Why you shouldn't buy the Samsung Droid Charge

There's a lot of exciting things happening in the world of Android right now. We have phones that will soon be coming out with Near Field Communication (NFC) technology so you can buy a soda with a pass of your phone. The Nexus has come to Sprint which means that it has CDMA technology which gives me hope that it could come to Verizon soon. We currently have multiple phones that will be able to run on 4G which is the next generation of wireless high speed data.

So why is it that a lackluster phone costs $299? Yes, the Charge has 4G capability but so does the LG Revolution and the HTC Thunderbolt but you don't see them asking for an arm and a leg! Since there's really nothing that sets it apart from the two fore mentioned phones the $299 forces me to look at all of the negatives.

It lacks a dual-core processor which is starting to be a standard on new devices. Even on a reasonably priced device I would want one of these chip sets. They are really only effective on Gingerbread and above but still you're phone is going to become obsolete faster without one.

It comes shipped with Froyo and not Gingerbread. It may be a little too soon to be expecting Gingerbread pre-installed but this is a huge sore spot for me with Samsung. It is up to the manufacturers to update the software on their devices and Samsung recently blocked updates to their user's phone to try and finagle money out of the carriers. This was just a poor move on their part, they didn't get any extra fees and the customers were the ones being hurt.

Another sore spot for me is "bloat-ware." Bloat-ware is software that comes pre-installed on the phone and cannot be deleted. What is really frustrating is that this crap is marketed as benefits of going with the device but in the end is only reason to stay away.Unfortunately bloat-ware is on every phone but with the Charge I couldn't help but feel that there was an above average amount of bloat-ware. One of the included apps is a video service app but rather than building one from the ground up they should just focus on getting Netflix and Hulu on the device.

The Droid Charge is Samsung's first LTE phone for Verizon but a long list of drawbacks makes one laugh at the $299 price tag. Samsung's poor track record in the world of Android, inclusion of many unwanted and uninstallable apps, and lack of a dual-core processor are just some of the reasons not to buy the device. There are currently much better choices and even more phones will be coming out this summer so don't even give this phone the time of day.

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