Shripad
ex-Mod
Hey there.
First things first.
There are 37 pics in here, if you want to b**ch about the full pics, exit now before you waste your precious bandwidth. You are warned in the 3rd line of this thread and in title.
================================================================
So finally I got some free time as I am not feeling well since yesterday (down with fever and upset stomach ) and and hence sitting at home all the time :ashamed:
There are just few things many people here requested and I personally wanted to let others know about this particular phone. And mainly put forward my views about this phone having used likes of Magic, Hero, Milestone, Nexus One, Desire, iPod touch, iPhone 3G and even iPhone 4 (though only briefly).
I really dont know if this qualifies as the review, so I am posting here. I will be adding the details about the UI and custom ROMs at later date. This is mostly focused of general use, my views about the same and hardware. Once this is complete, then I might move this to the review section.
So here goes nothing.....
================================================================
The box landed sometime over the weekend.
Its a nice compact box. Very light.
================================================================
Here is whats inside.
You get Charger, Warranty Card, Manual, Earphones, Data Cable and pouch.
Here is the pouch I mentioned. Looks good in pics, but its not so good to carry around. But offers good protection to the phone which it does really need. So I suggest you use it until you get the proper case and screen protector for your phone. Trust me on this, you need the case.
================================================================
And here is the phone. The design is very familiar. I wont blame Apple fanboys calling it a ripoff of iPhone 3GS. It does look very similar. Same metal ring around the face, prominant home button and two touch sensitive buttons ( Menu on the left and Back on the right side ) on either side of the home key. Lack of search key is compensated by giving search function when you press and hold menu key.
The prominent Samsung logo is right under the earpiece grill. On the right side of the grill, you have your video calling camera and on the left side, under the glass, there is proximity sensor and light sensor which is hard to see unless you stare at the phone up close.
================================================================
The back is very shiny. You will notice the bump on the bum of the phone. It is suppose to make it easy to grip, and I agree. The usual Samsung branding and "with Google" branding on the back.
================================================================
The only two things you have on the back is the 5MP camera and the speaker grill. For some reason, the speaker grill is ever so slightly elevated. Now my question to Samsung is " Why!!!!" why in this world would you do that.?????. It is about half a millimeter so it is not tall enough to help sound get through if you place it on the cushion on bed or sofa. But its tall enough to get scratched badly if you do not use it in the case.
The power and screen lock key is on the right side (if you are holding phone with screen facing you ). This is slightly firm key which I prefer as you really do not want to lock screen accidentally every now and then.
The volume rocker is on the opposite side of the power key.
================================================================
The bottom has the microphone hole and there is slight slit to pop your battery cover using your nails.
The top has 3.5mm headphone jack and MicroUSB port which doubles up as charger port. And an microUSB to HDMI out cable is also on its way. The good thing here is that the port can be covered with the sliding door when not in use to protect it from dust and dirt.
================================================================
Now coming to the party piece of this phone. The screen.
It can be described in 1 word. "Brilliant".
Absolutely stunning to look at in person. Samsung has made sure that they fixed the issues that people had with Pen Tile Matrix displays of Nexus One and Desire. So there is no pink tint or gradient issues with this screen. At least not that I could notice. its fantastic to look at. Compared to Desire and Nexus one, this is definite improvement. Super AMOLED does help cut down the reflection and refraction you get in direct sunlight and under bright light sources. All the pics below are either taken under sunlight or under multiple CFL light sources.
================================================================
Now, the experience is somewhat spoiled with Samsung's decision to use blue - yellow - black theme for the phone. Why did they decided to use the colour which will reduce the on contrast experience on the screen is beyond my understanding. You can see this in Tapatalk, SMS screens.
Why not just use simple Dark grey - white - black one like Desire. It looks much better.
Samsung, now listen to your users please. People who buy these kind of device dont need colourful phone. They need something that is better at function and looks. Having colours for text / sms does not always work. This is not the damn Corby!!!!
================================================================
Now coming to the worst part about this phone.
The built quality. Its pathetic.
Back cover is flimsy and plasticy. and I mean not your regular plastic that you can expect on high end phones.
