Samsung Galaxy S review: the best 3G Android yet
(In the US this phone is available through Verizon and is called Galaxy S Fascinate. During this review I'll simply call it Galaxy S or Galaxy)
I have no idea how to review a mobile phone so I’m doing this one based off Gizmodo’s review of another mobile phone. The Galaxy S is a kick-ass phone and here are my opinions on it.
The Galaxy S is big, quite bigger than the average phone, bigger than the iPhone but not as big as those monstrous HTCs. The reason for this is the 4” screen, more on that later. Although big it feels great in your hand. As for putting it in your pocket it’s an issue to consider.. Me personally I have no gripe with it, I even put the phone in a pouch and THEN in the pocket. I’m used to carrying big things in my pants. OH.
Samsung’s Galaxy S is a phone that seems to be particularly aimed at people who otherwise would buy an iPhone. It’s just so similar.. And in this case it’s a good thing, because I can safely say that for its price the Galaxy has more juice per dollar/euro/yen.
DesignThe phone is large but very very slim. Quite light too. Comparing to the iPhone 4 it’s taller, larger, as slim, but also lighter. This may be because it’s made all out of plastic. Good plastic mind you. It’s resistant. The metal “outline” of the phone reminds of the original iPhone but it’s more discrete. The phone has a little “chin” in the lower back for extra grip. I like it.
The Galaxy S only has one single mechanical button on the front (same positioning and functioning as the iPhone’s) accompanied by two touch sensitive on each of its sides. It has volume rockers, a block/turn off button, but no camera button. This is something that personally bugs me even though I never use them.
It feels good to touch the screen and the three buttons work nice. The phone is easy to grip. I also should mention that the back has these little blue dots that look really nice. People that look at my phone are also impressed cause it says Google on the back, go figures.
There is this gripe I have though. When you press the “sound down” button for a while it mutes the phone. That is OK. But when you press the “volume up” for a while it starts up voice recognition! Seriously what the hell. I’m listenin to my songs and a fresh beat comes on and I’m like WOAH CRANK THAT SH*T UP and I jam that sucker in! And instead of the sweet feeling of exploding eardrums I get pop-ups about some crap.
ScreenThe Super AMOLED screen. Unlike Nintendo who makes products named Super that don’t even have Blast Processing, the Galaxy’s screen is indeed super. It has great colors and brightness. One thing that amazes me is that when the screen is showing black, it really is black. On other screens you always see the “light” coming from the black parts but this black is amazing. This also makes the image have more contrast, which means it’s good. I couldn’t see pixels. It’s big and amazing looking.
It’s great for movies. I watched Matrix on this and it was as good as ever. You could see the crazy in Morpheus’ eyes.
Outdoor visibilitySeriously, does anyone even TRY to use their phones under sunlight? Sure you can see pretty good if you turn brightness up max. But that’ll drain the battery and that’s no good.
It’s as crap as every other screen in this respect, but you can at least use it. If you live in the UK or something it’s always raining anyway.
SpeedI don’t know anything about phone processors nor will I pretend I do. All I know is that it has 1GHz. 1GHz was what good PCs were made of in 2001 or so. The phone runs pretty fast. Sometimes it lags a bit but I read that’s an issue of software that will be fixed with Android 2.2. We’ll see. [maybe I’ll update this later]
Call makingHoly sh*t! This thing even does phone calls! It’s pretty good. The sound is good. The loudspeaker is good. And a detail I really like is that you can save some default “smell ya latter” SMS if you don’t want to pick up and choose one using a slide menu. The ringtones play at a moderate volume, it’s decent enough. You slide these bars to either accept the call or reject and another slider for sending a text.
One bad thing about these phones is that you can’t slam them. Like when you’re at home on the phone really angry and screaming at the other person and then you slam the phone on its base to hang up…. Yeah, that’s disappointing. Since it’s a touch screen you can only gently touch it. “NO YOU LISTEN TO ME B*TCH! IMMA CUT YOU OFF ALL MY CREDIT CARDS AND SH*T! YOU AINT GETTING ANY MORE FROM ME YA HEAR! SHUT UP AND GO PICK UP MY LAUNDRY” *gently touches screen like a huge faggot*. It cramps the status.
CameraThe camera doesn’t have flash, but it’s not as if anyone would ever want to use a mobile phone LED flash. If it’s dark just record sound or something.
