Overview/Intro
The Android marketplace has grown exponentially over the past year, and this onslaught has been an amazing deal attributed to the barrage of devices from hardware groups worldwide. Samsung has secured itself as one of the essential players inside the Android tool marketplace, preventing head-on with cellular phone giants HTC and Motorola. With a slew of astounding pinnacle rate cellular merchandise below its belt that includes the immoderate-quit Samsung Galaxy S phone and the 7-inch tablet Samsung Galaxy Tab, the Korean electronics monolith crashes the low-surrender Android birthday party with a new get right of entry to stage touchscreen cellphone – the Samsung Galaxy 5.
This little Galaxy five runs Android OS v2.1 (Eclair). Shame that it isn’t the masses who predicted Froyo yet; however, absolutely a step up from v1.6 (Donut) being provided, utilizing some to be had in the marketplace. This places it head-on with the Motorola Citrus, Sony XPERIA X8/X10, LG GT540 Optimus, and HTC Tattoo. For a sub-USD200 (SRP: RM699) tool, it packs pretty a buffet of functions. This begs the question – is there this form of an element as “cheap and pleased”? Read on.
At first glance, the Galaxy 5 appears strikingly just like Samsung’s very own Corby, except for the extra four hardware shortcut buttons at the lowest. It’s tiny sufficient to healthy in the palm of your hand and at a scant 102g, very mild, too. The outside is easy plastic and ordinary the cell phone does experience reasonably-priced. Having stated that, it’s miles quite excellent and comfy to keep and convey round. A three.5mm audio jack is protected at the top as well known, and the issue left includes hardware extent buttons and a miniUSB port. At the lower again is a 2MP virtual camera lens sans flash. To get right to entry to the MicroSD slot, you can need to put off the again cover. Be cautious not to interrupt your fingernails. A 2GB microSD card is included as widespread (upgradeable to 16GB).
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Display
The screen is a 2.8″ QVGA TFT LCD capacitive touchscreen display supplying 240 x 320 resolution. Possibly the smallest screen on an Android smartphone, similar to the Sony XPERIA X10 mini. For Android enthusiasts, you may be disenchanted as there’s no guide for multitouch. However, it does include Samsung’s Live wallpapers out of the container. Boo. The show screen’s quality is not a lot to shout about even though it is decently sharp and vibrant sufficient, and for the fee, a step up from resistive touchscreens on some competing merchandise.
Having a small display on a hint device can be demanding, particularly in typing on the touchscreen keyboard. In portrait mode, the keyboard feels really cramped. Typing the QWERTY in portrait may be blunders-laden (perhaps because of my fast fingers). This can be remedied in panorama mode, thankfully, in which the keys are higher spaced out. Users have a choice to use Swype for textual content access. This is pretty progressive for the 3×4 keyboard. I find the touchscreen responsive if errors-ridden with unintended touches. This is not the smartphone’s fault in step with use, greater so because of a few UI quirks of the Android OS.
Features
Whether it is constructing automobiles or electronics, the Koreans virtually apprehend how to play the fee activity. The Galaxy five is not specific and is virtually filled with capabilities. Everything you want on a smartphone is pretty a good deal served at the plate. Zippy 600MHz processor powers the device. You get immoderate tempo 2.5G (850/900/1800/1900 Mhz) & 3G get right of access to with HSDPA (as much as 7.2Mbps), Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g and Bluetooth v2.1, accelerometer, 2MP consistent recognition camera which supports video recording, FM radio, 170MB inner memory with 2GB microSD (up to 16GB supported) and A-GPS.
The cell telephone comes bundled with Samsung’s very private TouchWiz interface and Swype (Samsung’s ultrafast textual content input feature), now not forgetting Samsung’s Social Hub software first seen on its large brother, the Galaxy S. It’s moreover armed with an HTML5 browser, an augmented truth app from Layar, assist for MPEG4, H.263 and H.264 video codecs, and Samsung’s AllShare platform which lets in for clean sharing of media throughout a complete variety of DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance)-certified Samsung gadgets like notebooks and TVs. You can even use the Galaxy five as a remote on your Samsung TV or PC. Nifty.
