Samsung must have been pretty confident in the GALAXY S's virtues to designate it for a simultaneous launch in 110 countries. Therefore it's not surprising that the South Korean manufacturer has a wow factor built-in from the start. The Samsung GALAXY S comes with a huge 4” Super AMOLED display, significantly larger than the only other such screen on the market – the 3.3” one of the Samsung Wave. This gorgeous window to the phone's soul is hinged to another novelty from Samsung – the 1GHz Hummingbird heart of the device. It is Samsung's answer to the Snapdragon cores found in the current cream-of-the-crop handsets.
Key features
The largest Super AMOLED display in business is a great feat but the Samsung I9000 Galaxy S won’t stop there. The slim-fit case has room for a 1GHz processor and a 5 megapixel camera with HD video recording, while the Android 2.1 (Éclair) OS is the latest.
With a surface measuring 122.4 x 64.2mm the Galaxy S is no small piece, but the 4” screen says it all. What’s more, the Super AMOLED technology has let Samsung bring the waistline down to the svelte 9.9mm.
In a nutshell, the Samsung I9000 Galaxy S display is the key feature that will probably sell this phone to loads of users. So far, the choice of the best display was a matter of compromise for either resolution contrast or sunlight legibility. Super AMOLED units are in no mood to choose. They just let you have it all in one unit.
There are three keys right below it – touch home, physical menu and touch back. Long pressing the context menu key fires up the smart search function, so we actually have all four standard Android keys present. The other front elements are above the screen - the earpiece slit, a front facing VGA cam, and the dot sensors for proximity and ambient light. The Samsung branding is visible right above the screen, as well as on the lower section of the battery cover.
Unfortunately, there's no dedicated camera key on the Galaxy S, which is a pity given the camera specs. 5 megapixel might not sound like much but HD video is a crowd pleaser. However, some customers may be disappointed with the lack of a shutter key. The back hosts the 5MP camera lens in the upper left corner, and the speaker grill on the right. Below them is the ubiquitous “with Google” branding, which hints this is a full-featured Android device, with the whole set of Google services preinstalled. The dotted back cover makes one think the phone has measles rather than bring the alleged carbon fiber-esque look, but that's our take.
Another nice idea from Samsung is the sliding lid over the microUSB port at the top of the Samsung GALAXY S – prevents dirt and lint from clogging the port. The same can be found on the Samsung Wave, and takes another worry out of the equation. The top also houses the 3.5mm audio jack, which can serve as an S-video port for TV-out, if you get the additional cable. It would have been nice to have an HDMI-out port, so sound can travel to your TV as well as picture, but obviously Samsung hasdecided to leave the GALAXY S out of the multimedia battles. The only other element worth noting is the microscopic mic hole at the bottom of the device and that's all there is on the outside. Pretty simple and streamlined exterior.
Third time is the charm for Samsung and Android. On the I9000 Galaxy S, the TouchWiz overlay is most prominent and it improves both looks and usability. The customizations start on the homescreen where you have up to seven panes to populate with widgets. In our earlier unit there were 9 screens available but Samsung obviously thought this was either too much for the device to handle or more than any user will need. The good part is that you don’t have to use all the screens all the time. If you need less, deleting the extra ones will speed up the navigation.
Unfortunately, the option to set a default homescreen that we saw on the Galaxy Spica is not available. With the Samsung I9000 Galaxy S, the default homescreen pane is the leftmost not the central one. So if you have used all the screen panes navigation will involve a lot of side-scrolling.
Samsung have also added 8 widgets of their own, available under “Samsung widgets” when adding content to your homescreen. Those include four different clocks (Calendar, Weather, Dual and Yahoo Finance).
Excellent Phonebook
A typical Android smartphone, Samsung I9000 Galaxy S has a phonebook with massive functionality and practically unlimited capacity.
The handset displays the phone memory, SIM-stored and all Google contacts in the phonebook. There is a dedicated setting for that, so you really can have all of your contacts gathered in one place. You can search the entries by either flick-scrolling the list or using the alphabet scroll at the side of the screen (courtesy of Samsung and the TouchWiz UI).
There are many info fields that you can assign to each contact, but it still remains perfectly organized. You have all the types listed (numbers, email addresses, etc) and there's a plus sign on the right - clicking it adds another item of that type. Pressing the minus sign under it deletes the unneeded field.
