Please advise me on the Samsung Captivate

Artereis

My fiancée and I went out to the store last night in hopes of upgrading her to this phone. It turned out she wasn't eligible, but I definitely am, and the phone got its hooks into me. After sleeping on it, I'm strongly considering going out and picking one up.

What are some of the issues I'm likely to deal with in choosing the AT&T variant? What should I do with the phone to tweak it? This would be my first smartphone as well. I've been using a standard cell for ages and hadn't bothered to move up.

Any advice would be appreciated!

WildSpoon

Id recommend popping over to the sub board under G&T for technology stuff and take a look at the android thread. The phone you have your eye on is an android phone. The Samsung Galaxy S line of phones, of which the captivate is one, are all very very nice phones. They are basically the latest and greatest when it comes to the android space so you will not do wrong by getting this phone.

However if you do not currently have a smart phone you are obviously getting by just fine without one. I suppose a major question would be what do you want out of a new phone that your current phone doesn't give you? Do you care about apps, being able to surf the web at any time, etc etc. Id caution against signing a massive term contract or dropping a few hundred bucks for something thats just shiny but then you wont even get your "money's worth" out of.

Artereis

Oh I've read plenty about Android itself. I'm more looking for tips directly related to this phone. I've heard rumors about AT&T making it difficult to get apps onto the phone, for one.

The biggest reason I haven't moved to a smartphone yet is the previous throw-away nature related to them. The fact that I can update an Android phone is pretty appealing. I view it as more of an investment and would hope to have the phone stick around for awhile. I've read through the Android thread a bit, but I'm in kind of a time crunch here. The lady and I are flying out to PAX tomorrow (first time), and I feel it will help us get around a bit. She has a smartphone, but it's not as web capable as something like the Captivate.

WildSpoon

Ah got ya. Well, the phone itself looks great, and is actually the next phone i plan to purchase. However I am in Canada so am not totally up to speed on how AT&T does things, but im pretty sure they lock down / restrict the phone in a few ways. As in you can not "side load" apps, which means you can only get apps from the official marketplace and not also off the net in the wild as stock androids can do. Also i believe their version has some weird UI in place (social hub or something) instead of the stock android UI. If you already played with the phone and liked navigating around then these could be moot points. Honestly, hardware wise you can't do much better, and if its any consolation the Samsung galaxy S phones are among the easiest ever to "unlock" which will come in handy down the line if you want to take the experience further or if AT&T drop the ball for you on OS updates.

One sentence version, if i was in your position right now, id get it. *shrug*