Samsung I9000 Galaxy S Review
The Samsung i9000 Galaxy S is packed with so much stuff, you'll always find something new to play with. Smart Alarm: GALAXY S knows how refreshing a natural wake up is compared to the sudden, overbearing, onslaught of noise from a radio station, TV, or other alarm device, with its gradual volume-increasing alarm, gently awaking you from a satisfying sleep, and giving you a natural transition to your morning. Daily Briefing: Before your day begins, GALAXY S?s Daily Brief delivers exactly what matters to you, right to your phone?s home screen-today?s top headlines, stock info, weather forecast-Daily Briefing widget even displays your schedule and calendar, making sure you?re aware of what your day holds in store without having to boot your computer, wait through TV commercials, or scour through a messy newspaper. Integrated Calendar: With GALAXY S and its Integrated Calendar, your schedules, agendas, calendars, to-do lists, regardless of their sources, are auto-synced, and organized into a single, color-coded, neat-and-tidy application.
After using this phone for a week, I've fallen in love with it.
- Interface is very snappy.
- The screen is incredible. Very bright and the colours are outstanding, and just the perfect size.
- The AllShare app for playing content from a UPnP server is nice. At home, I can store my entire collection of music and videos and play whichever I want.
That said, there are a few issues I encountered:
- Interface, despite its speed, occasionally freezes. I was worried when this occurred an hour after I started using it, but it's only happened a few times since then. Usually lasts no more than 10 seconds.
- No flash for the camera. I'm given to understand that an LED flash is common on smartphone cameras these days, so low-light photos aren't as good as they can be.
- Camera again: no dedicated button, so taking pictures is a bit awkward. Definitely turn on the anti-shake feature.
- AllShare is a little finicky sometimes about detecting media servers. Moreover, the player is a little deficient next to the normal Android video player (it stretches videos to conform to the screen's aspect ratio, and I haven't discovered a way to return the video to its native aspect ratio).
- Battery runs out fairly quickly if your browsing the internet or watching videos all day. Haven't had a chance to test it on pure standby yet, but you aren't likely to go a whole day if you're using the "smart" part of the smartphone.
Even though I listed more issues than positives, the phone is very good and I would recommend it to anyone. All the other aspects of the phone are common to other Android sets and should be well known to Android lovers. The Samsung additions to the UI such as Daily Briefing (weather, stocks and news in a widget) and the seven homescreens are nice touches, but not particularly a deal breaker, and I haven't tried any of the other Samsung apps.
An additional note: this phone is really, really light and thin. While some other reviews have thought it too "plasticy", I absolutely love the build. I can use it all day.
The input method, Swype is also on by default, but you can get this on other Android phones. Very nice, though, and a nice thought from Samsung. Check out some videos on Youtube of it, but I also have to say that it's hard to say how nice this function is without using it yourself.
Some other details: this version is the 8GB internal memory model. For Americans and countries using similar power sockets, since this is the international version the charger it comes with is the Europlug style. You'll need to get either a converter or your own plug with a micro-USB connector.
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