Galaxy Nexus Users Deal with "Phantom Volume" Issue

Random glitches seem to plague every high-profile smartphone that is released these days. Maybe smartphone manufacturers are working so hard at getting them to the public as quickly as possible that they aren’t testing them enough and catching these glitches. Whatever it is, there have been some major smartphone issues. Recently, we had the issue concerning the iPhone 4S battery, and now the Samsung Galaxy Nexus has a “phantom volume” issue.

According to various reports from Galaxy Nexus users, their Android 4.0 phone’s volume will randomly move up and down on its own. Some users seem to be pretty fed up with the issue.

"Got my Galaxy Nexus on Friday night and so far I've been pretty impressed on the whole, however, the volume seems to have a ghost which makes it go up and down at its own accord!!" a user named finchilla wrote on the forums for U.K. wireless carrier O2. "I don't even have to be touching it and when it happens you have to wait for the volume bar to disappear before you can use the screen!!"

Finchilla even went so far as to post a YouTube video that demonstrates the issues that they have been experiencing with the smartphone.

DrGed, another Galaxy Nexus user, said that he also was having difficulties with the volume glitch. However, he did mention that he only experienced problems when he was making a phone call on 2G. "It makes phone calls pretty much impossible when on 2G!" he wrote.

On the xda-developer.com forum, there have also been Galaxy Nexus users that have reported issues with the phone.

"I just received a phone call and the volume rocker I had to fight with to try and get it full volume. Phone won, call was quiet," wrote her0n.

"This morning the volume went down on its own. I actually saw the volume bar appear and decrease, as if I was pushing down on the rocker. It happened twice," wrote jonnyguitar. "Both times I was hammering the phone so perhaps it's related to RAM? The first time I was moving six 400mb avi files from one folder to another using a file manager app and listening to MP3s at the same time."

“I've got the volume problem too. Picked up my phone today and it’s done it about 5 times in the past hour or so while I've been playing with the phone. Usually coincides with me sending/ receiving a text message. Really annoying problem as I don’t know I have received a text most of the time,” wrote dumb donkey.

O2 was asked about the volume issue via Twitter. The company’s response this morning was that "unfortunately we don't have a fix, it has been reported to Google & Samsung though. Sorry!"

The glitch has reportedly caused Vodafone to hold off on releasing the device. "We're continuing to test the Galaxy Nexus software to ensure our customers get the best possible experience of the device," wrote Vodafone community manager Tom in a forum post on Thursday. "We'll provide concrete details on availability of the device once the testing process has been successfully completed."

The Galaxy Nexus is set to debut in the United States on Verizon Wireless; however, Verizon has not announced when it will be releasing the smartphone. Hopefully, all of the glitches will be worked out by the time the device hits the U.S.

Sources: PCMag - Samsung Galaxy Nexus Users Report 'Phantom Volume' Bug and xdadevelopers - Issues After 24 Hours

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AT&T's Much Needed Android Smartphone: The Captivate

AT&T has finally come out with a much-needed Android smartphone. As one of the four major cell phone providers in America, AT&T was the only network truly lacking in the Android smartphone area. They no longer have this problem though thanks to the new Samsung Captivate. The Captivate is part of the Galaxy S series by Samsung and is by far AT&T's most dominant and feature-rich Android device. It has some really exciting features and is a great alternative to the iPhone 4.

The appearance of the Captivate is really nothing special, but the design is clean, simple and it gets the job done. The device is fairly large at 4.18 x 2.5 inches, but it is quite thin. It is only 0.39 inches deep and easily slips into your pocket. The Captivate is a very well constructed phone and feels very solid in your hand, but at the same time, it also feels sleek and modern.

The front of the smartphone is mostly taken up by the extraordinary 4-inch Super AMOLED touch screen. This screen supports 16 million colors and a WVGA resolution of 480 x 800. The Captivate’s touch screen is one of the best-looking touch screens to be seen on a smartphone. It is truly brilliant. The coloring is incredibly vibrant and has a great sharpness that makes texts incredibly easy to read. Samsung’s decision to use the Super AMOLED screen presents several advantages. It has wider viewing angles, improved responsiveness, and also consumes less power. The scrolling experience on the Captivate is very smooth and supports the pinch-to-zoom feature. The display also possesses a six-axis accelerometer, which is quite useful for gaming. It is even quick to change the screen orientation whenever the phone is rotated.

