The Charge, at just over 5 ounces, is also noticeably lighter than the ThunderBolt's almost 5.8 ounces, which some will like. Personally I like the weight of the ThunderBolt more; it feels like I'm holding a real piece of gear in my hand.

The Charge, like Samsung's Galaxy S 4G, has a band of smokey chrome-colored plastic (Samsung calls this "mirror gray") running around the outside front of the phone, which, to me, creates a cheap-looking effect. Question: Would Apple or HTC ever use such materials on a phone? Answer: Nope.

The functional set-up of the phone is pretty much like other phones in its class. Menu, Home, Back and Search buttons on the front bottom, front-facing camera and ear speaker at the top, earphone jack on the top, volume rocker and mini USB port on the left side edge, power button and HDMI port on the right side edge, camera and flash on the top of the back side, speaker on the bottom back.

Display is a Difference Maker

The literature says that the Charge's Super AMOLED screen "sets a new standard for brightness, clarity and outdoor visibility." I selected a movie trailer from the "Media Hub" (Sofia Coppolla's 'Somewhere') to see if that was true. I was impressed--the Charge's display looks as good or better than that on any other smartphone I've seen. The picture I saw did have impressive clarity, and the wide range between the most sunlight-bright whites and the deepest blacks of which the display is capable was immediately apparent. The colors were vibrant and true-to-life without being overbearing. This was a tough part of my testing, because I kept watching the pretty moving pictures, and didn't want to turn it off.