Samsung Galaxy was the market’s toughest Android phone when it arrived.
The
Galaxy S is now its latest model that we have tested recently.
The biggest highlight is probably the screen. Galaxy S has a
four
inch touch-sensitive Super-AMOLED display with a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels.
In other words, the screen is big and crisp with very bright colors.
It is also bright and works very well in bright sunlight, while
as Super – AMOLED technology ensures that the monitor is not devour
power.
This is one of the coolest clear mobile screens on the market.
Samsung also boasts mobile display technology with Digital Natural
Image Engine. It will provide the extra picture quality.
Screen
With its four-inch screen, it is larger than iPhone 4 which becomes an awesome
competitor on the video front. With Super-AMOLED, Galaxy S also
has brighter colors and better rendering of small, dark contrasts. These are some
clear advantages over the iPhone 4; especially during the film the colors does more vivid than in all
other phones to compare with.
About pixels in Galaxy S, its almost impossible to see with the naked eye.
iPhone 4’s traditional backlit LCD screen makes still with some
sharper screen due to a higher resolution over a
smaller screen. However, it is just something you see when you have two
phones placed side by side.
In addition, the screen of the iPhone share better rendering of white
than
Galaxy S put up. Here we find the white background we see when we
are browsing or reading e-books more than blue, and the color seems a
little
dark. We think it makes it easier to read black on white on the new
iPhone screen compared to the Galaxy S.
Galaxy S is one of the fittest screens on the market. With
four inches it provides the fabulous view, and visibility is good in
sunlight while color reproduction and contrast is
sovereign. The only competitor that is in the same league, however,
makes
with some qualities that exceed Galaxy S, but it is in other words both
ways.
The Galaxy S screen is of the capacitive type, such as mobile
gurus
already taken for granted. This means that it responds to
touch rather than having to press the screen. This gives
better flow experience when using the phone and it feels more
willing to do what you tell it.
It means that you can not use a regular stylus on
screen. However, there is no disadvantage as long as the menus are well
custom sausage fingers, and you rarely feel you need more accurate
tools to meet the right place. In general, Galaxy S is a small
exception, and it is to move the cursor when writing text. This is
we return to.
Large, but thin and light
Samsung Galaxy S measures 12.24 inches in height and is 6.42
centimeters wide, but the measure is only 0.99 inches in depth.
This means that the ports about the same caliber as the HTC HD2.
We think the phone slips easily into your pocket without making too
much out of, and that it is thin, we think its more important than the width of the
pockets and the
height. The fact that a phone with an
impressive
display weighs only 119 grams is very good. Those with smaller hands than the undersigned also thought the little
outgrowth
at the bottom of the back cover making the phone comfortable in the hand.
In front you have two touch-sensitive "keys" to get more options
or go back. Plus, you have a good old-fashioned key in the middle
which acts as the home key in other Android phones. On the right side
there is a power button that is also used to lock the phone
or activate the screen. On the left side there are volume keys.
There are fewer keys than we’re used to, and we know the two deep
losses. Camera key makes it much easier and more convenient to snap photos
than touching the screen. Navigation Keys that allows you to browse
through
back when you type text is useful to go back to edit
text. When you have to press the screen its often an
attempt to hit the right place.
The iPhone has the similar thing as the latter solved by using a
magnification
feature, where you hold your finger against the screen
and move the finger back and forth in the text. Magnification feature displays
clearly where the cursor is located. The Galaxy S has no
software solution that reduces the navigation keys.
Otherwise, both the 3.5 -millimeter mini-phone jack and Micro- USB
for
charging and data placed in the top, and the latter are protected
with a sliding cover that no hole to be filled up with dust and
dirt.
Design
Galaxy S is a top model and that it should be, you do not
annoy over the poor construction quality on a phone you have spent
one thousand patches on. Screen surface is hard, and we can not make
visible scratches on it using a paper clip. So this is one of the
most scratch- safe screen surfaces. Around the screen is a frame in
metal coated in chrome without making too much out of them.
We turn the phone and find a back cover pattern. The back cover
appears as black, but has small dots of dark blue color. At the end there is a layer of transparent plastic material which makes the cover
blank.
The back cover is made of plastic. With a clip, we can
have scratches, but here it would force some to before this happened.
