[Samsung Captivate Glide] gtmaster303:
Review Relay 4G

So in response to your query (better late than never)...

The Relay 4G is much better than the Captivate Glide in a lot of key areas. I feel as though Samsung deliberately took the Glide back to the drawing board and corrected most, if not all of the flaws the phone had.

For starters, it's a much better device to hold. The back of the Captivate Glide is very slippery, despite being raised and textured plastic. I don't know why but I'm always scared of dropping it. The Relay 4G has a soft touch finish on the back which nicer to hold and easier to grip. Even though the Relay is marginally bigger than the Glide, the tapered and rounded edges make it fit in the hand naturally. The hand is not made to accommodate flat and angular objects well. This is especially apparent when you hold up an iPhone 4/4S/5. Sure, it's a high end device and feels like a luxury item, but it never felt ergonomic.

The phone has a notification light (Hurrah!). It also has a physical home button. It's well placed and easily accessible, making the phone to turn on a breeze.

The keyboard. Ok, this is where things get interesting.... It's not a bad keyboard by any means. I've used quite a few keyboards over the past few years and this one is somewhere in the middle. On the one hand, the keys are very responsive and properly spaced out (horizontally). But on the other hand, the whole orientation of the keyboard is shifted to the left for some reason. It doesn't feel centered or natural. You can grow accustomed to anything over time, and this by no means a deal breaker but it is a quirk to be mentioned. Also, I noticed that the keys themselves are very thin. Although the typing and feedback is precise, there's not much room between the keys vertically. I feel like Samsung focused hard on trying to cram a number row into a dedicated keyboard space and slightly ruined it.

The camera is decent. It's by no means the best camera you will ever use, and it will get the job done in a pinch. But don't ditch your old point and shoot for this camera. There's a lot of noise whenever you take pictures with a lot of detail. If you put in a little effort though, it will give you some great shots for a phone. I think when Samsung was designing this phone, the camera is where they cut corners and I'm glad they decided to do that here. I'd rather they cut corners here than with the keyboard, battery, or design.

The way I see it is, if you're buying a phone for its camera, you're buying it for the wrong reason. The cameras that manufacturers slap onto the back of phones these days are monumentally better than they used to be, but in the real world they still pale in comparison to a dedicated point and shoot. Sure you can probably get some amazing shots when you put them side by side. But with the phone, the angle, lighting, distance, location, status of your marriage, amount of mortgage you have left, what day of the week it is, and what kind of car you drive all have to be just right to get those amazing shots. Smartphones are closing the gap, but we're not there yet folks...

Overall the Relay feels solid in the hand, but at the end of the day it's still plastic. I don't care what you have to say about plastic or what kind of finish you put on it. The phone still feels cheaper (notice I didn't say cheap outright). It's solid I'll give you that, but you don't get the sense that you have a high end crafted device. Nor is this meant to be. Plastic and quality never go in the same sentence, no matter how hard you try. You cannot escape the fact that this phone is very generic bland looking, plasticky, and boring black. Personally I don't care so much for looks as I do for functionality, but ever since I've moved away from HTC devices and into Samsung devices, I noticed that the physical presentation of the phone isn't anything to write home about. Although I will say the styling is slightly better than the Captivate Glide. But that's like saying Rosie O'Donnell is slightly better looking than Whoopi Goldberg.

The Relay is, what the Captivate Glide should've been. After spending some time with the Relay, I realize that the Glide was more of an afterthought, rather than an actual phone designed for people who love a keyboard. So would I say you get one? ABSOLUTELY. But do I expect more from Samsung, or any manufacturer that's going to make the next android QWERTY? Yes.

Does any of that really matter? Not in the least. Because whoever makes the next QWERTY (assuming there is one), knows that it's a lukewarm market with no competitors and the sole buyers being the low-mid range market, texting teenagers, and us.