Samsung Infuse 4G review: Extra legroom

Introduction

In America, it is widely believed that bigger is better. Or so Samsung must have thought when they decided to launch the phone with the biggest and brightest screen first in the United States, and with the biggest network – AT&T. The Samsung Infuse 4G is definitely meant to stand out – its 4.5” Super AMOLED Plus screen is nearly unmatched on the market, and a beauty to look at. It makes 4-inchers look petty and irrelevant.

Despite its humongous screen, the Samsung Infuse 4G has an impressively thin body. At 8.99 mm, it is only a tad thicker than a Galaxy S2. It does have an excuse though – it’s packing a larger screen than the current Samsung flagship. That’s the spirit.

Key Features

• Quad-band GSM and quad-band 3G support
• 21 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA support
• 4.5" 16M-color Super AMOLED Plus capacitive touchscreen of WVGA (480 x 800 pixel) resolution
• 1.2 GHz ARM Cortex A8 processor, 512 MB of RAM
• 8 MP wide-angle lens auto focus camera with LED flash, face, smile and blink detection
• 720p video recording at 30fps
• Dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 b, g and n support
• GPS with A-GPS connectivity; Digital compass
• 16GB internal storage, microSD slot
• Accelerometer, gyroscope and proximity sensor
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• Charging MHL microUSB port with USB host and TV-out (1080p) support
• Stereo Bluetooth v3.0
• FM radio with RDS
• Great audio quality
• Super slim and lightweight at 8.99mm and 139g
• 1.3MP secondary camera, video-call
• Full Flash support and GPU-acceleration enable 1080p flash video playback in the web browser
• Document editor
• File manager preinstalled
• The richest video format support we’ve seen

Main disadvantages

• All-plastic build
• No dedicated camera key
• Super slim body has poor grip when taking pictures
• Single-core processor
• No 1080p video recording despite having the same camera unit as the Galaxy S2
• Sheer size raises questions about single-handed use
• Non-hot-swappable memory card slot
• The device ships with Android 2.2 (Froyo), not the latest Gingerbread

Certain comparisons are not in the Samsung Infuse 4G’s favor. It looks like a flagship, but it’s not quite there. The Infuse just doesn’t have the raw processing power of the Galaxy S2. What’s fair’s fair though – it does look even more impressive.

Samsung I997 Infuse 4G

Oddly enough, Samsung has decided to go with their older generation, single-core CPU which we know well from the Galaxy S line of phones. Is it going to be enough to power the Infuse 4G? We are about to find out.

Editorial: You might notice that this review is shorter than usual and doesn't include all of our proprietary tests. The reason is it has been prepared and written far away from our office and test lab. The Samsung Infuse 4G is a US-only phone, so it will probably never get to the shores of the Old Continent. Still, we think we've captured the essence of the phone in the same precise, informative and detailed way that's become our trademark. Enjoy the good read!