The plastic material thus seems quite durable; yet making choice of materials that the phone appears less exclusive than the HTC
Legend
or Iphone 4 that are known for very good quality feel.
Android 2.1 and 3.0 Touch Wiz
Android from Google is a very popular mobile operating system, while Google has focused hard on making it much
the open and make good development tools for third party developers. It makes a lot of software to be available for your phone, for example, Wimp and Spotify for music playback, a wide range of mobile
games
and much more. It leads to a smaller range of
full games and new applications than what is actually
available for Android.
Samsung has also added its own application store. Currently viewing
we do not have any benefit to the user for this, as there is more to
relate to and Samsung’s own solution is currently very
poor in content.
Android running on a Linux kernel, and on the outside of the Android
OS 2.1,
Samsung has added Touch Wiz 3.0 interface to even be able to control
user experience. This company has been thoroughly worked.
The desktop is different, there are multiple workspaces, you’ll find
your own
Widgets from Samsung and the main menu is changed. In addition, Samsung
added some own programs.
Start screen has four icons at the bottom phone, contacts,
messages and programs. This line can not tailor him.
Otherwise, everything above consists of a desk where you can place
widgets
and shortcuts, and a handy status bar at the top that you can go down to
see details of what new has happened (new text messages, missed
calls, recently installed applications and other).
The biggest difference from Google’s original setup is that you get
seven
works instead of five. We ended up using three of these
before we felt that we did not need quick access to anything more, so
seven
works we think is getting unnecessarily.
To scroll between workspace its done by dragging your finger
horizontally
across the screen. Samsung has also added a series of dots that show
which workspace you are on, and you can also choose Workspace
faster by clicking on them.
The main menu has some different icons than is standard in
Android, with a frame around the image that makes it all seem neater. Scroll right to find more programs, and icons are
placed over as many screens as needed to accommodate all
applications. It seems we are also somewhat more orderly than on a
mobile
old-continuous vertical list.
Overall, we believe that the Touch Wiz 3.0 is a pleasant addition to
Android OS 2.1. After opening the phone login as root (popularly
called the root phone) you can however go back door to get a clean
Android installation if you are among those particularly interested.
Android also sets a number of clever features, like good
ability to copy and paste text, the ability to mark
more stuff to delete or send files and much more. All this is
readily available. We also appreciate that the back button works
across applications.
Some illogical choices
Galaxy S is user friendly in many ways. It is easy to find the most of the menus, but some things can be a bit hard to find
up to the options menu. Why is such
USB settings you use to select USB mode under the "if
phone"? And why is the reset of the phone under "about
phone" and "private"?
It may also be a bit cumbersome for new users to become familiar with
using menu key or hold on icons to bring up more options,
and not at least understand the difference between these variants.
In addition, there may be a bit difficult to use the phone in
horizontal
mode sometimes, a problem that concerns the Android 2.1 and
specifically Galaxy S. To enter information open, in many cases, namely, a separate text program that allows the entire
screen
covered by a keyboard and a line of text. The only way to confirm and
get rid of the keyboard is to use the confirm button at the bottom
right.
Problems arise when, for example setting up a new
e-mail account. We chose manual setup. When you press the top
text box you will enter this data into itsown program. At first
field, we got the "username", and after confirming this, we
directly went to the next box where it says "password". By verifying it
gets to "143" without any forwarding what the phone is out. In this
case, its the port number. At the next election we get the "optional"-
again without getting to know what to write in this box.
To get rid of the keyboard you must press your way through all these
boxes.
When you set up the Android Market you will be asked to enter
the letters you see in the image (called a Captcha box), which is a
security feature that allows the robots which will not be able to hack your
account. But when you press box to write letters in,
clear picture. In other words, memorize it before you press
text box.
A solution to all this is to flip the phone to portrait mode, where
you are at all times even see what is "behind" the keyboard, and have
the opportunity
to press there to hide the keyboard without automatically verifying that
you have written.
In the box you will find:
- Mobile phone
- Battery
- Earphones with Microphone
- Chargers
- USB cable
- User Guide
Technology and Features
Galaxy S is a top model with Android, and there is nothing more than
to
expect that the phone has a full specification list.