Below is the pic of the Galaxy S cover next to the Desire cover.
Desire feels solid and 10 times better than Galaxy S cover.
Its also shiny and will develop microscratches very easily. This is true for entire body of this phone.
Thats it for the pics. Now getting tot he point.
================================================================
The Good.
The Bad
The Ugly
I dont give a damn about extra 1mm in thickness or extra 5 gms of weight it might add to phone. PLEASE!!!!! Build your next phone properly.
At the end of the day even with all the shortcomings, that monstrous screen and Arm Cortex A8 saves the day for Samsung. It saved Samsung from lot of criticism which usually would have been thrown at them for building a high end phone like this. As a package it works. But it could have been perfection.
================================================================
Added Content.
720P Video Sample on beach under good light conditions.
[youtube]M0GhzKUZaPQ[/youtube]
Youtube Link : YouTube - Samsung Galaxy S HD Video Sample ( Goa Beach, Good Light )
Poor light condition sample to follow soon.
================================================================
That's it for now. I will reserve next post for other things which I will add over time.
Digg Here : Samsung Galaxy S. User experience, The good,The bad and The
First things first.
There are 37 pics in here, if you want to b**ch about the full pics, exit now before you waste your precious bandwidth. You are warned in the 3rd line of this thread and in title.
================================================================
So finally I got some free time as I am not feeling well since yesterday (down with fever and upset stomach ) and and hence sitting at home all the time :ashamed:
There are just few things many people here requested and I personally wanted to let others know about this particular phone. And mainly put forward my views about this phone having used likes of Magic, Hero, Milestone, Nexus One, Desire, iPod touch, iPhone 3G and even iPhone 4 (though only briefly).
I really dont know if this qualifies as the review, so I am posting here. I will be adding the details about the UI and custom ROMs at later date. This is mostly focused of general use, my views about the same and hardware. Once this is complete, then I might move this to the review section.
So here goes nothing.....
================================================================
The box landed sometime over the weekend.
Its a nice compact box. Very light.
================================================================
Here is whats inside.
You get Charger, Warranty Card, Manual, Earphones, Data Cable and pouch.
Here is the pouch I mentioned. Looks good in pics, but its not so good to carry around. But offers good protection to the phone which it does really need. So I suggest you use it until you get the proper case and screen protector for your phone. Trust me on this, you need the case.
================================================================
And here is the phone. The design is very familiar. I wont blame Apple fanboys calling it a ripoff of iPhone 3GS. It does look very similar. Same metal ring around the face, prominant home button and two touch sensitive buttons ( Menu on the left and Back on the right side ) on either side of the home key. Lack of search key is compensated by giving search function when you press and hold menu key.
The prominent Samsung logo is right under the earpiece grill. On the right side of the grill, you have your video calling camera and on the left side, under the glass, there is proximity sensor and light sensor which is hard to see unless you stare at the phone up close.
================================================================
The back is very shiny. You will notice the bump on the bum of the phone. It is suppose to make it easy to grip, and I agree. The usual Samsung branding and "with Google" branding on the back.
================================================================
The only two things you have on the back is the 5MP camera and the speaker grill. For some reason, the speaker grill is ever so slightly elevated. Now my question to Samsung is " Why!!!!" why in this world would you do that.?????. It is about half a millimeter so it is not tall enough to help sound get through if you place it on the cushion on bed or sofa. But its tall enough to get scratched badly if you do not use it in the case.
The power and screen lock key is on the right side (if you are holding phone with screen facing you ). This is slightly firm key which I prefer as you really do not want to lock screen accidentally every now and then.
The volume rocker is on the opposite side of the power key.
================================================================
The bottom has the microphone hole and there is slight slit to pop your battery cover using your nails.
The top has 3.5mm headphone jack and MicroUSB port which doubles up as charger port. And an microUSB to HDMI out cable is also on its way. The good thing here is that the port can be covered with the sliding door when not in use to protect it from dust and dirt.
================================================================
Now coming to the party piece of this phone. The screen.
It can be described in 1 word. "Brilliant".
