Samsung Glyde Cell Phone Review - Software
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Alfredo Padilla Published on May 28, 2008 Comment on this |
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Running a proprietary operating system with Verizon's standard BREW interface the Samsung Glyde will be familiar to anyone who has used a Verizon device in the past. We acknowledge a valient effort to produce a better web browsing experience, however the implementation leaves something to be desired.
OS (4.0)
The Samsung Glyde runs a proprietary operating system from Samsung with Verizon's standard BREW interface overlaid. There are a few tweaks that make it different from other Verizon devices simply because of the touch screen interface, for example the shortcut menu that you can access from the home screen, but for the most part those who are familiar with Verizon devices will feel at home on the Glyde. Those who haven't used Verizon devices before may find some things a little strange, for example the Get It Now menu is where all of your multimedia lives and to access your calendar you'll need to go into the Settings menu. Our score for proprietary operating systems is capped at five points, we reserve higher point totals for more advanced smart phone operating systems like Windows Mobile or Symbian.
what is the Get It Now menu?
Home Screen Score (7.0)
The Samsung Glyde's home screen is unique to the device, mostly due to the touch screen interface. Along the top you will see the standard indicators that most phones have for signal strength and battery. Below this is a strip of three buttons to access the Dial Pad, Menu and Contacts. The center of the display is taken up by your wallpaper, which you can change to any photo or video on the device. The default home screen wallpaper is a star field with a constellation that is interactive, you can move the stars about. There are a few other interactive wallpapers available as well like a rubics cube.
access the shortcuts menu by tapping on the blue box
Whatever background you use you'll find a blue box on top of it that gives you access to a shortcut menu that can be customized with twelve applications of your choice. At the bottom of the display you see the time and date and below that a series of icons that give you information about various alerts and volume level. When the device is opened up the buttons at the top of the screen are moved to the left and a fourth is added for messaging. The alert icons found on the bottom of the screen are moved to the lower right. We like the interactive features of the home screen and it's fairly well laid out. We particularly like the customizable shortcut menu. Our only annoyance is that the buttons on the home screen are subject to the same lack of sensitivity we see throughout the Glyde's interface.
Extensibility (1.0)
As a BREW device the Samsung Glyde is limited to the fairly small selection of BREW applications available from Verizon. Unlike most phones you can't load Java applications like Google Maps on the phone.
Customizability (3.0)
As we mentioned in the home screen section above you can change the background of the home screen on the Samsung Glyde and also customize the shortcut menu. You can also make a few small customizations like the font size of the dialer and the clock format. That's about it, there's no support for system wide themes that change the look and feel of the entire device, you can't change the font size or type throughout the interface and you can't change the look or order of the main menu. Those who love to customize their devies will like the home screen customization options but may find the lack of additional options to be too limited.
OS Responsivness (3.0)
The responsiveness of the Samsung Glyde is a mixed bag. The biggest issue is that we found the touch screen interface to be not sensitive enough, there were times when we tapped a button many times before it was picked up. Thankfully you can change the sensitivy in the settings and we recommend that you turn it to high as this makes the interface much more responsive. Apart from the touch screen sensitivity we found that some applications and menus were a little slow to load, some egregiously like the music software. Apart from these the rest of the interface is pretty snappy, however.
Browser Features (7.0)
The Samsung Glyde uses a different browser than the standard one found on most Verizon devices like the LG enV2, which is a relief as that browser is extremely limited. Both WAP and HTML pages are supported as are Images, Javascript, Frames, Cookies and Encryption. More advanced technologies like Flash, Java and password management are not supported.
wirelessinfo.com on Glyde
Browsing Interface (5.0)
The browsing interface on the Samsung Glyde is also different from the standard Verizon browser, which is once again a relief. The browser has two view modes, a fit to screen mode that limits the width of the screen and stacks all content vertically and a desktop mode that renders the site as it would appear on your desktop browser. In both modes you can zoom in or out by using the volume keys. The pages in the desktop mode are rendered well, but we found that even when zoomed out to the maximum level it was a little difficult to get around.
browser at maximum zoom
browser at minimum zoom
The biggest problem is the limited screen size. The top 10% of the display is taken up by the standard status bar found throughout the interface which includes information about signal strength and battery life. The bottom quarter of the screen is taken up by the browser controls, with Back, Home, Refresh, Favorites, Enter Address and Menu. The result is that you only get about two thirds of the screen height, which isn't much given that the browser is only viewable in horizontal mode. Throw in the fact that it's very difficult to tap on links, you really have to tap below them to activate them, and the experience is not nearly as good as the interface might make you believe. Certinaly it's nowhere near as good as the Safari browser on the iPhone.
favorites are pretty bare bones
The history on the browser is a simple list of pages visited, but it goes back pretty far and is saved between sessions. You can't save a history item to your favorites directly however. The favorites are similarly simple with a list and no way to organize your favorites into folders. The menu options are fairly extensive, with the ability to change the rendering mode, zoom mode and clear your cache and history. Advanced features like tabbed browsing or an overview mode are not supported, although we wish the latter was. We also wish there was a full screen mode that hides the status bar and controls. Although we applaud the effort to create a more powerful mobile browser and it looks pretty we just didn't find the Samsung Glyde's browser to be very usable.
Browser Access (8.0)
It took five steps to browse to our website from the Samsung Glyde's home screen. You can see below that this is pretty good, only the Sidekick LX and iPhone performed better and then only by a single step. We were able to tap on the shortcut menu from the home screen, then the browser shortcut, then the WWW button to enter an address and once the address is entered we hit the Done button to go to the site. For this test entering the actual address is counted as a single step. We use steps for this test instead of a timed test because we don't want network issues to interfere.
Gaming (2.0)
Like the LG enV2 the Samsung Glyde lacks a single game when you take the device out of the box. We feel that every phone should have at least one halfway decent game for users to while away the time, unfortunately on the Glyde you'll have to pay for any games. We downloaded Bejeweled wondering what the controls were going to be like with the touch screen. What we found was that you had to open the keyboard and use the secondary functions of the L, N, M and . buttons, which act as up, left, down and right respectively. The enter key acts as a select button and the backspace key steps back in the interface. The buttons are a little small, but fairly accurate, not as good as a D-Pad but better than trying to use an on-screen D-pad, which is what we feared we would find.
we had to buy bejeweled
Calculator (3.0)
The Samsung Glyde's calculator is pretty simple. It's capable of handling arithmetic functions (+, -, *, /) with an on screen keypad available when the phone is closed and the number keys used when the QWERTY is revealed. At the bottom are three buttons, Clear, Options and Back. The Options button allows you to access a couple of additional functions inlcuding +/-, parentheses and exponent. The Samsung Glyde also includes a tip calculator and converter. The basic features on the calculator mean it won't be replacing your scientific calculator any time soon.
the calculator is pretty basic
Alarm (7.0)
The Samsung Glyde allows you to create three different alarms, each of which can be turned on or off indpendantly. Each alarm can be set to one of three recurrence patterns, daily, weekdays and weekends. You can also choose the tone you want to sound for each alarm. We found the functionality to be solid, about the only thing we would have liked to see is the ability to create more complex recurrence patterns, but those provided should do for most.
three alarm clocks are available
Document Software (0.0)
The Samsung Glyde does not include any software for viewing or editing documents like Word or Excel files.
Other Software (0.0)
There is no additional software on the Samsung Glyde that we considered worthy of additional points.
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