Samsung Galaxy S Review

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Here is the Samsung Galaxy S Review where we take a look at the Android Phone from Samsung with a Huge 4 inch SuperAMOLED Display , 1GHz CPU , 5 MP Camera , HD Video Recording and a lot more.

Samsung Galaxy S - Design and Build:

The Samsung Galaxy S is a monoblock touchscreen phone and measures in at 122.4*64.2*9.9mm. A glance at the measurements and you know this phone is sleek. While the handset is wider and taller than most touchscreens, it is not too large for a phone with a 4” screen. The phone weighs in at 119 grams which is quite light considering all the stuff fitted into the phone.

The main reason for it being so light is that there are no metal parts used for the phone. Everything is glossy plastic. The battery cover, the front surface etc. But the build quality of the phone is not compromised due to the use of plastic.

The phone is basically black in colour. The battery cover however has a unique dotted pattern in blue. This gives the phone a trendy look however it’s done in a way that it’s not too flashy. The phone is a fingerprint magnet as in the case of any touchscreen phone. There have been rumours about a white version of the Samsung Galaxy S making its way into the markets.

Samsung Galaxy S - Screen:

The screen is definitely the best thing about the Samsung Galaxy S. The 4” Super AMOLED screen with capacitive technology is a treat just to look at. It displays upto 16 million colours and has a resolution of 480x800 pixels. The sheer contrast and brightness of the screen will amaze you. The only other screen that can be compared is the retina display of the Apple iPhone 4. All the other screens just can’t compete.

An accelerometer takes care of the auto-rotations. Multi-touch inputs are supported. The proximity sensor turns the display on/off during calls. The sensitivity of the screen is brilliant and the slightest of touches are recognised. The sunlight legibility is very good thanks to the Super AMOLED technology due to the reduced glare and increase in brightness.. The viewing angles are also great.

Samsung Galaxy S - Keys and Controls:

On the front, the three keys on the bottom are the touch sensitive menu and back/return keys which are on either side of the Home button. All three buttons have good feedback and sensitivity. The one thing missing on the right side is the camera shutter key and this is one disadvantage about the Samsung Galaxy S.

We feel the volume keys could have been slightly more raised rather than making it flush into the casing. The 3.5mm Jack and the micro-USB port are situated on top. The micro-USB port is protected by a neat sliding plastic cover while the 3.5mm jack remains uncovered.

Samsung Galaxy S - Calls:

The reception on the Samsung Galaxy S is brilliant. No issues with the coverage was noticed. The earpiece has good audio quality with very little or minimal distortion. Loudness to is sufficient for most cases but can be a bit feeble in very noisy surroundings such as places with loud music etc.

The keypad used for dialling is large and quite user friendly. Smart dial helps you to make calls easily by giving you suggestions according to your input just like search boxes do. The proximity sensor turns off the display when you hold it next to your ear thus eliminating inputs by mistake and also help to save battery life.


Samsung Galaxy S - Messaging:

The messaging application organises your messages into threads which are separated on the basis of the person to whom you send or receive the text from. We feel the thread system keeps messages more organised and makes it easier to search for messages.

Messages can be entered using the virtual QWERTY keyboard which is available both in portrait as well as landscape modes. Swype helps you to type quicker by eliminating the need to take your fingers off the screen.

Samsung Galaxy S - Connectivity and Memory:

As with most smartphones available today, the Samsung Galaxy S is equipped with every connectivity feature in the book. The vast connectivity options include GPRS, Wi-Fi, EDGE, 3G, HSDPA, micro-USB and Bluetooth 3.0. It is one of the first phones to sport the new version of Bluetooth which gives faster transfer rates and more coverage while consuming lesser battery life. The micro-USB transfer rates are very fast and files of big capacities were copied easily without hesitations.

There are two models of the Samsung Galaxy S which provide either 8GB or 16GB of internal memory. The memory can be expanded further by an additional 32GB using the micro-SD card slot. The phone also has 512MB of RAM and 2GB of ROM.

Samsung Galaxy S - Music:

The Samsung Galaxy S does extremely well in the music department both in terms of hardware as well as software. The loudspeaker on the device is brilliant in terms of the quality of output. There is little distortion even at maximum volume. But the loudness isn’t at the top of the charts. The only let down is that location of the speaker. You also get various other tweaks and options such as the 5.1 surround effect, the equalizers and sound effects.

The music player is also brilliant. It is not the usual one that comes on other Android devices but a version that has been tweaked by Samsung and it will take your breath away.

Samsung Galaxy S - Video:

The Samsung Galaxy S supports every format that you put into it be it mp4, wmv, DivX, XviD, mkv etc. Although bigger mkv files might not be recognised at times. It is the only Android powered handset to support so many formats and together with it’s massive 4” Super AMOLED screen, you could keep watching videos on it forever.

We even managed to play HD Ready 1280*720 pixels videos on the phone and it should come as no surprise given the fact that it has HD Ready Video Recording.

Samsung Galaxy S - Imaging and Video Recording:

The Samsung Galaxy S is equipped with a 5 Megapixel camera with Auto-focus, Touch-focus, smile and face detection and Geo-tagging. Surprisingly the camera does not come with a flash, not even an LED flash. This is one of the very few drawbacks of the device.

While we are fine with the resolution of the camera, the image quality is poorer than we expected. The lack of a flash aggravates the situation. Night time photography is out of the question. But during daytime, it does the job.

Video recording on the other hand is quite good. It offers HD Ready 1280*720 pixels video recording at 30 fps (Frames per second).  The video quality is one of the best that can be found on handsets currently .

Samsung Galaxy S - Battery Life:

The Samsung Galaxy S is equipped with a massive 1500 mAh Battery.  Samsung claims it to have a standby time of 750 hours using 2G and 576 hours using 3G. Talk time is rated at 13 hours 30 minutes on 2G and 6 hours 30 minutes on 3G.

In reality too the Samsung Galaxy S has great battery life. It exceeded our expectations. You could get 2 days of battery life easily even with heavy usage. We tried everything from music, videos, camera, applications, web browsing etc when we got it and the battery still lasted around 1 and half days which is very good for current high-end phones.

Samsung Galaxy S - OS and UI:

The phone runs on Android 2.1 OS with a Samsung  Touch Wiz 3.0 UI. The default Android Live Wallpapers are available and there are also a few from Samsung. The 7 Home screens are customizable with Widgets – Samsung and Android. You can choose from up to 4 Fonts. We liked the Default Font the most. You can download access apps from Samsung Apps and the Android  market.

Samsung Galaxy S - Browser:

The browser is similar to the stock Android browser with minor tweaks. You can browse up to 8 Windows at a time. There is Tap-to-zoom and Multi-touch, although not a smooth as on the iPhone it is certainly usable. Pages load pretty fast and the huge display makes reading a pleasurable experience.

Conclusion:

Samsung Galaxy S has turned out to be what we feel is the best Android phone in the market. Its good as a business phone, a multimedia phone etc. It does have a few drawbacks but maybe just one major drawback and no phone is perfect anyway. The only department where it needs quite a big improvement is imaging. It rocks in every other department.

Anyway we feel that this phone will be worth every cent you spend and you’ll love it.

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