Absolutely stunning to look at in person. Samsung has made sure that they fixed the issues that people had with Pen Tile Matrix displays of Nexus One and Desire. So there is no pink tint or gradient issues with this screen. At least not that I could notice. its fantastic to look at. Compared to Desire and Nexus one, this is definite improvement. Super AMOLED does help cut down the reflection and refraction you get in direct sunlight and under bright light sources. All the pics below are either taken under sunlight or under multiple CFL light sources.
================================================================
Now, the experience is somewhat spoiled with Samsung's decision to use blue - yellow - black theme for the phone. Why did they decided to use the colour which will reduce the on contrast experience on the screen is beyond my understanding. You can see this in Tapatalk, SMS screens.
Why not just use simple Dark grey - white - black one like Desire. It looks much better.
Samsung, now listen to your users please. People who buy these kind of device dont need colourful phone. They need something that is better at function and looks. Having colours for text / sms does not always work. This is not the damn Corby!!!!
================================================================
Now coming to the worst part about this phone.
The built quality. Its pathetic.
Back cover is flimsy and plasticy. and I mean not your regular plastic that you can expect on high end phones.
Below is the pic of the Galaxy S cover next to the Desire cover.
Desire feels solid and 10 times better than Galaxy S cover.
Its also shiny and will develop microscratches very easily. This is true for entire body of this phone.
Thats it for the pics. Now getting tot he point.
================================================================
The Good.
- The Screen. Its simply brilliant. I have seen iPhone 4 screen and I would still rather have this.
- The raw processing power. A8 does the job just fine.
- The Touch screen. Its fantastic. Recognizes up-to 4 touches perfectly (at least I could identify 4 touches using a app called as MultiTouch Visualizer. And it does not have the limitations of nexus one and Desire where if you cross your two fingers, phone has hard time to recognize which finger is which resulting in unpredictable operation.
- The sound quality. Its one of the best I have experience so far on non Apple phones. Its fantastic. Its not treble heavy like many phones tend to be. Sound is clear and sound stage is good. There is a 5.1 channel emulation option in the player. Some people may prefer it if you are playing songs through dedicated set of speakers.
- It is suppose to get HDMI out via a cable soon. That will be brilliant.
- Simple Design. I know many wouldn't like it, but it works as a design.
- Very good camera picture quality. It came as unexpected surprise to get quality photos out of this phone even without flash. Even indoors it produces some nice shots. I will put some sample pics up later.
The Bad
- The Touch Wiz UI is not polished. Its miles behind something like HTC's Sense UI. I have no problems with their launcher and horizontal App scrolling. But rest is disappointing. Samsung even chose to remove some stock Android Apps and Widgets. But they did not substiture it with something better of their own. So you basically need to install tons of 3rd party apps and widgets to get it working the way I like it. I know Android is suppose to be customizable, but why remove some stock Android widgets and Apps? Even HTC does not do that.
- The music player does not recognize M3U playlist files or folder structure
. So you need 3rd party music player for that. But for reason unknown to me, even players like Meridian does not sound same as Samsung Music player which is fantastic for sound quality. - No flash for the camera. Not the deal breaker, but it would have been nice to have it on such high end phone. Specially to be able to use it as flash
- No notification LED, even backlit buttons are not used as Missed call, email, SMS notification.
The Ugly
- The only 1 thing, the built quality. Its unacceptable to have your flagship phone built like a chinese toy phone.
I dont give a damn about extra 1mm in thickness or extra 5 gms of weight it might add to phone. PLEASE!!!!! Build your next phone properly.
At the end of the day even with all the shortcomings, that monstrous screen and Arm Cortex A8 saves the day for Samsung. It saved Samsung from lot of criticism which usually would have been thrown at them for building a high end phone like this. As a package it works. But it could have been perfection.
================================================================
Added Content.
720P Video Sample on beach under good light conditions.
[youtube]M0GhzKUZaPQ[/youtube]
Youtube Link : YouTube - Samsung Galaxy S HD Video Sample ( Goa Beach, Good Light )
Poor light condition sample to follow soon.
================================================================
That's it for now. I will reserve next post for other things which I will add over time.
Digg Here : Samsung Galaxy S. User experience, The good,The bad and The
