It's official: 2011 is the year of incremental progress. Mobile handsets have settled into a groove featurewise and are now gently nudging their way upward in speed, power and capabilities.
If we're going to be stuck in a climate of baby steps, at least Samsung's Galaxy S 4G is an example of baby steps done right.
From the moment I got my mitts on the S 4G, something felt eerily familiar. I'd seen many of its elements before – the unsettlingly light chassis, the glass and faux-chrome accents, and even the flashless 5-MP camera. As it turns out, the feeling of déjà vu was completely warranted.
The S 4G is essentially a mildly tweaked Samsung Vibrant with a couple of extra goodies. For those keeping score, a lot of the Vibrant's perfectly serviceable features (1-GHz processor, 4-inch 800 x 480 AMOLED screen, 720p video recording) are back.
So, what's new? Android 2.2, for starters. Also, as the phone's awkward moniker boasts, this handset brings T-Mobile's particular brand of 4G (HSPA+) to the fold.
I honestly wasn't expecting too much given the piecemeal rollout of this next-gen data network, but the difference was noticeable immediately. Heavy hitting image-rich sites like (ahem) Wired.com loaded with virtually no hesitation, and raining down large file downloads from Dropbox produced nary a stutter.
Converting the phone into a hot spot was also one of the more useful data-centric features, though the option is strangely buried within the menu tree. Samsung's TouchWiz user interface has never been especially appealing, and this is another nail in that coffin.
Yet another addition is the S 4G's front-facing VGA camera. Though it's perfectly poised for video conferencing, I was a little underwhelmed by the options on the app side. Getting the service up and running is simple enough thanks to a preloaded Qik app, but the occasional stutter and noticeable lag left a lot to be desired.
