I have been an iPhone owner since that line started forming for the 2.5G, and in early August I got frustrated with iTunes and reup'd my contract and got a Samsung Captivate. Here is the breakdown of what I found.
Captivate Pros:
1.) Bleeding edge hardware specs
2.) 4" AMOLED screen that just looks incredible when watching movies
3.) Amazing community for support and development
4.) Incredible looks and hand feel.
5.) Expandable storage
6.) Easy to root and manipulate
7.) Amazing customization
8.) SWYPE... This is truly the best way to type on a touch device.
Cons:
1.) Nothing but trouble with that hardware. Returned one for dead pixels, one for a broken internal wifi antenna, one for broken capacitive touch buttons that would push themselves, and one for a blown speaker...
2.) GPS is jacked. Samsung has stated they are working on a fix, but no ETA.
3.) Touchwiz is horrible. Samsung's UI is just bad. It's clunky and overall a performance hit
4.) Samsung's filesystem choice. It's actually so bad that the community have developed virtual file systems to overlay the stock file system to reduce lag
5.) Media player is sub par
6.) Android Market is nowhere close to the App Store, but it's getting better every day.
7.) No music download service
8.) No guarantee of OS updates (they say 2.2 is coming, but no ETA or show of progress.
9.) Has the same Gorilla Glass hairline scratch problem the i4 has.
I really do like the Captivate. It may not sound like it, but that's a lot of frustration that I'm taking out on Samsung for making it's customers the beta testers for another of their devices. Given they actually fix the GPS and release 2.2, the things the community will do with this device will be mind boggling. That's kind of the problem, though. There are a lot of ifs and buts when speaking about Android. I am about to have a baby and my life is crazy right now. I need a phone that just works and does it's thing perfectly. Thus the repurchase of the i4...
Now, 2 days later I'm on my second i4 because of a frikkin dead pixel on my beautiful retina display... Best Buy is seriously sick of seeing me, and honestly, I'm sick of going. I'm a power nerd, and that even hurts me to loath one of my favorite places... I just want this damn phone to work. That's all I ask at this point.
This one seems to be coming along just fine, and I'm eagerly awaiting my Power Support Crystal and Anti-Glare screen protectors, as well as my Speck Fitted case.
I did get the Best Buy Black Tie protection on the phone, so if anything goes south for me, I can always get a new one.
Th