The fastest way to surf the net is via local wireless networks,
and the phone supports the general DLNA which makes it possible to share
multimedia library with other devices on the same network. Bluetooth in version 3.0 ensures that you can transfer files very
fast wirelessly. The technology makes it set up as
ad-hoc Wi-Fi connectivity to other devices that support Bluetooth 3.0
and
thus the Wi-Fi.
However, the Bluetooth feature is a little weird. You can not activate
visibility for more than 120 seconds, and the photos you take with the
camera is
not visible when you navigate on your phone via Bluetooth on your PC.
You can not choose to make the visible, so you normally can on
Samsung phones that have this strange solution.
The Android 2.1, however, may send files to other
Bluetooth devices which has been a loss in older versions of Android. The mobile network has the maximum speed of 7.2 Mbps with HSDPA (super
3G), and HSUPA (top speed) is 5.76 Mbps. Edge Class 12 provides the best
possible speed when outside 3G coverage. All the most common frequencies in GSM and HSPA are supported, so you
can
use the phone just about anywhere in the world.
There is a version of the Galaxy S with 8 GB of storage and one with
16
GB. Our sample set with 8 GB, which allows the phone to accommodate
a lot of music, film and photos. Memory type Micro -SD supported
in up to 32 GB. Due to working memory is 512 MB, which should be sufficient for the
most tasks.
Androids multitasking works so that the programs save their
position, but really do not use the processing power to run in
background. This allows large working memory comes into its own.
Some programs insist on background running, and it applies usually the programs that actually need to run in the background. For
example, the music player (whether it is Spotify, Wimp
or MP3 player) will not stop when you surf the Internet.
Galaxy S sets with a 1 GHz processor on the type of ARM Cortex 8.
The response is too fast in the menus, and we do not experience annoying
waiting time
far too often. It ‘s still the phone Lugger bit, especially when
you enter various setting menus and out of them. In browser, it
picks a bit before the page is finished loading.
Iphone 4 must be said to be seen more quickly.
Good for traditional cellular functions
For text input you can choose between QWERTY keyboard, mobile keyboard (3 x 4) and two different handwriting boxes. All keyboards solution works well, and the usual XT9 dictionary provides
the phone is very good at guess what word you are write when you miss the keyboard, and it is easy to choose which of
words you think after you have entered the word finished. If you press
space after having written the word, select the phone that word it
thinks
you try to write.
In addition, Galaxy S Swype keyboard solution lets you go
finger from letter to letter to form words. This works
brilliant. Writing text messages is thus instantly away, and many keyboards solutions make the phone flexible for different users.
Galaxy S also has a quick-text feature, which lets you enter
text and then choose whether to send the message or to use as
status update on Facebook.
An even more traditional function of a cell phone is of course to
call. Here’s a quick call feature that allows you to enter
phone number or pressing a part of the name directly on
phone keypad that appears on the screen. When you want to call Anderson you can
write 263 for ‘and’, and the name Anderson appear. We believe
this is the quickest way to call contacts in your list.
Phone Book syncs with Facebook if you want it, and the phone
also obtains the profile pictures from friends Dines Facebook profiles.
The most of this happens automatically, and the solution is practical
without the need
to spend some more time on the layout than to enter the user name and
password on Facebook.
Social Hub is a program that will make it easier to find Facebook
and Twitter, but is really just a shortcut to the mobile versions of
these
browsers. However, there are other clients on the Android Market that
make utility.
Google Talk is also in place and is a good and cheaper alternative
to text messages. Some MSN (Live) Messenger client is not
to find without taking a stroll on the market.
The sound quality is impeccable, but the volume during calls is
not higher than that we had to have it at the highest volume to hear recipient good. Otherwise the sound is spacious and lifelike in both ends.
Battery
The battery in the Galaxy S holds a charge of 1500 mAh, which is
more
than in most of today’s phones. And even if the screen is very
big it consumes so much of power because of the
energy-efficient Super-AMOLED technology. We made us closer to a
couple of days of moderate use of Galaxy S, including some surfing;
download from the Android Market, playback, and automatic check of e-mail.
Galaxy S is also a very handy battery meter that shows you exactly
what you have used the power of the various elements of the phone.
With brightness at full, less than three minutes surfing the super-3G, two
and a half minutes into conversation, a couple of minutes of video from
Youtube
both the super-3G and Wi-Fi, plus 10 minutes of sleep without screen
light used, the phone consumes 51 percent of power on display, 36 percent
voice call, 5 per cent on mobile net connection, 3 percent
Android system, 2 per cent on the internet and 2 percent on Bluetooth.