Performance
Before I even changed into the smartphone, I backed up my contacts/calendars from my previous mobile smartphone and Mac, then synced to Google. I hooked up the loose doubleTwist laptop app to address all media syncing on my Mac. DoubleTwist may be very much like iTunes or even connects to the Android Market. Pay $1.Ninety-nine pinnacle charge and you also get wi-fi syncing through something are called AirSync. You’ll be able to download no longer only unfastened and paid apps; however, podcasts (restrained, but even though) and purchase the tune from AmazonMP3.
Syncing is especially trouble-free with doubleTwist, and it even recognizes iTunes playlists. One of the first subjects I did when I was given the cellphone became deployed some of my preferred apps – Twitter, Tweetdeck, Facebook, Opera Mini, WhatsApp, Foursquare, and Angry Birds thru the bundled Android Market app. I set up Advanced Task Killer to free up reminiscence manually, as I anticipated the inadequacies of the 170MB base reminiscence. Downloading and installation are seamless and problem-unfastened.
Having used it as my number one smartphone for the beyond 4 days, I’ve located the cellular telephone commonly splendid and intuitive to apply if a piece is sluggish. The 600Mhz processor copes quite well in fashionable. It’s no sprint queen for positive, and might now and then choke and leg even as switching and taking walks multiple apps. Typing has an exquisite lag, and scrolling through a long contact listing can also take time. There had been instances in which the display screen is pitch black for 15-20 seconds even as the processor attempts to deal with the weight of switching in between apps. Without a committed GPU, it additionally struggles with a few games together with Angry Birds.
One major rant might be battery life. While scouring Android boards, I examine customers getting 2-3 days battery lifestyles. Very ambitious, ambitious claims. No such luck with mine. With 3G on and everything else pretty tons off, the Galaxy’s correct for six-7 hours tops in advance than I need to plugin. I constantly have a cable with me, actually, in case. I’m no longer high-quality if this is restricted to my assessment unit, but I’m some distance from inspired. Turning off 3G and walking best on EDGE gave me barely extra mileage. I’ve saved walking apps to a minimum or maybe tweaked show brightness, historic beyond information (syncing), and notifications. Tasks embody minimum voice calls, tweeting, SMS-ing, and messaging through WhatsApp and occasional check on Facebook. A penalty for multitasking? Something to reflect consideration on.
Apps-sensible, the whole thing you want to get began is already pre-cooked up – Messaging, Calendar, Write and Go (textual content editor), Maps, Browser, Clock, Email, Music, Gmail, YouTube, Talk (IM), Calculator, Camera, and Market. Setting up area email and Gmail money owed become quite painless. Being a very ‘social’ cell telephone, contacts lists are unified with your Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, and something you have legal it to sync to. I do apprehend the unified-sync-to-the-cloud-kind-component and the capacity to reveal/no longer show contacts primarily based on your choice.
The 2MP digicam isn’t always something to shout approximately. No autofocus, no flash. Teleports my lower back to antique feature cellphone days. It’s an excellent digital camera, even though it just does not anticipate award-triumphing snapshots. Forget about taking pictures in low light conditions, as with most if now not all cameras with the comparable spec, susceptible to primary noise and distortion. Audio excellent is above average and reassuringly loud—no complaints about call excellent and reception.
Summary
All in all, the Galaxy five is a small, mild-weight, and cheap entry-degree Android mobile phone. If you could get bypass the small, restrictive display screen and slightly sluggish normal overall performance, it’s far quite a first-rate introduction to Android, especially in case you’re upgrading from a characteristic smartphone. It’s one of the cheapest Android phones on hand, feature-packed, and offers outstanding bang-for-dollar. Telcos may additionally want to, without troubles, deliver this mobile cellphone away totally free, bundled with a settlement. Does “cheap and cheerful” exist? Personally, I’d spend a touch more (exact enough, lots extra) for a higher spec-ed Android tool because I tend to equate reasonably-priced to crap, which I sense, in the long run, dilute the Android enjoy and brand. Even though not clearly happy that cheap is the manner to go, I’ll go away that discuss for some other day. For now, the Galaxy 5 might be the nearest to “cheap and glad” as you can get