Full-featured Messaging
The SMS and MMS messaging section is quite straightforward and simple - there are no folders here, just a new message button. Under that button is a list of all your messages organized into threads. To add message recipients, just start typing the corresponding name or number and choose from the contacts offered. Any unsent messages and drafts are marked with a red "Draft" label. What we really like is that each thread keeps the text in the tap-to-compose box even if you exit without sending it or explicitly save it. The "undelivered messages" section has been removed.
If you wish to manage a specific message in the history, you can press and hold a message to bring up options such as edit, forward and delete as well as view details and copy message text.
A press-and-hold in the tap-to-compose area gives you access to functions such as cut, copy and paste. You are free to paste the copied text across applications like email, notes, chats, etc. and vice versa.
Converting an SMS to MMS is logical and easy. When you add multimedia content to the message, it is automatically turned into an MMS. You can just quickly add a photo or an audio file to go with the text or you can choose to go into a full-blown MMS editor, depending on your needs.
Text input, we love Swype
Text input is not usually a particularly exciting part of a review but the Samsung I9000 Galaxy S is different. It features an on-screen QWERTY keyboard by Swype in both portrait and landscape.
The way Swype works is instead of tapping on keys you sweep a finger across the keyboard. To "type" quick, you need to put a finger on the Q key and sweep over to U, then I, then C and all the way to K. There's a visual trail that marks your finger movement across the keyboard.
It doesn't matter if the trace goes over other keys, in fact you can't help it. But Swype recognizes the word you intended to enter with surprising accuracy - it correctly guessed "xylophone" without breaking a sweat.
The high precision means that even fast sweeps will be recognized correctly, so you can enter text very quickly and keep the error rate reasonably low. With shorter words, there might be several combinations possible - in that case Swype simply prompts you to pick which one you meant. It has a pretty big built-in dictionary, but you can teach it new words too (just type them out the regular way and they will be stored for next time).
3D gallery is cool, but downsizes the images
The Samsung I9000 Galaxy S gallery is identical to the one found on the Nexus One. That’s right, no TouchWiz customization here. The gallery automatically locates the images and videos, no matter where they are stored. The gallery boasts cool 3D effects and transitions, which we find rather attractive.
Alternatively, you photos can be organized by date with the help of a button in the top right corner, which switches between grid and timeline view.
In grid view, there’s a date slider, which can also be used to find photos taken on a certain date.
Capable video player – 720p DivX/XviD clips are a cinch
The Samsung I9000 Galaxy S is among the best performers in the Android family as far as video playback is concerned. In addition to packing a dedicated video player app (though playing videos through the gallery is still possible) it also has DivX and XviD video support, which is rare in the Google OS family.
Performance with higher-res videos is great – it played 720p videos like a champ. Little wonder, considering it can record 720p videos. There's a TV-Out feature (though it's only SD) or you could use the DLNA support to stream videos and photos to your DLNA-enabled TV or media player.
The interface of the video player itself is as simple and as it could possibly be. You get a list of all videos available on the phone and the on-screen controls boil down to play/pause and skip buttons, as well as a draggable progress bar.
And last but not least the Galaxy S managed to get through 7 hours and 25 minutes of video playback before it battery reached 10 percent (at which point the player is automatically turned off).
Music player is really nice
The TouchWiz UI has reskinned the music player on the Samsung I9000 Galaxy S. The interface consists of several tabs for the sorting options: current playlist, all tracks, playlists and albums, artists and composers. You are free to remove those you don’t need, to make the interface easier to navigate.
FM Radio on board
The Samsung I9000 Galaxy S is equipped with an FM radio with RDS too. The interface is simple – there’s a tuning dial and you can save as many as 6 stations as favorites. You can also listen on the loudspeaker, but the headset is still needed. Unfortunately, the FM radio tuner is mono-only and strangely there's no option for stereo.
The user interface is standard Samsung for the most part – and that’s not a bad thing. It’s easily thumbable and offers readily accessible scene and shooting modes. Geotagging, face and smile detection are enabled too.
The image quality however is not the best in the 5MP league. There’s a fair amount of noise in the photos and even though the image processing algorithms suppress it, they also smear out the fine detail.
Images are also slightly underexposed but at least there are no highlights and clipping in the shadows.