This can be very useful information if you want to get the battery
to last as long as possible.
Good for web browsing
The browser in the Galaxy S is the same as in other Android phones.
This is known to be fast, clear and easy to use. Rendering
of the web pages (fit to screen) appears instantly and Galaxy S loads
pages as fast as some other new phones in the range of phones
is known for having fast web browser.
However, you must look Galaxy S on the user experience
browser in relation to Apple’s Safari. The Iphone 4 goes notch freely
navigate while pages load. The Galaxy S is a little choppy, but fortunately, with no stops noticeably up. When the page is loaded it ends
what to pick, so it’s very big drawback is that it is not. But a small
negative impact in terms of user experience in iPhone 4, we must say
that it is.
Galaxy S has Flash version Flash Lite 3.1. This is
though not full Flash support, so you will have the Android 2.2
when it comes, and that means that there are all the videos and
animations are supported. Iphone, on his side, does not have Flash support
in all. That means you can use Galaxy S to watch videos in many
of sites that do such things, and you can surf the typical
manufacturer pages that often codes a large part of their website in
Flash.
Advertising is also displayed correctly.
Two e-mail variants
In Android 2.1, there are two email programs: one for Google’s
Gmail and
one for everything else you possess your e-mail accounts. Google has
push functionality that allows you to choose to receive e-mail at the moment the sender drops it.
The survey in both e-mail readers are good, and all the usual tasks
that
to mark as unread, forwarding and sharing is easy to do.
E-mail clearly marks as read or unread.
E-mail in HTML format is displayed directly in the e-mail reader,
and images,
Office documents and PDF files can be opened in separate programs.
You also have the opportunity to search for e-mail in both e-mail
readers,
change the Samsung calls "e-mail check frequency" and you can change
signature "Sent from a Samsung Mobile" to your own.
Office Package is included
ThinkFree Office is a document processor for Word, Excel and
Powerpoint documents. With this office suite, you can both see and
process the documents. It all works very well, and you have a
large number of features available in a very transparent
screen. Multi-Touch works in an office suite, and it all works, in short, very elaborate.
The calendar makes as usual in Android usefulness for most users.
It’s easy to activate the reminder and you get a good overview of
appointments. You can also differentiate between work and private. What
we miss
are able to share deals with others, for example, by calling
the meeting or when you create an "event" you want to share on
Facebook.
The calendar syncs seamlessly with Gcal or Exchange, and in
Android 2.1, this happens seamlessly. A voice recorder lets you talk in the way of things to remember, and
can
be practical when you need to remember that the red wire to the
top left and the blue in the middle right. The audio file can
play later when you need it, and the sound quality here is
impeccable. Stopwatch and countdown tucked under the "clock" in the menu,
with alarm. A simple note pad is in place, as well as
calculator and calendar.
Some slightly less common features is the e-book readers and
diary function. The former acts as a virtual bookshelf where you
set up your books, and select single book by clicking on it.
E-book readers remember the page number you last have looked at. You
have
also have access to download a wealth of books, and many
classics are absolutely free.
Diary feature allows you to insert text and images on a particular
date, and can also obtain weather information from wherever you are. You
can
for example, create a weather diary with thumbnail views and information
about
weather every day, or you can lead a normal diary. Each entry in
this can be published through Facebook or MySpace by using two
keystrokes.
GPS with turn-by-turn
Shortly we will be cheated for Android
Markets;
many applications will be paid for impressions. The road works behind
wheel of Google Maps. Everything is clear in Google Maps, but Google has
not opened the function in this country. This means that you only get one
error message if you try on this form of navigation, which by the
way
is accessible only by adding a shortcut to the desktop
or use the voice feature to "open navigation".
Instead you have to settle for listing based driving directions. In
addition,
you normally see on Google Maps where you are as well as
search for addresses and points of interest. In addition, you can search
for
business. Looking for XXL, you get all of them on a map.
Very handy and it means we miss the navigation even more.
The pre-installed program Layar allows you to easily find
points of interest around using what we call extended
Reality (Augmented Reality). We just have to choose, for example, "Cash" and point the camera around you to see in which direction and
how
far as to each and every one of the nearest ATMs. You can also
select the maximum distance by how far you can bear to go for an ATM.
