Samsung i897 Captivate Android Smartphone Galaxy S GSM Unlocked - Black

I have this phone since May, and has been a great experience so far. The specs and quality are great deal for the price. With its 1 GHz processor and ram, it can run most apps and most games available at the Play store. Camera pictures quality is good and the super amoled screen display too. Only thing it lacks is LED flash for the camera, so don't expect to take night pictures with this phoneThe 16 GB of Rom are plenty of space for all your apps and data. It can even be expanded with a micro SD card. Not a downside, but must be stated, the internal 16 GB of memory is split into two. The OS displays 2 GB as internal phone memory and the rest as an internal SD card. With a microSD inserted, it will show to SD memories. Still the 2GB partition is plenty for all your apps and if space is needed, you can move the app to the internal SD.The phone comes with Android 2.3 Gingerbread, which works good out of the box. But the best advice for this phone is to root it and install a Custom ROM. It will make your phone performed better. Plus, the risk of something going wrong from this is very little. There are lot of sites and forums (like XDA) that walks you around the process. After I installed Cyanogenmod 9 (Android 4.0), the performance was smoother and faster, it really felt like a new phone. There are so many great things about the new Android OS that will make you love more this phone. I am currently running 4.1 Jellybean (CyanogenMod 10) and can't wait for the next release. Seriously, I highly recommend going this way, if you want to make you great phone into a greater one.

For those who don't want to spend alot of money getting an unlocked android phone, and don't really care which version is on it, this one is sweet. Sure, it's an older phone with older hardware and running 2.3 Gingerbread, and that's as good as it's going to get with this phone, but something like 60-70% of the phones out there are running it too. It does it's job and does it well. It was a top of the line phone when it came out and even though it is a bit older now, most folks wouldn't even notice. We actually bought this one to replace an iPhone that my boy was using, but since "Daddy" has an Android, he wanted a little green robot too, which is super sweet because now we can text eachother for free and use other G products to communicate, something that couldn't happen when he had the "other" phone. I actually ran this phone for about 6 months when it first came out and it is rock solid. One thing that you will want to remember is that it is on 2.3. I did root and install ICS on one and to be honest it doesn't have the horsepower or battery for it. Just know it is what it is.

I agree with the rest of the comments on the product that it is of a good quality for a price. I bought it to use with straight talk plan, and everything worked out perfectly.The only few things that gave me negative thoughts about the item were that it was not in it's original box. It arrived in plain at&t box. Manual looks like it was homemade, and has no Samsung TMs on it anywhere. Despite all that, the phone is absolutely brand new. Second "weird" thing was that my internal speaker (the one you listen to when you receive calls) was not working until I plugged headphones jack in and out of the socket. Now it seems to be fine.Overall I am very pleased with my purchase.PS. 4 months later update: power button stopped working. I was sent back and forth between seller, amazon and manufacturer in a circle with no solution on hand. Nobody wants to fix it. Thats why my rating for the phone dropped 2 stars.

Here's a minimalist who jumped from a bulky Sprint phone to the magical Motorola Razr and then wooed by the half bit Apple. My first Smart Phone was an iPhone 3GS, and then a natural upgrade to an iPhone 4 (not the S). And to be direct: I would never have know this beauty (Captivate/Android) existed had I never sought some 'free' air (open source platforms).It does what you expect: whether you go by specs (1 GHz CPU, a GPU core, AMOLED hi res screen, a sleek design that stands out..), by user experience (bright clear icons, fast response), or by developer satiety (more control over the software/feature, freedom to install OS versions - supported or custom).In objectivity, the iPhones have always set the bar too high in user experience and the quality of both hardware and the software. So I am not a be-grudged Apple departee - in fact I keep looking for features I liked from iPhone on the Android. However, I have been very positively impressed by what the Captivate (with Android 2.2) offered right away.I took one star off the rating, because be all the great that it is, Android on this cool piece of hardware still is an edgy phone mostly for the geeky ones. There are things you can tweak, software you can write yourself, that opens a 4th world of creativity. However, not everyone may want to do that and may want to trust a closed-form Apple-is solution that just works right out of the box - the same way - everyday.And now to my opinion on an iPhone v/s an Android smartphone (specifically the Captivate):An iPhone will be smarter than you are, eventually making you a dumb-er user (since it will take away most of the thinking away from the user, really - they are SO GOOD with UI:-), whileAn Android phone (esp Captivate), though not as smart a phone as an iPhone4, gives a heaven full of creativity, blissful moments of tweaking the SW, settings, and Apps, and in my opinions makes you a smart-er user.So depending upon your taste, if you like your smartness replaced reliably, you may like the closed-environment iPhones. However, if you want a device that augments your intelligence, try out the community-spirited Android phones like the Captivate - you might just start enjoying enabling phones all over again:-)[Updated 3.01.2012] A word of caution for 11th St Wireless customers. I paid $19 more from them hoping they will ship me a genuine phone. The box was genuine. The phone is great, I love it. But I think they cheated on the headset. The box says (as it should) that it has a stereo headset. But the one I was shipped in the box (NEW) is *MONO*. It is cheaply made and no Samsung mark on it. In fact it looks NOTHING like the real ones that show in customer pictures above. I contacted 11th St Wireless re: this. They came back and said they sold me ONLY the phone and I should talk to the seller I bought the headset from. WHAT?!? The headset comes WITH THE PHONE in the package, in its box!!! I have requested clarification, pending a negative response I will contact Amazon directly to rate them out negatively. Please everyone BEWARE and be aware of what you are getting in the box! Still loving the phone though, it has MIUI on it now:-)[Updated 1.30.2012] A word of caution: The first time I bought this item, the seller was OEM Planet. The price looked very competitive. I paid 2 day shipping too. But beware: I had items missing from the box (data cable, CDs, headphones, all missing), and the unit looked used (scratches). 11th wireless was an excellent seller, whom I used upon returning the first item. The second time, I received a box that was more authentic looking, with a real manual in there and the complete kit.