Samsung Galaxy i7500 HTC may have done it first, but now the Androids are starting to come thick and fast. Motorola got in early with the Dext, and all the major manufacturers are planning their own entry into Android land. Samsung Galaxy Samsung's Galaxy: Android for the mainstream? The Samsung Galaxy is the Korean giant's first attempt and …
I understand the need for a comprehensive review, but a lot of the criticism leveled here would equally apply to any phone running a vanilla donut (1.6) build.
That's the whole point of Android really isn't it. Don't like the stock music player or camera application then download an alternative from the market. Many of which would address some of the criticisms in the review.
Maybe I'm the only person who doesn't want some glossy custom UI overlaying the stock Android experience. I certainly don't want to have to relearn the interface when I eventually trade up from my G1, so the bog standard UI is a win in my book.
... and yet you still give it a 70%. Surely the criminally short battery life of "less than a day" usage despite non-constant use and having an OLED screen would knock more than 30% off the score alone, even if all the rest were completely awesome. Care to justify that?
And yes, I know it's subjective; so how about a review score breakdown, with categories like:
* Style
* Features
* Usability
* Ruggedness
* Endurance
* Value for money
I know those aren't perfect but at least they're slightly less arbitrary...
I own this phone and have done since it was released. The battery life is a problem, however the is an upgrade which apparently makes a big difference to this (although I haven't installed it yet).
I agree fully on the lock button issue. Sometimes it unlocks quickly and others it just takes forever. It gets itself into a tizz and you have to wait a couple of seconds for it to figure out what it's trying to do.
But other than that, I absolutely love this phone. It's hard to state what I love about it because people naturally only focus on the negatives, but it has been a major step up from my last phone (sony ericsson p1i). It is a nice and responsive phone, certainly a step up from the G1 in terms of speed, and its large amount of disk space means I haven't run out yet, and nor to I see myself running out in the phones lifetime. The music player is actually very easy to use - I don't understand the reviewer's gripe here. Essentially this phone has replaced the hair tearing moments of my last phone with moments of true delight, like when today I discovered the phone can actually work as a rudimentary metal detector!
I forgot to mention in my last post that the battery life can be extended to at least 2 days if you turn off the wireless, bluetooth and gprs. You can install some widgets which allow you to turn these on and off at a touch rather than crawling through the menus. I'm sure I can get even more time out of it if I change the syncing periods of certain apps.
I think the review score is fair when comparing the phone to other Android handsets that are currently available.
I owned this phone and ended up returning it when I found out that even Samsung's own software doesn't support the phone. You can't sync contacts or calendar, and it also is hit and miss with software updates (never actually worked for me, but some users have reported it to work).
When vendors install middleware on a Windows PC, it's shit, but now you're complaining that vendors AREN'T installing middleware on Android phones? Come on.
I trust Google to do a better job with the stock Android apps/UI than whatever modifications Motorola, Samsung, etc. feel like they should make.
It's Android - it uses your Google contacts and calendar, there's no need to manually sync anything. Ok, once I decided to get a G1 it took a little upheaval to move my stuff over to Google in the first place, but it wasn't difficult, it just involved letting go of some outmoded habits.
Now I get exactly the same access to my calendar, mail and contacts no matter whether I'm using my phone, desktop, laptop or work PC, with no tedious syncing. Plus I share calendars with my family, so any of us can edit it and it all updates for everyone in real time.
Returning the phone because it wouldn't sync, in my ever so humble opinion, is kind of missing the point.
I've had one for a while now, and after being a lifelong Nokia user I'm loving it.
To answer a couple of questions, it's Android 1.5. Latest rumours suggest that Samsung will be skipping 1.6 and releasing 2.0 in Q1 2010 (I believe this is the same for the HTC Hero, although there are unofficial 1.6 firmwares available for that so I've heard).
The "sync notification" alert tone mentioned in the article can be turned off in the settings menu, the headphones one I don't know, I've not tried.
Yes the Samsung NPS software is crap and doesn't really work apart from to update the phone, but as someone has already pointed out, contacts and calendar etc. is synced with your google account anyway. So there's no need for the app's sync features. You can of course still access the SD card on your computer as a removable disk too.
Camera crap? Well, yes. But that's the same for all the current crop of Android phones, but I think it's OK, certainly in daylight.
Poor battery life? Not for me, I've had over 100 hours between charging and the phone was still at 30%. If you've got background data syncing, wifi, gps, loads of twittering facespace widgets updating every 10 minutes then yes, it's not going to last long.
One possible cause for the big battery drain is apparently if you're using the frankly terrible case that samsung provide with the phone. It keeps the camera button pressed down and prevents the phone from going to sleep.
Do I regret getting it? Not so far, so long as Samsung continue to provide updates to last my 18 month contract period I'll be happy. The HTC offerings do seem to have better support though.
With more and more manufacturers releasing Android phones I think things can only get better.
I've noticed that these reviews never include the supported WCDMA frequencies - OK all phones are now quad-band GSM - but if one is interested in using a phone on a particular network (Telstra NextG / WCDMA 850 in Australia in my case) it is useful to know which frequencies are supported.
In this case, a bit of looking around suggests that this one is WCDMA: 850/900/2100 (Tri-Band) - does this make it the first Android handset supporting 850 WCDMA?
Please add supported frequencies in reviews in future.
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