Key features
- Quad-band GSM and tri-band 3G support
- 7.2 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA support
- 4" 16M-color Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen of WVGA (480 x 800 pixel) resolution
- Android OS v2.1 with TouchWiz 3.0 UI customization
- 1GHz Cortex A8 Hummingbird CPU; 512 MB of RAM
- 5 MP autofocus camera with face, smile and blink detection
- 720p HD video recording at 30fps
- Wi-Fi 802.11 b, g and n support
- GPS with A-GPS connectivity; Digital compass
- 8/16GB internal storage, microSD slot
- Accelerometer and proximity sensor
- Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
- microUSB port (charging) and stereo Bluetooth v3.0
- FM radio with RDS
- Great audio quality
- Slim waistline at only 9.9mm thickness
- Document editor
- File manager comes preinstalled
- Secondary video-call camera
- No Flash support for the web browser
- No flash for the camera
- No dedicated camera key
- The all-plastic body is a real fingerprint magnet
- Feeble loudspeaker
- FM radio is mono-only
- Samsung GALAXY S handset
- Li-Ion battery 1500mAh
- Headset with microphone
- User manual
- Get to know booklet
- Travel adapter
- microUSB cable
- Screen protector
The largest Super AMOLED display in business is a great feat but the Samsung I9000 Galaxy S won’t stop there. The slim-fit case has room for a 1GHz processor and a 5 megapixel camera with HD video recording, while the Android 2.1 (Éclair) OS is the latest.
With a surface measuring 122.4 x 64.2mm the Galaxy S is no small piece, but the 4” screen says it all. What’s more, the Super AMOLED technology has let Samsung bring the waistline down to the svelte 9.9mm.
In a nutshell, the Samsung I9000 Galaxy S display is the key feature that will probably sell this phone to loads of users. So far, the choice of the best display was a matter of compromise for either resolution contrast or sunlight legibility. Super AMOLED units are in no mood to choose. They just let you have it all in one unit.
There are three keys right below it – touch home, physical menu and touch back. Long pressing the context menu key fires up the smart search function, so we actually have all four standard Android keys present. The other front elements are above the screen - the earpiece slit, a front facing VGA cam, and the dot sensors for proximity and ambient light. The Samsung branding is visible right above the screen, as well as on the lower section of the battery cover.
Unfortunately, there's no dedicated camera key on the Galaxy S, which is a pity given the camera specs. 5 megapixel might not sound like much but HD video is a crowd pleaser. However, some customers may be disappointed with the lack of a shutter key. The back hosts the 5MP camera lens in the upper left corner, and the speaker grill on the right. Below them is the ubiquitous “with Google” branding, which hints this is a full-featured Android device, with the whole set of Google services preinstalled. The dotted back cover makes one think the phone has measles rather than bring the alleged carbon fiber-esque look, but that's our take.
Another nice idea from Samsung is the sliding lid over the microUSB port at the top of the Samsung GALAXY S – prevents dirt and lint from clogging the port. The same can be found on the Samsung Wave, and takes another worry out of the equation. The top also houses the 3.5mm audio jack, which can serve as an S-video port for TV-out, if you get the additional cable. It would have been nice to have an HDMI-out port, so sound can travel to your TV as well as picture, but obviously Samsung hasdecided to leave the GALAXY S out of the multimedia battles. The only other element worth noting is the microscopic mic hole at the bottom of the device and that's all there is on the outside. Pretty simple and streamlined exterior.
Third time is the charm for Samsung and Android. On the I9000 Galaxy S, the TouchWiz overlay is most prominent and it improves both looks and usability. The customizations start on the homescreen where you have up to seven panes to populate with widgets. In our earlier unit there were 9 screens available but Samsung obviously thought this was either too much for the device to handle or more than any user will need. The good part is that you don’t have to use all the screens all the time. If you need less, deleting the extra ones will speed up the navigation.
Unfortunately, the option to set a default homescreen that we saw on the Galaxy Spica is not available. With the Samsung I9000 Galaxy S, the default homescreen pane is the leftmost not the central one. So if you have used all the screen panes navigation will involve a lot of side-scrolling.
Samsung have also added 8 widgets of their own, available under “Samsung widgets” when adding content to your homescreen. Those include four different clocks (Calendar, Weather, Dual and Yahoo Finance).
Excellent Phonebook
A typical Android smartphone, Samsung I9000 Galaxy S has a phonebook with massive functionality and practically unlimited capacity.
The handset displays the phone memory, SIM-stored and all Google contacts in the phonebook. There is a dedicated setting for that, so you really can have all of your contacts gathered in one place. You can search the entries by either flick-scrolling the list or using the alphabet scroll at the side of the screen (courtesy of Samsung and the TouchWiz UI).
There are many info fields that you can assign to each contact, but it still remains perfectly organized. You have all the types listed (numbers, email addresses, etc) and there's a plus sign on the right - clicking it adds another item of that type. Pressing the minus sign under it deletes the unneeded field.
