Samsung Stratosphere for Verizon review by Breon

By Breon Nagy December 17, 2011 5:45 pm EST Comments

Surrounded by the DROID RAZR, HTC Rezound, and DROID Bionic releases, the Samsung Stratosphere may have been lost in the shuffle a bit. Heck, if you Google Samsung Stratosphere Verizon Wireless, the official Verizon results are two-thirds of the way down the page. Don’t let that fool you; The Stratosphere is a great mid-tier device AND it is packing Verizon 4G LTE.

Not surprisingly, the overall design reminds me of the Samsung Epic 4g (on Sprint). But in the land of 4.3″-4.65″ screens, this 4″ screen feels smaller than the ol’ Epic (even though it’s not). The Stratosphere runs Gingerbread and Samsung’s TouchWiz UI. Of course, it’s pre-loaded with tons of value-add Verizon apps </sarcasm>. Unlike the Skyrocket, which has a blueish theme, the Stratosphere has lime green accents. I wish this was user selectable. The 5-row keyboard is spaced well and easy to type on. The device is part of the “Galaxy S” line, and in keeping with a standard S phone, it has a 1 GHz single-core processor.

Overall I like this phone. I’m not a fan of slider phones, but I think that folks that like a physical keyboards will like this phone. As with all of the Verizon 4G LTE phones, the service is fast and reliable.

The Samsung Stratosphere is available now from Verizon Wireless for $99.99, with a new 2-year contract, after an online discount. You can also pick it up from Amazon Wireless for a shiny penny (new contracts, and what-not). If you’re looking for a 4G LTE phone, with slide-out keyboard, then this is it.

daphne

I am just going to be honest, I am currently using the stratosphere to type this (it's the white one) I got it for free and with the deal they had going on with the 4G LTE phones with twice the data for the cost of 2gb I was sold the phone its self is great the keyboard is a lil hard to get used to cause the buttons are almost flat but other than that I've had it 3 days n I love it my first full fledged device I am constantly on the eevice to so the previous comment about using it a lot u may have had a virus on your phone or to many apps running at one time its a great phone I think but its also my opinion but also don't expect a 900 dollar computer in a 99.99 phone in my case free phone but I'm just sayin

share flag

spam
offensive
disagree
off topic

NintendoWiiBoy

All I have to say is that I completely disagree with this review. How long did you have the phone? Because I had it for a week, had too many problems and took it back. You must have gotten one of the few good ones out there. To anyone reading this, if you get the phone, I wish you luck. My opinion: 4G does no good if the phone lags so much that it takes 3-5 seconds for the home screen to pop up, another second for folders/shortcuts to show up, and another 2-3 seconds for the widgets to show. I know it may not seem like much when reading this, but if you use it a lot like I did, it becomes a pain. That phone has permanently turned me off of Android. That's all imma say.

Breon Nagy

Either I had the this pick of the litter, or I didn't use it as my "daily driver" as long as you did (or a combination of both). It's certainly not the-greatest-superphone-ever, but it gets the job done (from what I saw). AND it's one of the few QWERTY sliders available on VZW.