Samsung Galaxy S Aviator (U.S. Cellular)

U.S. Cellular's 4G LTE network may be brand new, but the $99.99 Samsung Galaxy S Aviator looks and feels an awful lot like last year's Samsung Droid Charge?($99.99, 4 stars) for Verizon Wireless. That's not a bad thing: the Aviator has a sharp, beautiful display, good call quality, and a great camera and camcorder. It's also the only smartphone?available to tap into U.S. Cellular's 4G LTE network. It's a good choice if you live in an LTE coverage area and want in right now, but the carrier offers better options if you stick with 3G.

Physical Design and Call Quality
As previously mentioned, the Aviator bears a close resemblance to the Samsung Droid Charge. Like the Charge, it measures 5.1 by 2.6 by .5 inches (HWD) and weighs 5 ounces. The area beneath the display dips down into a slightly pointed chin shape, and features four physical function keys. The display itself is another lovely 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus screen from Samsung. At 800-by-480-pixels, it is lower resolution than the 960-by-540 display on the?Motorola Electrify?($129.99, 4.5 stars), but the colors on Super AMOLED Plus are richer. Typing on the on-screen QWERTY keyboard feels fine in both portrait and landscape modes, and dialing phone numbers is fast.

The Aviator is a dual-band EV-DO Rev A (800/1900 MHz) and 4G LTE device with 802.11b /g/n Wi-Fi.?Voice quality is a strong point. Reception is solid, and calls sound clear and full in the phone's earpiece. The speakerphone also sounds good and is just loud enough to use outdoors. Calls made with the phone sound clear and easy to understand, with decent noise cancellation. Calls also sounded good and voice dialing worked well over a?Jawbone Era?Bluetooth headset ($129, 4.5 stars). Battery life over 3G was average, at 6 hours and 28 minutes of talk time.

4G LTE
U.S. Cellular was the winner for customer satisfaction in our most recent Readers' Choice survey, and is the seventh-largest carrier in the nation, with about six million customers in 26 states. The carrier roams on Verizon and Sprint, offering nationwide 3G coverage when outside of its native coverage area.

The carrier's new LTE network currently covers six regions: Madison-Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Lawton-Wichita Falls, Texas/Oklahoma; Bangor-Portland and Presque Isle-Houlton, Maine; rural eastern North Carolina; and metropolitan Iowa. While it's the only LTE carrier in Maine right now, at least part of all of those other areas are covered by Verizon's 4G LTE. The carrier plans to expand throughout 2012 and 2013.

We haven't yet tested U.S. Cellular's 4G network, and the carrier isn't quoting speeds publicly. We're expecting fast LTE speeds like the ones we've seen on Verizon, as opposed to the more-like-3G speeds on MetroPCS, because of U.S. Cellular's comfortable spectrum position. That can mean average download speeds around 9.5Mbps, like we saw in our?Fastest Mobile Networks tests.?

4G plans for the Aviator cost the same as 3G plans for U.S. Cellular's other devices; that's a good thing. You can get 450 minutes of voice calls, unlimited texting, and 5GB of 4G data for $79.99 per month. That same plan on Verizon costs $89.99 per month, and you only get 2GB of data (or 4GB, for a limited time). An additional $25 per month allows you to use the Aviator as a mobile hotspot, and share its 4G connection with other devices, like a laptop or tablet, though you're pooling from the same 5GB of data.

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