The Captivate has four buttons on the front of the phone located below the screen: menu, home, back, and search. All four buttons are touch-sensitive. On the left side there is a volume adjustment button, and on the right is the power/lock button. Conveniently located on the top of the phone is a 3.5mm headphone jack and a Micro-USB port, and as usual, the camera is found on the back of the device.

As mentioned earlier, the Captivate is part of Samsung’s Galaxy S series and therefore runs Android 2.1 with Samsung's TouchWiz 3.0 interface. Samsung has worked really hard to re-vamp this program. They have enhanced the functionality and given it a more polished look. They also added new widgets including one called Feeds & Updates and another called Buddies Now. The Feeds & Update widget streams updates from Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace. It has the capability to display content from one, two, or all three of the social-networking sites at once. The Buddies Now widget allows you to immediately call or text the contacts from your Facebook, Twitter, or MySpaces pages or comment on any of their updates. There are also a number of other Samsung and Android widgets and other shortcuts available.

The Samsung Captivate also comes equipped with a variety of features including: speakerphone, conference calling, voice dialing, text and multimedia messaging, and a full range of wireless options for Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 3G, and GPS. It also gives you access to AT&T's Wi-Fi hot spots and a hot-spot locator app. The Captivate is also compatible with Gmail, POP3 and IMAP, Microsoft Exchange, Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter.

This magical little device also provides quite a nice list of available apps including a Write and Go app. The Write and Go app lets you compose a message on a notepad then send it to yourself whether it be by way of SMS, an e-mail, or a status update. Other apps include: Mini Diary app, Mobile Banking, Where, Yellow Pages Mobile, instant-messaging clients for Google Talk, AIM, Windows Live, Yahoo, a calculator, a voice recorder, and a memo pad. There are also several AT&T-specific services, such as AT&T Music and Video, AT&T Radio, AT&T FamilyMap, and AT&T Navigator. There are even more apps that you can obtain through the Android Market.

The camera on the Captivate is 5-megapixels and has an HD video camera. You have the ability to adjust the white balance and even add effects. The camera also offers lots of editing options like ISO settings, antishake, and blink and smile detection. One odd thing about the Captivate’s camera is that it is strangely missing a flash. This causes outdoor and night photos to be fairly poor, and the night setting doesn’t do much to help the situation. Despite the camera being a disappointment, the HD video camera is still very impressive.

The Captivate comes with a 1,500mAh lithium ion battery with a talk time rate of 5 hours and 50 minutes and up to 12.5 days of standby time. The battery should be able to easily get you though a whole day of checking e-mail, playing music, and browsing the Web. It’s well equipped with Samsung's 1GHz Hummingbird Cortex A8 processor. Every once and awhile there may be a very brief delay when exiting out of an app, but as a whole, the smartphone is extremely quick.

The Samsung Captivate is currently available from AT&T as of July 18 for $199.99 with a two-year contract. This is really a good buy with all the features it has to offer!

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Samsung's New Jack SGH-i637

The BlackJack II has been changed and perfected to produce Samsung’s new Jack SGH-i637. With the many useful updates and the reasonable price, the Jack certainly looks like an interesting new phone to consider.

The Jack has a very similar look to the Blackberry Bold or the Blackberry Curve 8900. It features a metallic charcoal gray paint and thick chrome band around the edges. The Jack measures 4.4 x 2.4 x 0.5 inches (HWD) and weighs only 3.6 ounces.

It includes a roomy, four-rowed QWERTY keyboard with the perfect amount of click and resistance. The Jack also has a 2.4-inch , 320 x 240 pixel LCD screen. Although the it does not have a touch-screen, the five-way control pad is touch-sensitive.

The Jack has a 528-Mhz processor, 256MB ROM, 175MB RAM, and 141MB RAM free for programs. It also features a built-in GPS chip that is capable of supporting AT&T’s TeleNav-powered Navigator. The music player on the Jack supports WMA, MP3, and AAC files, and the smartphone includes a 3.2-megapixel camera.

For just $99.99 (plus a two-year service contract), the Samsung Jack can be yours. It’s a great value for the fantastic features it includes. No, its not the iPhone3G S or Nokia E71x, but those phones will cost you a lot more. The Jack is a smart, practical, reasonable smartphone that can take care of most average people’s needs.