After three years of being an iPhone owner and wanting to avoid the Apple iPhone 4 and its “antennagate”, I finally made the switch to an Google Android based phone. For the uninitiated, the Samsung Captivate is part of the Samsung Galaxy S series that typically include their somewhat trademark 4 inch Super AMOLED screen, the Samsung Hummingbird processor and the TouchWiz UI enhancements. The Samsung Captivate has these features and a bit more:

• 4 inch WVGA Super AMOLED display
• 1GHz Hummingbird processor with PowerVR SGX540 GPU
• Android 2.1
• 16GB of internal memory
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, A-GPS
• 5MP camera with HD video recording
• 3.5mm headset jack
• MicroSD card support

And in typical geek fashion, the first thing I did was to root the phone, then start removing the AT&T applications which cannot be uninstalled the direct way. I am not too happy with how AT&T has locked down portions of the Android Market – for instance, Where is a free app that AT&T wants you to pay for its usage. I’ve had it on the Apple iPhone and if I emulate a T-Mobile SIM, I can have it again for free.

I’m still getting used to the Android workflow – having e-mail and Gmail and they both sync can get confusing. Android 2.1 also will not allow for multiple calendars, it will only synchronize to the first one you input on your accounts/sync portion. That somewhat bothersome; however all one needs to do is share your calendars between your multiple Gmail accounts and they’ll all sync up with the Calendar app.

There are other weird things that will take time in my transition; however it’s not all weird. The phone is faster than my iPhone 3GS and even seems faster to me than even the iPhone 4. It’s also a world class screen that’s real readable in direct sunlight. I mean, totally readable. And so far, I’ve found most of the “must have” apps – Where excluded – in the Android Market. GOGII textPlus, WordPress, Seesmic, Paypal, Google Voice, Evernote, Nimbuzz… and I’ve only started to look.

So three years later, have I finally jumped from a walled garden to a semi-walled garden without incident? This was a still rather locked down phone and I’ve had to add the ability to load my own *.apk files, but so far, I can recommend Android to a wide group of folks whereas the Apple iPhone was more for people that wanted a media phone. Android 2.1 offers a great experience and 2.2 (Froyo) is right around the corner (September is the rumor).