The Droid Charge is a decent smartphone, but it is dragged down by a single-core processor that just cannot keep up with demanding, inefficient software. The display is as gorgeous and the LTE speeds are as blazing as advertised, but these cannot compensate for the negatives.
Design: Apart from the SAMOLED+ display, I don't actually mind the plastic exterior or the overall design. I'll grant that there are far better designed phones available, but I feel neutral to somewhat positive on this aspect. The design isn't onerous.
Software/Hardware: I actually don't have too much to beef about Touchwiz- since coming from an HTC phone running SenseUI, I much prefer Touchwiz as the lesser of the two skinned-Android evils.However, just a few months' experience with the Charge has made clear that it suffers from inefficient software (even the recent OTA upgrade to Gingerbread did not solve persistent matters such as screen redrawing and lags) and hardware that either cannot support the demands of the software (the aforementioned Hummingbird processor- surprisingly inadequate) or otherwise fall short of modest expectations (the camera suffers either from the stock app or below average performance).
Battery Life: LTE sucks battery like a boss. The SAMOLED+, while beautiful, does not help matters. Until LTE modem design (or smartphone battery and hardware design?) matures, this is what it is. I gave it such a low score, however, because it often seems like the OS is allowing programs to leech battery while it is supposed to be asleep or inactive.
Recap: A decently spec'ed phone that can be used as a daily driver, but one that will leave you wishing for better performance. It actually is a few key upgrades away from SGSII territory, really, but since you can't make those upgrades yourself (short of root, etc.), that is small consolation for a device that definitely falls short.
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