Full-featured Messaging
The SMS and MMS messaging section is quite straightforward and simple - there are no folders here, just a new message button. Under that button is a list of all your messages organized into threads. To add message recipients, just start typing the corresponding name or number and choose from the contacts offered. Any unsent messages and drafts are marked with a red "Draft" label. What we really like is that each thread keeps the text in the tap-to-compose box even if you exit without sending it or explicitly save it. The "undelivered messages" section has been removed.
If you wish to manage a specific message in the history, you can press and hold a message to bring up options such as edit, forward and delete as well as view details and copy message text.
A press-and-hold in the tap-to-compose area gives you access to functions such as cut, copy and paste. You are free to paste the copied text across applications like email, notes, chats, etc. and vice versa.
Converting an SMS to MMS is logical and easy. When you add multimedia content to the message, it is automatically turned into an MMS. You can just quickly add a photo or an audio file to go with the text or you can choose to go into a full-blown MMS editor, depending on your needs.
Text input, we love Swype
Text input is not usually a particularly exciting part of a review but the Samsung I9000 Galaxy S is different. It features an on-screen QWERTY keyboard by Swype in both portrait and landscape.
The way Swype works is instead of tapping on keys you sweep a finger across the keyboard. To "type" quick, you need to put a finger on the Q key and sweep over to U, then I, then C and all the way to K. There's a visual trail that marks your finger movement across the keyboard.
It doesn't matter if the trace goes over other keys, in fact you can't help it. But Swype recognizes the word you intended to enter with surprising accuracy - it correctly guessed "xylophone" without breaking a sweat.
The high precision means that even fast sweeps will be recognized correctly, so you can enter text very quickly and keep the error rate reasonably low. With shorter words, there might be several combinations possible - in that case Swype simply prompts you to pick which one you meant. It has a pretty big built-in dictionary, but you can teach it new words too (just type them out the regular way and they will be stored for next time).
3D gallery is cool, but downsizes the images
The Samsung I9000 Galaxy S gallery is identical to the one found on the Nexus One. That’s right, no TouchWiz customization here. The gallery automatically locates the images and videos, no matter where they are stored. The gallery boasts cool 3D effects and transitions, which we find rather attractive.
Alternatively, you photos can be organized by date with the help of a button in the top right corner, which switches between grid and timeline view.
In grid view, there’s a date slider, which can also be used to find photos taken on a certain date.
Capable video player – 720p DivX/XviD clips are a cinch
The Samsung I9000 Galaxy S is among the best performers in the Android family as far as video playback is concerned. In addition to packing a dedicated video player app (though playing videos through the gallery is still possible) it also has DivX and XviD video support, which is rare in the Google OS family.
Performance with higher-res videos is great – it played 720p videos like a champ. Little wonder, considering it can record 720p videos. There's a TV-Out feature (though it's only SD) or you could use the DLNA support to stream videos and photos to your DLNA-enabled TV or media player.
The interface of the video player itself is as simple and as it could possibly be. You get a list of all videos available on the phone and the on-screen controls boil down to play/pause and skip buttons, as well as a draggable progress bar.
And last but not least the Galaxy S managed to get through 7 hours and 25 minutes of video playback before it battery reached 10 percent (at which point the player is automatically turned off).
Music player is really nice
The TouchWiz UI has reskinned the music player on the Samsung I9000 Galaxy S. The interface consists of several tabs for the sorting options: current playlist, all tracks, playlists and albums, artists and composers. You are free to remove those you don’t need, to make the interface easier to navigate.
FM Radio on board
The Samsung I9000 Galaxy S is equipped with an FM radio with RDS too. The interface is simple – there’s a tuning dial and you can save as many as 6 stations as favorites. You can also listen on the loudspeaker, but the headset is still needed. Unfortunately, the FM radio tuner is mono-only and strangely there's no option for stereo.
Camera is a mixed bag
Android is staying out of the megapixel race and the Samsung I9000 Galaxy S is no exception – it packs a 5MP camera, which seems to be the norm for higher end Androids. This one’s pretty bare of accessories though – no flash, not even a shutter key.
The user interface is standard Samsung for the most part – and that’s not a bad thing. It’s easily thumbable and offers readily accessible scene and shooting modes. Geotagging, face and smile detection are enabled too.
The image quality however is not the best in the 5MP league. There’s a fair amount of noise in the photos and even though the image processing algorithms suppress it, they also smear out the fine detail.
Images are also slightly underexposed but at least there are no highlights and clipping in the shadows.
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