Samsung Spica Galaxy. Anything wrong with it?

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ashr

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Hi guys,

I lost my Nokia 5800 earlier today so I'm looking for a replacement. The last time I used this forum for a mobile phone recommendation wasn't entirely a positive experience. To be honest, I was floored by the hype surrounding the 5800 at the time of its launch after reading a lot of comments here about how feature packed it was at that time (it was even touted as the iPhone killer for a bit.)

However, the first batch of 5800s was really lousy. Plenty of problems with display, earpiece, laggy UI, poor touchscreen etc. Of course a lot of these have been eradicated now but when I first bought it at 20K, it was rather disappointing. Early adopters usually have to deal with things like this.

Now, I'm looking at the Samsung Spica reviews here and other sites and I'm not really seeing too much negative feedback. While this is generally a good thing, I don't want to experience another 5800 purchase so I'm asking you guys to be as hard as possible.

Bash the phone with all your might. What are its faults? How is the capacitive touchscreen when compared to the iPhone? I text a lot and the 5800 slowed my speed down considerably due to its resistive touchscreen. How is the Push mail when compared to something like a Blackberry? How does it fare against higher end phones like the HTC Legend / Nexus One etc. (I read that it actually has a faster processor than the Legend)

Is there something I should keep in mind?

What I'm looking for in a phone : Suitable for Texting, Facebook, IM Clients, Good Push Mail, Internet Browsing over Wi-Fi (3G is an added frill), Very responsive touch screen, Ability to read doc files, xl sheets, pdfs.

What I don't really care about : Looks, Camera, Music, GPS.

Before spotting this phone, I was thinking of some Blackberry as my brother uses a Curve and recommended it for my business-type usage. Price is not that much of an issue so I was also looking at "higher end" phones like iPhone, Desire, Legend and the likes but I fail to see what they do better than the Spica since I've been reading only glorifying reviews.

Thanks in advance for your input. Any help is much appreciated.
 
Spica satisfies all your requirements well, and its VFM

Once you update to Android 2.1, its even better

I am using Spica and like it a lot. It serves my purpose well, that's what i care about. I don't go around nitpicking things

There are apps for everything, to make ur experience better

for eg: keyboard, I am using market's Smart Keyboard Pro and it gets me over the iffy default keyboard
 
The i5700 is good, but there are a few issues.

1) Physical keys arent backlit. Kinda difficult to use in the dark. Wonder how Samsung missed this.
2) No proximity sensor. This is an annoyance while making calls. The OS doesnt handle this elegantly either.
3) Processor isnt as fast as the Snapdragon

If budget is no issue, then dont consider the Spica. If you are looking for a smooth/hassle-free experience, buy the iPhone. Willing to tinker around with Android - go with Milestone (for the physical keyboard) or Acer Liquid or any of the other Snapdragon phones. Just be sure to choose one with a 800x480 screen, instead of the more common 480x320. You might want to consider if they will receive the Froyo upgrade too.
 
If you do text a lot...then go for phones with physical QWERTY keyboard...however good the on-screen keyboard is...it can't beat physical keyboard...and Blackberry's keyboards are awesome...
 
First of all let me start by bringing to your notice that you are comparing a 12k phone with a 30k phone (iPhone) If the phone is cheaper than the others there obviously are some features missing making the phone affordable.

The Spica is good. I am using it on the stock 2.1 update 1 OS and haven't installed anything on it that runs in the background. It works fine for me and I have no problems with it.

Since you have experience of the 5800; I would suggest you check the phone first, (best scenario would be to check out a friends phone) to see how comfy are you with the on screen keyboard and the phone itself.

Best of luck with the decision :D
 
NinByChoice said:
3) Processor isnt as fast as the Snapdragon
Click to expand...
Are you kidding? Spica has an 800MHz processor for starers and considering the price point of the phone, how could you expect more than that. Though I am not sure about the kind of processor it employs, but in terms of raw clock rates, its higher than the 600Mhz processor that iPhone 3GS uses.
 
