Bargain Bin – Review of the Infuse 4G
Thankfully not every smartphone out there costs $300 or is as big as the Galaxy Note. The naysayers call this fragmentation but a new term is emerging, choice. Not everyone needs or wants the latest and greatest phone, a solid phone with great battery life and screen is what most people actually want. Today I’m going to be taking a look at the Samsung Infuse 4G, introduced in January 2011 and hit the streets in May.
Hardware
The hardware of the Infuse 4G gives it a great feeling in your hand. Lightweight but solid, sleek yet useful. The Infuse 4G is just 9.24mm at it’s thickest point and weights just .29 lbs. A slim cover hides the battery, a 2gb microSD card and a heft 1,750mAh battery that easily lasted me two days on a full charge. The Infuse 4G is equipped with 16gb of internal storage which is pretty common in most smartphones these days.
On the backside is a LED flash below the 8MP camera that will record in 720p with auto focus. On the front is a 1.3mp camera and four capactive touch buttons using the standard layout of Menu, Home, Back and Search. Taking up most of the real estate on the front of the device though is the 4.5″ Super AMOLED with it’s low end 480×800 resolution (207 ppi) covered with Gorilla Glass. The display isn’t the most high end feature but of course this phone was never a pack leader in specs. It does not fail to disappoint though in quality and readability in any environment.
The Infuse 4g was the first smartphone to take use of AT&T’s 21Mbps HSPA+ 4G network. Average network speeds were between 3-5Mbps in different areas in Oklahoma that are covered with HSPA+ which is quite a few considering AT&T has had almost a year to build up there network from when it launched.
The Infuse 4G handles processing duties with a 1.2ghz Cortex-A8 CPU and 512mb of RAM. While smartphones being released now would scoff at these specs, they still are able to handle their own when doing much anything.
Software
The Infuse 4G was delivered to me with Android 2.3.6 using TouchWiz 3.0. I’ve covered this in previous Samsung reviews so I won’t rehash them again. The Infuse 4G was missing front the list of phones receiving the anticipated Android 4.0 update so I wouldn’t hold my breath. Thankfully though ICS is just a root and flash away as there are plenty of 3rd party ROMs to choose from for this device.
Is it worth it?
I’ve used this phone as my daily driver for the past couple weeks and honestly I’m going to miss the battery life and large screen. The Infuse 4G is currently 49.99 at AT&T on 2yr contract/renewal and this is a good deal. It can be had from other places such as Amazon Wireless for a penny.
My name is Jeromy Lukenbaugh and I enjoy consuming tech news like an addict. I’m lucky to be able to be able to write about some of it here. I also maintain my own blog at Lukenbaugh.com and you can also find me on Twitter.
