Samsung Glyde Cell Phone Review - Multimedia
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Alfredo Padilla Published on May 28, 2008 Comment on this |
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The music software on the Samsung Glyde is the standard Verizon fare, but it takes forever to launch. The video software is faster to launch, but lacks features for organizing your videos.
Accessing Music Software (1.77)
It took us an average of 11.3 seconds to get a song playing on the Samsung Glyde. This is a terrible time. You can see below that it's more than twice as long as the average phone and only LG Voyager amongst our comparison phones comes anywhere near it. A combination of an unresponsive touch screen interface and a very long time to load the music software were the causes for this time.
it took forever to get a song playing
To get a song playing we just hit the shortcut menu from the home screen, tapped on My Music then Songs and then the first song on the resulting list. Verizon's V Cast music software has been slow to load on most Verizon devices we've reviewed but when combined with the slow to respond touch screen it turns into a interminably long time to get a song playing. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.
Dedicated Music Controls (1.0)
There is no way to play music in the background on the Samsung Glyde, you have to stay in the music software. In this siutuation we don't award points for controls in the music software as this score is meant to look at music controls outside of the music software. In the case of the Glyde the only controls apart from the music software are the volume keys. One thing to note is that the volume keys work in the opposite direction than in any other interface. As the music software is arranged horizontally the left (or up) button lowers the volume while the right (or down) button raises it. This might be confusing to some users.
Music Software Functionality and Organization (5.8)
Verizon's music software does a reasonable job but does have some annoying quirks. Playlists are supported, however you need to synchronize them from Verizon's desktop music software, you can't use standard m3u or pls playlist files. Tags are supported for Mp3, AAC and WMA music files. You can view music by genre, album, artist or title and search functionality is also in place.
music cannot be played in the background
One big annoyance is that background play is not supported, if you navigate away from the music software your music will stop playing. In fact even within the software if you navigate away from the now playing screen the music will stop, this is just not acceptable in a modern device. Ratings and visualizations are not supported. Any songs you place in the my_music folder on the memory card are automatically added to your library. Album art is a mixed bag. If the art is embedded in the file it will be recognized, but it won't recognize album art that is in the same folder as the music files.
The layout of the music software is slightly better than on other V Cast devices we've seen. In particular there's not a big gap between the main functions at the bottom of the screen and additional functions in a grey bar at the top. Above you can see the difference in layout between the Glyde and the LG enV2. Although sufficient for basic music playback we've seen much better music software on other devices like the iPhone.
Online Song Downloading (7.0)
You can download songs directly to the Samsung Glyde from Verizon's V Cast music store. Songs are not very competively priced at $1.99 each. The store is accessible from within the music software.
the V Cast music store is a littlle on the pricey side
Streaming (0.0)
Streaming audio in Mp3, Windows Media or Real format is not supported. There are some streaming audio options from Verizon but you'll have to pay for these.
Podcast Support (0.0)
There is no support for downloading or organizing your podcasts on the Samsung Glyde.
Music Sync with PC (7.0)
You can easily synchronize music with your computer using the included data cable and Verizon's V Cast Music Manager. Unfortunately the software is not included in the package so you'll need to download it from Verizon, you can get it here. We don't award points when software is not included with the device, however if you're using a Windows XP computer you can also use the built in Windows Media Player to synchronize software, but this will not support DRM protected music from the V Cast music store. If you're using a Windows Vista machine you Verizon claims you have to use their software, but we did not find this to be the case. Still, we'll bow to their expertise and ss such we are awarding half points in this area.
Update: it turns out the Glyde does ship with Verizon's V Cast Music Manager software, as such we have upgraded the score to reflect this. The original score was 3.5.
Music Formats and DRM (3.5)
The Samsung Glyde supports Mp3, AAC and WMA music files. It support's Verizon's proprietary DRM.
Music Interruption (10.0)
If you're listening to a song when a call comes in the Samsung Glyde does a decent job of pausing the music and switching you to the call interface. When the call ends there is a slight delay before the song starts back up again, but the music does start up from the exact spot it was stopped.
Video Software Access (3.03)
It took us 6.6 seconds to get a video playing on the Samsung Glyde. This is just about average, although you'll note that most of our comparison phones performed better in this test than the Glyde. Once again the culprit was the rather slow touch screen interface combined with the fact that to get a video playing you have to go into the Get It Now menu, then Picture & Video then My Videos. Still, this is much better performance than the music software. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.
Video Controls (5.0)
Video controls on the Samsung Glyde are fairly limited and somewhat strangely laid out. Video is played in full screen by default, with standard 4:3 video taken up the middle 60% of the screen. To the left of the video is the play/pause button with the rewind/previous button beneath it. To the right of the video is the options button with a fast forward/next button beneat it and beneath that a back button that takes you back to all your videos. The strangest part is that a progress bar appears right in the middle of the screen, covering the video itself. You can't change its position and there's no way to turn it off. Instead all of the controls fade out after about three seconds. You can make them reappear by tapping anywhere on the screen. This is an annoynace that we thought was worthy of a one point deduction from the Glyde's score here.
video playback controls obscure the video
Video Software & Organization (1.5)
The video software on the Samsung Glyde is basically the album software that is used to play back videos you capture on the device. It's very similar to the video software we've seen on other Verizon phones with slight tweaks due to the touch screen interface. When you launch the software you see a 3 x 5 grid of thumbnails of all the videos on the device. Videos are sorted by title and there's no way to sort them differently or organize them into folders. At the bottom of the screen are two buttons, the standard Back button we see throughout the Glyde's interface and an Options button. The options button allows you to record a new video, go find V Cast videos to purchase or Mange your videos. That last lets you select multiple videos to move or delete them. The software is very basic and is not meant to help you organize a lot of premium content like TV Shows or movies.
Video Sync with PC (0.0)
Short of moving videos manually onto a memory card there's no way to get videos off your computer onto the Samsung Glyde. Windows Media Player did not allow us to move videos over when we tested this.
Video Formats (5.0)
The Samsung Glyde was able to play back all three of our test 3GP files and was also able to handle Mpeg-4 and H264 encoded videos. It did not support Flash, Quicktime or Real video.
Video DRM (0.0)
The Samsung Glyde does not support any form of video DRM.
Video Playback Smoothness (10.0)
The Glyde was able to play back all five of our test video files that range from 48 kbps to 768 kbps. This means you can watch reasonably high quality video on the device.
Online Video Downloading (0.0)
The Samsung Glyde does not support direct download of videos to your device.
Video Streaming unscored
We were unable to stream online videos to the Samsung Glyde from any of the sites we typically test including Youtube Mobile or Windowsmedia.com. Verizon provides a variety of streaming video options, but you'll have to pay for these. The Glyde also supports Verizon's mobile TV service, but coverage is limited right now. See the Other Features section for more information on that. We don't score streaming video because standards have not yet been established.
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