I have no idea what to say about white balance. Why is it called a white balance? The whites are balanced I think I have no idea. I like my pics sunny, and this mobile makes them sunny if I want. It has a huge array of subtle effects (that indoor, speed photo, sunny, winter, night, fireworks, text, etc) that adjust the shutter to the conditions. The it has some more deep stuff (macro, retro effect, panoramic, etc). I took some photos, here you go:
Set to scenery. Static photo. No effects. #1Set to scenery. Static photo. No effects. #2Set to scenery. The van is moving. No effects.Set to normal. Static photo. Retro dark effect.Set to macro. The dog was a bit shakin. No effects.Set to I don’t know. Dog was spazzin out. Just look how happy he is.Set to indoor. Static, the cat is a calm pet. No effects.Set to macro. Static photo. No effects.The camera also has video. HD video. While I think the photos could be better (they lack a bit of fine detail) the video is drop dead incredible. It records full 720p. That’s a lot of p’s. It also uploads directly to Youtube. Here are two examples as well, please see them in HD:
Dog drinking water. A calm filming. You can see the detail, just notice the water drops. (notice sometimes the audio goes muffled. That’s cause I accidentally put my finger over the mic. This may happen the first couple of times)Me scaring the foot out of my cousin. A practical filming with some shakiness and less light but quality stands as great.There’s also a front camera but it’s hideous. I’ve never used a front camera anyway. For the main camera you can also download apps with more effects and stuff.
BatteryIt’s decent. It lasts a day of heavy use or day and half of normal/occasional use. Things that drain your battery like crazy: camera, GPS, watching movies. Though watching a two hour film won’t drain up all your battery. It lasts like 6/7 hours of watching movies straight.
SoftwareIt has android 2.1 but with a proprietary interface to look EVEN MORE like the iPhone. My unit had a bunch of carrier-related software. It came with a football app that shows news, real-time score updates, real-time game commentary and statistics and a whole bunch of other stuff. So you might want to check out what your carrier has before you shun everything (you can’t delete them). You can download many apps from the market. The games all suck. The mobile comes with Asphalt 5. That’s not bad. The other software is good. There are some good things. I have things like MSN, Manga Reader, App Killer, ringtone finder…
Samsung customizationsGIZMODO SAYS THIS ABOUT THE SAMSUNG “SKIN”:
The most noticeable customization is the app launcher bar on the bottom of the home screen. Phone, Contacts, Messaging and Applications (which bring up app launcher) is present at all times, giving you iPhone-esque shortcuts to the "most used" apps. That phrase is in quotes because you can't swap out Phone, Contacts or Messaging to say, Browser or Gmail, if you happen to use those latter apps more. This is something we'd like to see Samsung change immediately. The launcher idea is sound, but the fact that you can't switch the apps out is a big oversight.
I think they are idiots. Nobody cares about that. You can put whatever you want in the home pages above that. It makes sense that the PHONE part is always present.
The inner menus and everything are just like the iPhone. This is a good thing.
The phone includes some apps like a eBook reader, Google Maps (complete with street view and navigation), Layar (which I have no idea what it does but it sounds important judging from the phones’ box), it has a productivity suite as well. But it doesn’t have a task manager. I downloaded a app killer.
It also comes with a very nice YouTube app. The video player is bare bones. The gallery looks great. The music player is pretty good too, though to make a “on the go” playlist you can only add songs to it when you are listening to them. Kinda weird. You can program a new playlist without any music playing though. It has an EQ and sound effects and 5.1 sound. You better put the EQ in Rock and keep it that way, and don’t bother with the effects they all suck and keep re-equalizing the music giving headackes. 5.1 is absurd for music, but works well watching films. The films have extreme quality and you can simply copy a DivX file and watch it.
Swype by defaultOk, there’s this thing called Swipe. I don’t use it, I won’t comment on it.
It’s an alternative to the virtual QWERTY keyboard, while still being a virtual QWERTY keyboard.
The virtual QWERTY keyboard is as good as the iPhone’s. That is because it is pretty much the same. I have some big fingers so I write in landscape mode. In two days I was writing almost as fast as I do on a computer and with little mistakes. It’s very good.
Software updatesSamsung will be updating to Android 2.2 soon using it’s KIES software.
Btw the KIES software sucks. It really does. For one thing it’s outdated, it doesn’t even recognize the phone as supported. It still copies files but you can simply use Windows Explorer or Mac’s Finder. For now no contact sharing.
Weirdness addendumI just like the name of this title so I’ll keep it here.
It's the best Android phone and best Samsung Galaxy S phoneWoah! Now this is a bold statement! I took what Gizmodo said about another phone and said it about this one. I DO PERSONALLY think this is the best Galaxy S (in Portugal it is the ONLY Galaxy S lol). But you may have a different opinion of course.
I choose this phone over the iPhone and I’m not disappointed. I’m getting more value for each of the 400 euros. I have a 16gig model. Still, I think that with Android 2.2 and eventually 3.0 the phone will reach it’s real potential. So far so good. I bought this phone without even ever looking at one. And after these days of trying it out, I’d still pick it over the iPhone.
About the 4 Galaxy models Gizmodo says:
when you're trying to decide between three skinny brothers and a stronger (but fatter) fourth brother, it's clear what the choice is.
Yes it is.. One of the skinny ones. I hate fat phones.
Guys this was my first review of anything. I’d love for some feedback and advice and maybe I could do about some other stuff too. This was fun :D
Thanks for reading and ask about stuff if you want!
