deep, the device is a bit of a handful, but Samsung managed to keep the handset pretty thin, so you can still slip it into a pants pocket. Plus, the Captivate has a much more solid build than the Vibrant, which comes at a price of a little extra weight (4.5 ounces vs. 4.16 ounces), but we much prefer that to a cheap-feeling mobile.

The front of the device rocks a 4-inch Super AMOLED capacitive touch screen, which supports 16 million colors and a WVGA resolution (480x800). It's one of the best-looking screens we've seen on a smartphone, showing off rich and vibrant colors and a sharpness that makes text easy to read. Aside from the brilliance and crispness of the display, there are a number of other advantages to Super AMOLED screens, including wider viewing angles and improved responsiveness. They also consume less power.

The Captivate's touch screen was responsive and fast. We were able to quickly swipe through the various home screens and menu pages, and the scrolling experience was smooth, as was the pinch-to-zoom gesture. The display also has a six-axis accelerometer, which comes in handy for gaming, and it was fast to change the screen orientation whenever we rotated the phone.

Below the screen, are four touch-sensitive Android shortcuts: menu, home, back, and search. On the left side, there's a volume rocker, and a power/lock button sits on the right. There's a 3.5mm headphone jack on top, as well as a Micro-USB port, which is protected by a sliding cover. As usual, the camera is found on back.