[Captivate General] mwxiao:
This forum seems to be really negative. And it scares people away. I don't want to start a thread that says "OMG, I love this phone so much" because nobody wants to read that and, well I don't love a phone that much. So I figure why not have a thread that has all the known issues? So people can have a better idea of what to expect.

Well, to start off, I want to say there is no perfect phone in this market. Every phone has issues. Anyway, you will use it for only 18 months and then throw it away. So don't act like you are making a life decision.

1. hardware related

(1) Random shut down.

Possibility: 1/5. Reported by some users. I personally never have this issue.

Solution: exchange for a new one.

(2) Poor battery life.

Possibility: 5/5. Don't have high hopes on battery because it is a huge smart phone. But don't freak out if it only lasts for 5 hours in the first day. It will get better (much better) after several cycles.

Solution: There are tricks all over the internet.

(3) Soft key backlighting isn’t tied to screen timeout

Possibility: 5/5. Soft key backlight time is about 2s. It can't be changed, no matter what the screen timeout is.

Solution: none.

2. software related

(1) Performance Lag.

Possibility: 4/5. As powerful as this phone is, you will feel sluggish once in a while. For example, transition delay, touch response delay. Most annoying: phone freezes when installing apps from the market.

Solution: by using Launch Pro or ADW, you can have a better and smoother experience. But the phone still freezes when installing apps. All you can do is to wait for the installation to finish. Things might get better after the 2.2 update. But there is no official date for Froyo in the US market yet, so I can't say that's a solution.

(2) GPS

Possibility: 4.5/5. Seems like lot of users have this problem. Few users claim theirs are fine.

Solution: None. Samsung promises a fix by the end of Sept.

(3) Sideload apps

Possibility: 5/5. You can't install out-of-market apps.

Solution: You can root. If you don't want to ruin your warranty (I don't), you can use Sideload Wonder Machine. I used it for Genie Widget and Angry Bird. Both worked fine.

(4) Calendar

Possibility: 5/5. When adding an event, the default calendar is the locally "My calendar". And it won't get synced to your online calendar. You have to manually change it to your gmail calendar EVERY TIME.

Solution: none.

(5) Browser brightness setting

Possibility: 5/5. There is a separate brightness setting for browser. It could be annoying when the screen has different level of brightness.

Solution: none.

(6) Music player

Possibility: 4/5. Stock music player doesn't recognize playlist. You might be frustrated to find an alternative one. you may have to pay for a music player.

Solution: I want to say none. You can always find one in the market. But it was not a pleasant experience for me.

(7) status bar trick

Possibility: 2.5/5. You can slide on your status bar to change the brightness. It could be a welcome trick or annoying feature. Screen brightness is so important to your precious battery life, sometimes you don't want to accidentally slide on your status bar.

Solution: none. You can love it or hate it.

I just want to list all the issues that you'll have. Potential buyers can make their own judgement. Please reply if you can think of any other problems. But please don't say things like "you can always root" or "flash your rom", or "there is an fix coming soon".

[update] A lot of the items I listed were not defective issues. But they could be complaints. They could be something you don't like and you can't find a way to change. And i don't care if it's from AT&T or from Samsung or from Google. As long as it might be a problem, I am listing it here.