Samsung i9000 Galaxy S

Full Review

One of the hottest mobile phones launched this year, the Samsung Galaxy S smartphone definitely has its work cut out for it. From its gigantic display to the superfast Hummingbird 1GHz processor, the Samsung Galaxy S is currently the most powerful Android phone in the Indian market.

Superb Display and Interface
The Samsung Galaxy S has the most impressive display we've ever seen on a mobile phone (though we are yet to review Apple's iPhone 4 with its "retina" display). The 4in "Super AMOLED" screen has WVGA (480x800 pixels) resolution with 16 million colors support. It is unbelievably bright, crisp and clear and its performance in direct sunlight has to be seen to be believed. Text on the capacitive touchscreen can clearly be read even if you're at an almost 90-degree angle from it, and there is no color shift when viewing the display from off centre.

The Samsung Galaxy S has the most impressive display we've ever seen on a mobile phone

The Galaxy S runs the 2.1 version of Google's Android OS, but will be upgradeable to Android 2.2 in the "coming months". It provides all the features and benefits of Android but uses Samsung's TouchWIZ user interface, in a similar manner to HTC phones employing the custom Sense UI. Like Sense, TouchWIZ gives you seven fully customizable home screens that let you add any number of live widgets, shortcuts and folders. Samsung has included some widgets of its own, consisting of Daily Briefing (customizable weather, finance and news information), Feeds and Updates (Facebook, Twitter and MySpace aggregator), Buddies Now (a rolodex of photo contacts), as well as a number of clocks and a reminder widget called 'Days' that lets you create an advanced memo with an image.
Unfortunately, Samsung has seen fit to alter various aspects of the standard Android UI, including the menu icons. We feel these changes make the interface less attractive. It may be personal preference, but we think HTC Sense looks and feels much more polished than TouchWIZ.

Large size but lightweight
The Samsung Galaxy S is quite large because of its sizeable screen, but it is only 9.9mm thick. This means it's one of the thinnest Android smartphones on the market. It's also very light for a device this size, largely due to the all-plastic casing. Though we appreciate the light weight, we aren't a big fan of the Galaxy S's plastic parts. It is reasonably well built, but it lacks the premium feel of other Android phones , such as the HTC Legend. A perfect example is the rear battery cover, which when we removed it felt cheap and flimsy. It has a design that is actually very iPhone 3GS-like with the glossy black plastic body with just a few buttons on the front.

Memory
The Galaxy came with a hefty 16GB onboard memory and it has 512MB of RAM.  Of the 16GB onboard memory, 2GB is reserved for  installing apps while the rest 14GB is purely for storing user™s data. If this still does not suffice you,  the phone supports micrpSD cards up to 32GB.

Controls
The Samsung Galaxy S is controlled mainly via the touchscreen. It supports multitouch, so you can pinch on the screen two zoom in and out of various applications (including the Web browser and Google Maps). The display is very responsive when sliding between home screens or tapping icons. A physical menu key and touch-sensitive option and back buttons sit below the display, while external volume controls are located on the left side. A power button that doubles as a screen lock key sits on the right side, but you can unlock the screen by pressing the menu button, just as you can on the iPhone.

Messaging and E-mail
One of the best features of the Samsung Galaxy S is built-in Swype text entry, an option that allows you to slide your fingers over the letters you want to type in a single motion, letting the software work out the word you're trying to write. Though it sounds awkward, Swype is very easy to pick up and surprisingly accurate. As with most on-screen keyboards, the software will learn as you type and add words you use regularly to its database. There is one interesting messaging app called Write and Go which let you just compose a note and let you send it as an e-mail, SMS or post it on Facebook or Twitter.

Online Experience and Apps
The Samsung Galaxy S has an excellent Web browser, but Flash won't be fully supported until the Android 2.2 update. The default browser rendered full web pages for the small size impressively and this can further be optimized for mobile screen by checking the option for mobile view.  The pinch to zoom function isn't as smooth as the iPhone's, but zooming in on a block of text automatically reformats it, making it easier to read.

