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At first I was undecided, my options were the Motorola Atrix, Inspire 4G and the Infuse 4G. I owned a Samsung Captivate and loved it, save for the GPS, everything was nice so you may think my comment is a little biased. The Atrix has a dual core, more RAM and it was cheaper, but I read bad things about a heating problem, bad battery life and the burdensome of MotoBlur, I suppose most of those cons were fixed with the recent Gingerbread update, so what I'm saying may or may not be valid anymore. The Inspire 4G was attractive, I'd always read good things about the handcrafted quality put on HTC's devices, hardware and software wise. The big letdown was the small battery (only 1230 mAh) and less storage capacity. At the end, I was used to a Samsung smartphone which was reliable and there I had the Infuse that was the middle brother between the Captivate and the Galaxy S II and even I considered the former I concluded I wasn't going to pay $180 more for a smartphone that was going to be a second faster than a single-core one, besides most of my utility for this kind of device is browsing and music. Before buying the Infuse I was afraid of its size, I thought it wasn't going to be that portable or comfortable to handle. That fear disappeared once I held the device for the first time, most of the reviews praise the slim factor but for me it wasn't too noticeable compared to the Captivate which is a very slim phone also. The main reason it felt so good in the hand is the design, specifically the edges which are squarer and plainer than the Captivate, besides the up bezel is narrower. The tight jeans were the final test, it slid without problem and I couldn't tell the difference between the Infuse and the Captivate. The Infuse offers a splendid 4.5" Super AMOLED Plus display, same tech than GSII but 0.2" larger. The camera is 8 MP and it delivers very good quality (I'm not sure but I read it uses the same optics than GSII). The battery is not great but it is above average among smartphones, with my Captivate, considering same usage pattern, batt lasted 10 hours compared to 12 hours with the Infuse. I use my phone as my primary music player, so sound quality is pretty important for me. The Infuse relies on the Wolfson audio chip (the same on the Captivate), which can be greatly optimized using the Voodoo Sound app on the market; I read this audio chip is superior to the one on the GSII (Yamaha branded). Even though the Infuse is still single core, with the same central and graphics processors than the Captivate, the CPU has been overclocked 20%, I believe this increment plus some software optimizations give a better user experience than the Captivate, the interface is butter smooth, I've noticed little to none sluggishness. I'm not a hardcore mobile gamer so I can't guarantee the Infuse will play the most demanding games out there, but for the casual gamer, the Infuse is powerful enough. The browser is the typical Android webkit based, in my opinion it lacks functionality though it's snappy, I recommend Dolphin HD browser, free on the market. Flash HD video playback on the browser is not good enough due to constant framerate drop, however Flash banners play well (but who wants to see Flash ads). I haven't been lucky with GPS, the Infuse has a hard time trying to get a satellite lock, maybe it's just my case because some people are reporting good GPS performance on forums. Some people regret that the Infuse comes with Froyo and no Gingerbread, personally having installed several Gingerbread custom ROMs on my Captivate, I haven't missed GB a bit, the Infuse Froyo build is so stable and the improvements between the two versions aren't apparent to the final user anyway. Bottom line, if you are into browsing and music, I do recommend the Infuse hands down due to its responsive user interface, large beautiful screen, rich audio output, excellent casual camera and good battery life. On the other hand, if you are a heavy multitasker and hardcore gamer or you just simply must have la crème de la crème, you should buy a Galaxy S II.
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