Samsung Galaxy S 4G Android Smartphone Review

Browsing the Web is certainly a key feature of any smartphone, so we also conducted some formal speed tests to see how well the Samsung Galaxy S 4G compares to some of today's hottest smartphones.

In the Xtremelabs test, the Samsung Galaxy S 4G achieved download speeds that are right in line with other 4G networks. Upload speeds were a different story in this test. For some reason, they were particularly low when we ran our tests. Over Wi-Fi, however upload speeds were more in line with other devices.

On the BA.net test, the Galaxy S 4G blew the competition out of the water on download speeds when connected to T-Mobile's 4G network. Wi-Fi download speeds were right in line with other devices we've seen. Upload speeds are no longer available from the BA.net test.

The Speedtest.net test shows that T-Mobile's 4G network in combination with the Samsung Galaxy S 4G is slower than Sprint's 4G devices in terms of both download and upload speeds.

Overall, the Samsung Galaxy S 4G didn't perform quite as well in these benchmarks as we would have liked. In our real-world testing, the phone and web browsing felt relatively zippy. Although the scores are lower than we would have liked, we don't feel it's fair to generalize or say this could be a widespread problem. It's possible that T-Mobile's network wasn't providing the best speeds possible in our test location during our test period. Every network has been known to experience glitches from time to time, so we'll give T-Mobile and Samsung some benefit of the doubt on this one, particularly since we enjoyed respectable scores when testing over Wi-Fi.


Jennifer Johnson

Jennifer Johnson

Jennifer grew up around technology. From an early age, she was curious about all things related to computers. As a child, Jennifer remembers spending nights with her dad programming in BASIC and taking apart hard drives to see what was inside. In high school, she wrote her senior term paper on her experiences with building custom computers.

Jennifer graduated from the Jeffrey S. Raikes School of Computer Science and Management at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. After college, she began writing full-time for various PC and technology magazines. Later, she transitioned to the Web. In these roles, Jennifer has covered a variety of topics including laptops, desktops, smartphones, cameras, tablets, and various consumer electronics devices. When she's not playing with or writing about the latest gadget, Jennifer loves to spend time with her family, capture memories with her camera, and scrapbook.

Opinions and content posted by HotHardware contributors are their own.

Related content