-What's up, Prizefight fans?
I'm Brian Tong and this week, it's another 4G face-off to see if last week's champ can hold on to the title of king of the 4G ring.
It's a Prizefight punch out between the HTC ThunderBolt on Verizon and the Samsung Galaxy S 4G on T-Mobile.
Our judges for this fight are: Senior Editor Bonnie "The Boom" Cha; Senior Associate Editor
Nicole "Stone Cold" Lee; and you know who, Brian "Pair of" Tongs.
We'll take all 3 judges' scores and average them out to the nearest tenth each round.
The final Prizefight score will be an average of all rounds using the same decimal system.
Let's get it on.
First round is design.
HTC's ThunderBolt is a big boy.
It has an impressive 4.3-inch screen, but this is one of the biggest and heaviest phones on the market.
On the plus side, it feels more like a premium phone with its better build quality and styling,
but this won't fit in your skinny jeans.
Samsung's Galaxy S 4G has iPhone 3GS imposter rim all over it.
It's still a nice design and its silver matte back is clean.
Its Super AMOLED screen really pops with vibrant colors, but this is a really light phone that feels more like a plastic toy than a premium phone.
Both phones have a few works and we're calling this round even at 4.
Next round is controls and user interface.
Android 2.2 is packed on these phones,
but there are few differences that set them apart.
HTC's Sense UI is still one of our favorite flavors of Android.
It's a sexy interface and even without Swype, you'll get enhancements from the latest Sense with faster boot up times, the quick multiple home screen view.
It has improved maps with tilting and rotating, and the notification drop down lets you see recent apps.
Now, Samsung brings her TouchWiz interface and it's as simple as you can get for Android.
You might think it looks too much like an
iPhone, but we prefer a horizontally moving through apps.
You'll get Swype functionality and quick access to services in the notifications drop down.
We really don't play favorites here, but HTC Sense UI takes this round 4.7 to 4.
So, after 2 rounds, the ThunderBolt leads by almost a full point.
Samsung needs to step it up.
Next round is features.
The ThunderBolt is packed with features with its legendary kickstand that works horizontally and vertically.
It has a front-facing 1.3-megapixel
camera for video chat, an HDMI port for video out, plus it has 8 gigs of internal storage with a slot for 32 gigs more.
Both phones support 4G and Wi-Fi hotspot tethering, but the Galaxy S 4G has no front-facing camera and only 185 megs of onboard storage, with a card slot that supports up to 32 gigs.
This one's not even close.
HTC's ThunderBolt gets a perfect 5 and the Galaxy S gets a 3.7.
Round 4 is Web browsing and multimedia.
The ThunderBolt's 4.3-inch screen makes Web browsing and watching videos a better experience and, in this case, size does matter.
It has more visual bookmarks and multiple browser windows.
It comes with an 8-megapixel dual flash LED camera, and you can use the Blockbuster app to load movies onto it.
The media player is a step above the standard Android version and its surround sound option during movie playback makes a difference.
Now, the Galaxy S 4G is the snappier of the 2 browsers when it comes to pinch and zoom,
as display continues to make images look great.
It features a 5-megapixel camera without a flash, but it takes better pictures.
Plus, its media hub is ready to deliver movies and TV shows directly to the device.
Believe it or not, HTC takes its 4th round in a row, 4.7 to 4.
So, after averaging 4 rounds, the ThunderBolt still leads by 9/10 of a point.
The final round that decides it all is call quality and performance.
HTC brings a solid call quality and its 1 gigahertz processor
keeps up just fine.
We couldn't get a 4G signal inside of our shooting studio, but trust us.
Its LTE data speeds are impressive.
The problem is how much does that matter when we were only able to squeeze out a paltry 5 hours of talk time over 4G?
Now, the Galaxy S has excellent call quality that was a tad bit cleaner, HSPA Plus data speeds were solid, and its 1 gigahertz Hummingbird processor felt snappier compared to the HTC ThunderBolt.
And if you want a phone that will last, our labs were able to squeeze out 9 hours of talk time over 4G.
Samsung finally takes the last round with a perfect 5 and HTC gets a 4.
So, let's average out all 5 rounds, and in a battle where HTC dominated from the start winning 4 straight rounds, it was too much for Samsung to overcome, and the ThunderBolt takes this battle 4.5 to 3.9, and is your Prizefight winner.
The ThunderBolt is the new king of the ring, but its size and battery life might be its downfall in future battles.
I'm Brian Tong.
Thanks for watching.
We'll catch you guys next time on another Prizefight.