The raw clock rate on the Spica may be higher, but it uses an older architecture ARM11 processor vs the cortex A8 on the iPhone 3GS or Milestone

On pure raw power, the cortex A8 at 550 definitely feels snappier than the Spica's ARM 11 at 800

Having said that, the Spica is definitely the fastest and snappiest phone within a sub 20K budget...and certainly feels faster than the older gen iphone 2g/3g (arm 11 at 450 mhz iirc)

(I upgraded from iphone 3G to Spica to Milestone so stating the above after extensive usage)

I personally didnt find anything wrong with the Spica except for the fact that the OSK on the iPhone had spoiled me silly and the Android OSK felt ridiculously bad in comparison (it's significantly better than the 5800 though)

Thats the reason why I had no choice but to upgrade to the milestone
 
The Samsung Spica is a great phone and will do very well for your usage.

Some points for you to consider.

1. touch screen is great but slightly less responsive than the iphone...
2. no out of the box doc readers but plenty you can find in the android market.
3. browsing is good with the only flaw that there is not flash support.
4. Push mail is pretty good again and there are a lot of 3rd party apps which will suit your every need.
5. Stock keyboard won't suffice for heavy texting but you can always get a better keyboard that suits you.
6. Facebook, IM clients are all very good. Wifi browsing is pretty good as well...
 
^^ Yes the actual performance depends on the kind of processor as well, that's why I said that the raw clocks are higher rather than saying the processor is better.
 
djmykey said:
First of all let me start by bringing to your notice that you are comparing a 12k phone with a 30k phone (iPhone) If the phone is cheaper than the others there obviously are some features missing making the phone affordable.

The Spica is good. I am using it on the stock 2.1 update 1 OS and haven't installed anything on it that runs in the background. It works fine for me and I have no problems with it.

Since you have experience of the 5800; I would suggest you check the phone first, (best scenario would be to check out a friends phone) to see how comfy are you with the on screen keyboard and the phone itself.

Best of luck with the decision :D
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i didn't mean to directly compare the two. i'm well aware of the difference in price range. what i wanted to know was why people still go for higher priced phones when the Spica seems so good.

that being said, i'm leaning towards an iPhone 3GS at this point because the user experience out of the box seems unmatched at this point. i am not someone who spends a lot of time on customization and updates to bring out the best in a phone. i'm also unable to find a Spica that i can extensively test.

if i decide against the iPhone for some reason (i'm rather absent minded and have lost quite a few phones), i'll probably go for the Spica because i don't think the other 20K+ phones are really worth the price (since i don't like to spend time tinkering with them, they definitely would be viable options for many others.)
 
I also am still in love with the iPhone, but its the price factor that drove me away from it. Even if I bought the iPhone, I would have to keep it very safe and have to constantly watch it, to keep it from getting hurt; which I cannot do. Hence the Spica :bleh:
 
Edit:

Spica is pretty good phone and capacitive touch too Is much better for testing. If you can extend your budget, check HTC legend too. Far netters build quality and better feature.
 
that being said, i'm leaning towards an iPhone 3GS at this point because the user experience out of the box seems unmatched at this point. i am not someone who spends a lot of time on customization and updates to bring out the best in a phone. i'm also unable to find a Spica that i can extensively test.
Click to expand...

Not needed

The OOB experience on Android is quite close to what you would get on an iPhone

A tad Better in some aspects, a tad less on some

PS: Unlike an iPhone where jailbreaking is almost a must to get the most out of it, the android with its relatively open architecture does not necessarily need rooting

hell, you don't even need to do any kind of tweaking to start installing even ahem apps :P
 
I have been trying get my hands on the Spica for over a month but its availability issues are terrible :@ But now that Froyo has been announced and there is immediate successor in the corner for Spica(i suppose i5800), so would it be wise to take the plunge now or just wait for the successor of Spica which should be around in 2-3 months?
 
i think Spica is the best choice for u buddy, even the price is brilliant.

there are also tons of apps from android market.
 
thanks for the suggestions people. I ended up buying the HTC Legend for 22.5k. youtube videos of the Spica UI in 2.1 dissuaded me from buying it (UI is more important to me than features) and the spending 35K on an iPhone 3GS when the 4G is just around the corner seemed like a hasty decision so settled for the Legend in between the 2.
 
^Status: Coming Soon

Is it even available yet? Either way, I didn't know about this phone but I don't like the design and the site doesn't mention Multi-Touch input.
 
anyone have any clue about when the galaxy I5800 will be out and what would it cost.im conisdering this or the I5700
 
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