Samsung Droid Charge Now Two Weeks Late

Verizon said it was going to launch the Samsung Droid Charge on April 28 -- two weeks later, it is still not available. This smartphone will be the second with support for this carrier's 4G LTE network, so its absence leaves a significant hole in Verizon's product lineup.

In mid-April, the official launch date for the Droid Charge was announced. The day before this debut, however, Verizon's LTE network had a major outage that lasted for more than 24 hours. As a result, the carrier decided to postpone the release of this model. Otherwise, customers would have been trying to buy a device that couldn't get a wireless Internet connection.

Verizon announced on April 28 that it had cleared up the problem with its 4G network, but has never announced what caused the outage. It has also not yet released the Droid Charge. The reasons for both remain a mystery.

In the mean time, the only option for those who want an LTE-enabled smartphone is the HTC ThunderBolt.

Samsung Droid Charge Overview
Because it will support Verizon's LTE network, the Droid Charge will offer data transfer speeds of 5 to 12 Mbps for downloads and 2 to 5 Mbps upload speeds under real world conditions. Another one of this model's more notable features will be a 4.3-inch WVGA (800 x 480) Super AMOLED Plus touchscreen.

It will debut with Google Android OS 2.2 (Froyo) running on a 1 GHz Samsung Hummingbird processor, with Samsung's TouchWiz user interface layered on top. An upgrade to OS 2.3 or beyond is already in development.

The Droid Charge will include a rear-facing 8 megapixel auto-focus camera with flash, and a front-facing 1.3 megapixel camera for video conferencing. It will also include an HDMI (720p) video-out port.

In addition to Verizon's 4G service, this Samsung smartphone is going to have Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth, GPS, and DLNA.  It will be able to share its Internet connection with other computers over a Wi-Fi connection.

It is going to sell for $300 with a two-year service contract. This price is considerably higher than many of its competitors sell for.