Underneath TouchWIZ, the Samsung Galaxy S offers the regular features and functions of Android 2.1, including the Android Market for third-party apps, an excellent notifications taskbar and automatic and seamless synchronization with Google services. The phone automatically synchronizes your Google calendar, mail and contacts over the air and Samsung has confirmed the Galaxy S will be upgradeable to the 2.2 version of Android, dubbed Froyo.

Samsung'™s approach to social networking is a bit similar to HTC™s. The Galaxy S comes with Samsung'™s Social Hub which is a all-in-one place that aggregates stream of Facebook, MySpace and Twitter messages that will enable users to send an update to either one or all of the services at once.

Though the Feeds and Updates widget is fairly useful and stops you having to log in to separate applications all the time, it lacks some advanced features, such support for multiple Twitter accounts and URL shortening when tweeting. We didn't find any of the other Samsung widgets particularly engaging, though the smart alarm feature” where the standard alarm can play a nature sound such as chirping birds or a waterfall for a specified time period” definitely caught our attention. Unfortunately, you still can't choose to save downloaded apps to the microSD card. For business users, the Galaxy S also came with Thinkfree office app to edit and view documents.

Multimedia
The Samsung Galaxy S includes a 5-megapixel camera with autofocus but with no flash which is disappointing. There is also no dedicated physical shutter key, so we have to rely on the onscreen shutter key.  On the other hand, the Galaxy supports 720p HD video recording at 30fps.  The 5MP camera has various modes like blink, face and smile detection, high-speed and panorama shooting, and many other effects. It also gives options to adjust everything from exposure, brightness, ISO etc.

The camera was quick to focus and touch focus feature worked exceptionally well. It performed fairly well in good light but in low light images showed fair amount of noise. Colors were reproduced well but details were just average. In short, the image quality is just average even for a 5MP camera phone standard and it won'™t replace your digital camera for sure.

The camera took a little time to focus on subjects while recording videos and recorded HD videos had acceptable details with very decent noise levels under bright light. The amount of details were by no means on par with dedicated HD camcorders but good enough to rival most pocket camcorders. Low light video clips as expected did not come out well, mainly due to lack of flash which made the camera more suited for outdoors shooting. The 720p HD Videos recorded have higher frame rates (30fps) than HD videos recorded with either Omnia HD or Sony Ericsson Vivaz which were at 24fps. The audio sounded a bit too loud due to the over sensitive microphone.

For media playback , the Galaxy S is one powerful portable multimedia player. It can play MKV files, DivX and XviD videos  apart from the standard MP4 and H.264 files. Video playback on its 4-inch Super AMOLED screen was great. The screen showed great saturation and nice frame rates. The phone did not stutter when we rolled our 720p HD videos.

For music, it also plays formats like MP3, WMA, AAC and FLAC. The audio via its bundled headphones was good enough for casual use and if this is not enough, you can plug in your favorite headphones. The audio quality was also impressive with rich bass and highs with slightly delicate mids.  The audio player has some enhancements like Virtual Surround sound to add more colors to your music, and the Cover Flow -style view  in landscape mode to skip the tracks also added a lot more fun to the rather plain default Android music player. Theres also an onboard FM radio and six stations can be set as favorites.

The Galaxy S has a built-in accelerometer, a digital compass and a GPS receiver.  And one nifty feature for Samsung's TV owner the phone can be used as a remote!

Battery Life
Battery life is similar to the alternatives the battery lasts a day with push e-mail, location services and background data enabled.

Bottom Line

The Samsung Galaxy S possesses the best display we've seen on a smartphone (though we're yet to review the iPhone 4). However, this Android handset is let down by a few niggling annoyances, particularly the all-plastic build and the TouchWIZ UI, which that lacks the polish this premium smartphone deserves.  Priced at Rs. 28,000, the Galaxy S comes in a great package which makes it not only the best Android phone we have reviewed but also the best high-end smartphone.

Read our reviews of other latest Android phones : Motorola Milestone,  Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 , HTC Legend , Acer Liquid, LG GW620 , HTC Tattoo,Samsung I7500 Galaxy, HTC Hero , HTC Magic