[Steve Viegas]

I have the Samsung Captivate and before that I had a Samsung flip-phone. The flip-phone was a great phone. It lasted 5 years and then it stopped receiving cell signal (could not connect). I wanted Android, and the Captivate was supposed to be the Apple killer.

My new Samsung Captivate goes 50 hours (it tells me, I don't time it) between charges on light usage, 36 on heavy usage. It is not rooted, but I did install the Froyo OS via kies.

As far as being a cool gaget, the Captivate has that in spades. The screen is great. I have access to more applications that I could possibly use and setting up and retrieving e-mail is a breeze.

As far as being a phone...the flip-phone was SO MUCH BETTER! The call clarity was better. The connectivity was better (for the first 4+ years). The bluetooth connection was better.

I cannot recommend the Captivate if you want your phone to work as a phone all of the time.

Android has really fragmented itself. Gingerbread is available on some platforms (2.3) but most are still at Froyo (2.2) which is a great OS and flash capable. If you move to the tablet realm (which you would not do for a phone) they have 3.0 or Honeycomb available.

Also, 3G is a fast connection still today. It is about 2-4MBps. That is a lot of bandwidth. True 4G is able to move something like 20MB in an optimized environment (which AT&T does not offer if you are looking at their sevice).

Hope that helps.