Smartphone Review: Samsung Galaxy S

Shooting to a promising start

THE Samsung Galaxy S looks like the Apple iPhone. It has a curved back, a silver lining around the screen, and rounded squares framing each icon on the app pages.

But this Android 2.1 device can hold its own against the competition.

For starters, it's fast. The capacitive display is very responsive, and apps launch with minimal delay. Though there's a slight lag when loading photos, it still feels zippier than some other Android phones running on a 1GHz processor. At 9.9mm and 119g, the Galaxy S feels really light, too.

Though its huge four-inch screen means you need big hands to be able to hold it comfortably and deep pockets to tug it away snugly, it does improve the typing and web-surfing experience. The Super AMOLED display is gorgeous - sharper and brighter than other screens I have encountered.

Besides the roomy 16GB internal memory, most of the other specs for the Galaxy are standard smartphone fare - a 5-megapixel autofocus camera that can capture high-definition 720p videos and a microSD card slot (supports up to 32GB).

Samsung has made an effort in customising the Android OS for the Galaxy S. Besides the usual tweaks to the onscreen keyboard and adding icons for various connectivity options to turn them on and off easily, it has included things like the Daily Briefing feature. This compiles weather information from AccuWeather.com, AP Mobile news, stocks from Yahoo! Finance and the phone calendar. You can add a widget to one of the seven home screens to see all these updates at a glance. But the lack of customisation is disappointing - you cannot change or add any other service provider for these information.

Your communication with each person via various channels such as Facebook, email and SMS, as well as their social media updates, are integrated in the phonebook. A useful feature is the built-in Swype text input service, which allows you to glide your fingers across the keyboard instead of typing. It made messaging on the onscreen keyboard more fun and less frustrating.

One gripe about this handset is that the proximity sensor doesn't seem to work very well - there are buttons like "mute" onscreen when a call is in progress, and I have accidentally ended or muted a conversation more than once.

The phone comes preloaded with quite a few apps. Besides the usual Google ones like YouTube and Gmail, there is ThinkFree for editing and viewing Microsoft Office documents, a pretty ebook app called Aldiko and a file manager, among others.

The Galaxy's battery life fared well in tests - it lasted right about 15 hours when I had WiFi and Bluetooth on, music playing on loop, push mail and a Twitter client updating feeds in the background. The phone had enough juice to keep going for an impressive 24 hours with normal use - I left the WiFi on, surfed the web and posted status updates on social networks, on top of the usual calling and messaging.

The Samsung Galaxy S is available exclusively from SingTel at $0 to $768 with contract, depending on the type of plan. MAY CHUA


Smartphone Review: Samsung Galaxy S
by May Chua
05:55 AM Jul 02, 2010

http://www.todayonline.com/Tech/Techreviews/EDC100702-0000046/Shooting-to-a-promising-start

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Samsung Galaxy S i9000

Samsung Galaxy S i9000 - Take Me To Your Leader
Reviewed by Luke Tan on Mon, 07 Jun 2010 Share
Overview
A Year in the Making

What a difference a year makes, eh? We've watched Android grow up into the new darling of the smartphone world. Many mobile phone manufacturers have realized that Google's mobile OS is currently their best weapon for doing battle against Apple's iPhone, and with Android 2.1 maturing into a robust base on which to build, quite a few "superphones" have arisen with the power to successfully strike right into opposing territory.

For one of the world's top phone makers, Samsung seems to have taken more hits than it should have during this time. Its only Android offering thus far to actually be sold on our shores is the Galaxy Spica i5700 - and that was a much lower-specced device, coming as it did with the outdated Android 1.5 Cupcake incarnation. Meanwhile, other top-tier manufacturers have played their royal flush: HTC with its Desire (and the Nexus One for Google itself), Sony Ericsson's XPERIA X10, and Motorola's Milestone. But the Korean giant has responded with one who would rule them all: the Samsung Galaxy S i9000, with its 4-inch Super AMOLED display and the range-topping homegrown 1GHz processor, instantly making it king of the smartphone hill, at least on paper. Could there possibly exist a chink in its armor? Let's turn the page to find out...

More available at http://www.hardwarezone.com/product-guide/view/20283/review/43433

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Samsung Galaxy S smartphone

Galaxy shows there’s life outside the iPhone

MY PREVIOUS experience with Samsung smartphones was less than impressive.

Hence, I had a real surprise when I powered up the Galaxy S and saw the super-sharp Amoled 4-inch screen, which is better than any I have seen on other smartphones.

Images are bright and clear. More importantly, the Galaxy responds in a zip and everything works most expeditiously.

This Android 2.1 smartphone has a 1GHz processor and highdefinition (1280x720) video playback and recording functions.

Video-playback formats supported include AVI, and  WMV with TV-out connectivity.

iPhone users may want to check out this phone, as there is certainly life outside the iPhone universe.

How much: This is a SingTelexclusive device. Prices start from $0, depending on data plan. There is currently no unbundled price.

http://myepaper.mypaper.sg/ebook/web_php/System/Zoom_In/Zoom_In_Page.html

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