Galaxy S has many professional
features of care, but there is no
doubt that there are multiple media heads that will consider Galaxy S. Mostly because of the four-inch Super-sized AMOLED screen that should
be
own good to the Film.
And there is no doubt that it does. The screen has a very
impressive color sharpness, and is also high-resolution enough for whom
any time will let him impress.
Another great advantage of AMOLED display is a good contrast,
especially in dark areas of the image.
To say what it is: now you can actually enjoy great movies
tram, train, plane and toilet. Do you have Galaxy S with a good movie
you get a good movie experience. The best we’ve ever seen in a
cell phone anyway.
But! Yes, there is actually a but, and with an exclamation point to
and including:
The Samsung has often been very good at; they have not been so good at
this time. There are a ton of file types for video out there.
Some are simply containers for other types of audio and video formats.
Even if you
download DivX on Galaxy S, initially
DivX support just formats container contains. And it
is just too hard to find something that Galaxy S actually playing.
Here you must simply in most cases to convert videos
first. It is sad when the phone has such good film properties that have to
be plagued with the conversion before you start.
Entertainment
Galaxy S has no included games, but it’s not a big
point for us to pick on this. Android Market has lots of
games, and we’ve played for hours on Android and the iPhone unless we
have
become bored. It must be demonstrated to play tired of all the Android
Market has to offer, even if you currently have access only to
free games.
Youtube is pre-installed, so you can see movie clips while you
are on the go.
The music does not fails in Galaxy S. Compared to a good sound card, Galaxy
S is a bit less lively in the Denon AH- C751, but play
else with a good range of sound and good detail. All the instruments sound realistic out, and the sound seems
balanced.
Cymbals are not too sharp and cutting, and no matter how
strong drummer beats going the other instruments well ahead
sound. Bass reproduction is good down to the deepest notes of the
contra bass, and it sounds natural while the rest of the band doing
her.
In all, Galaxy S is ok for music, but a bit more lively
tones and a little more room between them had not been to despise. For the enthusiast, it may be an advantage if the Galaxy S can play
the flac file extension.
Camera
The camera in Galaxy S flips in five megapixel resolution.
The picture quality you end up with does not imply that the camera is
somewhat better than other camera phones to a much less price.
In labs, you get a light gray glow over the images and image noise
distinguished relatively much. Galaxy S do not stipulate with some flash, giving you no good in the pictures from the Galaxy S.
Photos taken outdoors are very thing. Here the detail reproduction and color reproduction is quite OK, and image noise
at ISO
100 is a completely acceptable level in the mobile camera context. We
also appreciate the focus on the possibilities. You can choose to focus
in the middle,
or you can tap a point on the screen to focus on what
is in marked area. In addition, the phone automatically
focuses on faces in the picture. By default, change the phone also light
reception according to the image you are focusing.
In addition, there is much other possible adjustment to appreciate.
For example you can adjust the ISO manually activate the self-timer,
adjust the white balance according to the normal type of light, choose
where to light meter
measure, activate anti-shake function, enabling instant recognition
that
warns you if your subject blinked in the photo was taken and adjust
contrast, saturation and sharpness.
The camera part in Galaxy S has no challenge to such Iphone
4, although it has not as many setting options.
It is not to slide under a chair that a number of
Android phones have cameras set with poorer than this, because
manufacturers simply do not have sticky this in any great degree yet. Today it is only Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 taking
better images of the Android phones.
Video feature is good, and the video quality is quite impeccable. It
is fast to adapt to different lighting conditions and the picks are not
in full resolution, which is 1280 x 720 pixels.
