Customer reviews from Samsung US
Samsung - Captivate Mobile Phone - Black (AT&T)
Average customer rating
4.2
(1,846 Reviews)
Rating breakdown 1,846 reviews
5 Stars
949
4 Stars
544
3 Stars
150
2 Stars
109
1 Star
94
82%of customers recommend this product.
(
1,418 out of
1,721)
Customer Reviews for Samsung - Captivate Mobile Phone - Black (AT&T)
Customer Rating
1
Love it, if only it was reliable...
on July 9, 2011
Posted by: Anonymous
from raleigh, NC
Expertise:Expert
I really like this phone, crisp screen, nice layout, however it has had a history of locking and overheating, turning off on its own with a full battery, and its battery life went from excellent to poor with an engineering change. I am on my 5th captivate (that is 4 warranty replacements.) The 1st one worked well and had 36 hours battery life under my usage (wifi on, minimal talk, JuiceDefender running), except it randomly switched itself off. The 2nd one worked well, except battery life went to 8 hours with the same software and same usage patterns. 3rd one worked the same as the 2nd, except it had a tendency to lock & overheat and turn off with the same software and same usage patterns. I discovered that the issue with battery life is in the WiFi subsystem, which evidently changed between the 1st batch and the subsequent batches. Same with the 4th one. The 5th is too new to tell.
Pros: Built-in speakers, Bright display
Cons: Poor quality
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
Features
4
Performance
2
Design
5
Value
1
Written by a customer while visiting Samsung US
Customer Rating
5
on July 23, 2011
Posted by: gamerguy
from new jersey
Expertise:Intermediate
this was a great phone for me. loved it for the time i had it. would definitely recommend it to anybody wanting a great easy to use smart phone.
Pros: Built-in speakers, Bright display, Inexpensive, Durable, Realistic color, Lightweight
I would recommend this to a friend!
Features
5
Performance
5
Design
5
Value
5
Written by a customer while visiting Samsung US
Customer Rating
5
on August 29, 2011
Posted by: dcmille290
Expertise:Expert
Just about a perfect phone. Can't wait for the Galaxy 2 phone with 2 cameras. You just cannot go wrong with this phone.
Pros: Built-in speakers, Bright display, Inexpensive, Durable, Realistic color, Lightweight
I would recommend this to a friend!
Features
5
Performance
5
Design
5
Value
5
Written by a customer while visiting Samsung US
Customer Rating
1
Nice looking, but...
on October 10, 2011
Posted by: garrett2697
Freezes alot, slow, always a step behind when executing apps or commands. other smartphones are better or this one I got is not good
Pros: Bright display, Realistic color
Cons: Did not meet expectations, freezes, bad processor
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
Features
4
Performance
1
Design
4
Value
1
Written by a customer while visiting Samsung US
Customer Rating
1
If only it worked!
on November 17, 2011
Posted by: Danielmichigan
Expertise:Expert
If every feature on this phone worked well it would be absolutely awesome. The screen is definitely the best part about it, and that doesn't seem to malfunction too often, though it does suck the battery dry at an alarming rate.
The GPS is essentially non-functional. Sometimes it fails to find satellites completely. Usually it does manage to get a lock on satellites, but only after several minutes. But inevitably the GPS lock is only short lived. When I try to use the navigation software the screen displays the words: "searching for GPS" for the majority of the time that it is navigating. I've missed a lot of turns because of this.
When I am using the captivate as a media player the player will mysteriously stop playing for several seconds or up to a minute before resuming play.
I will often try to select an app or the settings menu from the home screen, only to see the phone app pop up on the screen unexpectedly.
When scrolling the screen is anything but smooth.
I always have trouble connecting to wi-fi. Sometimes the phone won't acknowledge the presence of nearby networks and there is nothing I can do to establish a connection. Sometimes I can get it to find wi-fi networks if I turn off wi-fi and then turn it back on. Other times the phone will start to connect to a network, get stuck as it is acquiring an ip address, and then go back to searching for networks. I can usually fix this by completely turning off the wifi and turning it back on, but the problem is persistent, and resetting the wi-fi only works sometimes. Wi-fi got much worse with the android 2.2 update, but it was never perfect before. I hope that the 2.3 update will at least get it back to the marginal performance that I experienced before the last update.
I get weird bugs in the text messaging app. Sometimes the app will attach the wrong contact info to texts, making me think that a text is coming from a different person than the person who actually sent the text.
Sometimes it takes hours or even days for my phone to acknowledge that a text came in. Sometimes I get audio and vibrating notifications of incoming calls, sometimes I don't.
Phone reception is poor. I will often get one or no bars in areas where people with other brands of at&t phones have strong coverage.
Lots of PDF files that work fine on my computer will not open on the phone. I have both the quick office software and a pdf reader app from the marketplace, neither will play a lot of pdfs that I try to open.
Updates take many months longer to come out than they should. I don't know if this is a wireless provider problem or a Samsung problem, but the GalaxyS phones in the US consistently receive updates long after their counterparts in other parts of the world. All of my friends with phones from other manufacturers get their software updates months before I do. Why is Captivate still running android 2.2? This is just ridiculous. 2.3 has been out for a year now!
I do love the swype keypad.
Pros: swype
Cons: Poor quality, Did not meet expectations, gps
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
Features
4
Performance
1
Design
5
Value
1
Written by a customer while visiting Samsung US
Customer Rating
5
Great phone
on July 21, 2012
Posted by: dante70
Expertise:Expert
I liked this phone so much that I bought a Galaxy Tab and just upgraded to the Galaxy Nexus phone through Google.
Pros: Bright display, Durable
I would recommend this to a friend!
Features
5
Performance
5
Design
5
Value
4
Written by a customer while visiting Samsung US
Customer Rating
2
Starts to fall apart right after 1 year manufacturer warranty ends.
on January 31, 2013
Posted by: Ebag
from Huntsville, AL
Expertise:Intermediate
Constantly locks up, Always force closes when connecting to charge. Signal strength always 1 or 2 bars.
Pros: Lightweight
Cons: Poor quality, Did not meet expectations
Features
3
Performance
1
Design
3
Value
2
Written by a customer while visiting Samsung US
Customer Rating
1
Amazing phone.... minus the randomly shutting down
on September 13, 2010
Posted by: kirb
from Knoxville, TN
Expertise:Intermediate
I have had my captivate for about 2 months now. The device worked great, until I woke up late for work one morning to find that the phone wasn't on anymore and I had missed my alarm because of it. Phone was plugged into the charger; turned it back on and it had a full battery. Since then there have been several more times that the phone has turned itself of after going into standby. It doesn't seem to happen when you are using the phone, only when it sets motionless for awhile. Many more people have had this issue as well... just google it. Its a great phone, but I can't afford to miss calls/alarms b/c I didn't use my phone for a few minutes and it decided to turn off.
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
Features
5
Performance
1
Design
5
Value
1
Written by a customer while visiting Samsung US