Technical Specification
- Network: HSUPA 900/1900/2100, EDGE/GPRS 850/ 900/1800/1900
- Dimension: 64.2 X 122.4 X 9.9 mm (119g)
- Display: 4.0” WVGA(480×800) 16M SUPER AMOLED, mDNIe(Mobile Digital Natural Image engine)
- Samsung Android 2.1 (Eclair)
- Social Hub: Integrates SNS, email, and calendar accounts
- Android Samsung UI: Multiple Homescreens, Hybrid Widgets
- Processor: 1GHz CPU Speed
- Battery (Standard) Li-pol, 1,500mAh: Talk time : 2G/769 minutes, 3G/391 minutes; Standby : 2G/750 hours, 3G/625 hours
- Camera: 5.0 Megapixel AF camera
- Video: HD Video Player & Recorder (1280 x 720) @ 30fps, codec: DivX, XviD, MPEG4, H.263, H.264, WMV, VC-1, format: 3gp(mp4), AVI(divx), MKV, FLV, H.263Sorenson
- Music: Music Player with SoundAlive, 3.5mm Ear Jack, MP3/AAC/AAC+/eAAC+/OGG/WMA/AMR-NB/AMR-WB/WAV/MID/AC3/IMY/FLAC/XMF
- Memory: 16GB/8GB+ MicroSD(Up to 32GB)
- Android Browser: Flash Lite3.1, RSS reader
- Multi-touch zoom
- Light sensor: Accelerometer sensor, Proximity Sensor, Digital Compass
- Additional Features: Layar Reality Browser powered by Tele Atlas, Swype, Write & Go, ThinkFree, Aldiko e-book
Conclusion
Galaxy S is Samsung’s new Android flagship. It impresses with a
four inch big screen with Super-AMOLED technology. It allows
monitor low power consumption while also impresses with stunning
color reproduction and contrast. The screen size makes the phone a bit wider and longer than
average. In return, it weighs little and is just below
centimeters thick. Quality feeling is quite straightforward, although
plastic cover on the back does not feel as exclusive as the Iphone 4s
surface of tempered glass.
The good screen makes the Galaxy S very enjoyable to watch movies
on,
and the movie experience is the best we have so far in a mobile phone.
Galaxy S
can simply give you a quality movie experience anywhere. Sound quality is also good in the film as well as music. You have
some
livelier sound in the best music phones, but in all, Galaxy
S delivers a wide soundstage with good reproduction of all instruments including
the deepest bass tones.
DLNA support means you can share media files with others
compatible devices in the wireless network.
The camera is okay, but nothing more than that. Pictures taken
outdoors get good color and relatively good detail. In pictures
taken in normal indoor lighting is, however, noise is very evident.
The camera has no flash which can overcome the weak
light sensitivity.
It is therefore primarily on multimedia page Galaxy S tries to
attract customers. Yet it has plenty of professional features, such
as full Office support, and Exchange synchronization.
The browser is fast and easy to use, and the same can be said about
the most other functions on the phone. With a 1 GHz processor Snapdragon
is the fastest in the twists and turns, but a little fuss with the
software allows
phone lugger little in between anyway. Iphone 4 and HTC Desire feel
often, a little faster.
Galaxy S, on the other hand, has the Flash support so you can watch the
video
and surf the web pages created in Flash, unlike the Iphone. With all
one can require fast data technologies as well as wireless
network, Super 3G high-speed, Edge; Galaxy S is a very good
browse phone.
Android 2.1 operating system with Touch Wiz UI
3.0 on top makes the phone both user friendly and feature-packed on one
time. Nevertheless, there are some things that are a bit illogical that
allows
it requires some adaptation before you can dance elegantly around the
menus.
For example, it is often difficult to use the phone in widescreen
for some tasks where the keyboard is used. Some settings
are also a little illogical placed.
In all, however, Android appears to be very user friendly in
terms
the functionality you get. You can copy and paste what
time, run multiple tasks at once seamless and most are very
intuitive set up. We also appreciate the opportunities for
widgets (widgets) to your desktop.
Galaxy S lies at a price well below what one would expect Iphone 4 ports. Meanwhile, Galaxy S a very perfect mobile phone with
all the features and capabilities that an advanced user requires, while
as it is relatively easy to understand on.
Nevertheless, there is a small number of things the strongest
competitor,
Iphone 4 is better. It feels faster, material options allow the
feels more exclusive out, the camera is better and the App Store gives
preliminary
better content. We also believe Iphone 4 is slightly ahead of
ease, while the Galaxy S thrones on the function side.
Do you think the price of the Galaxy S is little in the highest layer;
you should look at HTC
Desire. It has a slightly lower screen and worse camera, but
cost nearly a thousand less than the patch Galaxy S. Sony
Ericsson
Xperia X10 Android is a phone with better camera and is
worth a look about mobile photography is important to you.
