Samsung’s a very ambitious Korean chaebol that’s not afraid of taking on anyone, in just about any part of the electronics business. When it does something new, competitors pay close attention.Its foray into the rapidly expanding smartphone market is underpinned by huge manufacturing expertise and a mix of open source and proprietary software from Google, Oracle and Microsoft to lure developers from all camps.
The target in Samsung’s sights is Apple, a fact apparent from the i9000 Galaxy S phone that’s powered by Google’s Android operating system.
This is a sleek and slim device with a design that bears more than a passing resemblance to the 3G/3GS series iPhones. The i9000 is light and feels good to hold but the quality of the design isn’t at Apple levels.
For example, to insert a SIM card into the iPhone, you pop out a neat cradle that holds the all-important module. On the i9000 you prise open and remove the entire back to slide in a SIM (and an optional microSD card to expand storage).
Android phone makers compete with Apple on features, and Samsung’s no exception. Starting with a fast 1GHz processor with 512MB RAM and a built-in 16GB of storage, there’s 3G, Wi-Fi, multimedia support, USB for charging/data transfer, Bluetooth and GPS as well.
You’re guaranteed to notice one feature straight away: the beautiful 4-inch Super AMOLED screen with 480 x 800 pixel resolution. It’s big and bold with amazing colours and brightness, with an accurate and responsive digitiser for your fingers, and it’s reason alone to consider the Galaxy S. The screen is a fingerprint magnet, though, and ends up looking mucky after a bit of use.
There’s a 5 megapixel rear-facing camera without flash, and a VGA-resolution front-facing one for video calls. Pictures from the former are okay for casual use, and you can shoot 720p HD video at 30 frames per second as well.
The phones I tried were built for Vodafone’s network, with 3G support in the 900 and 2100MHz bands. However, Samsung lists the phone as having 3G support in the 850MHz range, which is what Telecom’s XT network requires and rumour has it that it will be sold across networks.
Internet speeds over 3G are very good on the i9000 Galaxy S and you can turn the phone into a mobile access point over its Wi-Fi connection for up to three devices, obviating the need to carry a data stick.
Despite blasting away with 3G and Wi-Fi radios turned on, I found battery life acceptable, at well over a day. This drops if you start watching videos, however.
Samsung’s copped criticism for its TouchWiz interface that again is iPhone-esque, so much so that you’d expect Apple to raise some objections about the similarities. TouchWiz is a departure from the typical Android user interface but it’s one that most people will come to grips with pretty fast; plus, it looks better than bog-standard Android.
The phone is equally well stocked with applications and games, including social media integration, ThinkFree Office productivity suite, multimedia players and recorder, voice dialling, navigation and more.
Google integration is good and easy to set up, as you’d expect, and the Galaxy makes surfing most internet sites a pleasure with its fast web browser that renders most things correctly. This is a phone for Windows users only, and works well within a newish such environment where you can share content with other DLNA-enabled devices (and even use the phone as a remote control for your Samsung TV over Wi-Fi).
Swype Inc’s excellent text input system comes with the i9000 Galaxy S. This lets you ‘type’ by drawing your fingers across the onscreen keyboard and it’s brilliant, one of the best and fastest text input system for small devices I’ve tried.
However, compared to Apple, the Galaxy wheels start to wobble on the software side. I actually had two phones to try out; the first, supplied by Vodafone, was supposedly an early production sample running Android 2.1 that started off fine but became slow and unresponsive after a day or so of use.
A second phone, supplied by Samsung and with Android 2.1, behaved better, with only occasional hesitation and pausing. GPS didn’t work on either phone, however. Annoyingly, the phones exaggerated sibilants during calls and recording, making you sound like a cross between Hissing Sid and Sir Les Patterson.
I was keen to try out the Android ‘Froyo’ 2.2 update. It’s apparently reached some i9000 users overseas and reputedly sorts out the above issues, so I tried to obtain it via Samsung’s Kies client on Windows 7 as prescribed. Kies is also the, er, key to Samsung Apps, but there are none available for the i9000 currently through that route.
This failed abysmally over a period of many days, as Kies epitomises the term ‘crapware’. Slow to load, the first versions of Kies I tried would only recognise the i9000 after connecting and disconnecting the phone several times. This despite Windows 7 recognising the phone was connected each time.
Samsung is updating Kies regularly, which is good. Not so good is that the update servers are in Korea, a country that New Zealand clearly doesn’t have much bandwidth to. The Kies updates are 151MB or so in size, even though you’re told they’re only 42MB, and due to the slow pace of downloading them and constant manual reconnections required, they take up to a day to come through.
Forget about the automatic update then, unless you have the patience of a saint. Instead, click through to the Support and Downloads section on Samsung’s site and get it from there manually. You probably have to go through this pain if you want your phone to talk to your computer.
Forget about the automatic update then, unless you have the patience of a saint. Instead, click through to the Support and Downloads section on Samsung’s site and get it from there manually. You probably have to go through this pain if you want your phone to talk to your computer.
That, Samsung, isn’t good enough, if you want to take on Apple and charge a grand for the i9000. Fix the software issues and then we can talk about smartphone world domination, okay?
JUHA SAARINEN
Samsung i900 Galaxy S – Specifications
• Networks: Quad-band GSM and tri-band 3G
• Screen: 4-inch Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen with 16.7 million colours, 480 x 800 pixel resolution
• Storage: 8/16GB internal, expandable via microSD
• Processor: 1GHz Cortex A8 Hummingbird CPU; 512 MB RAM
• Camera: 5 megapixel autofocus camera with face, smile and blink detection; 720p HD video at 30fps
• Wireless: Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n
• Other Features:
GPS with A-GPS connectivity
Digital compass
Accelerometer and proximity sensor
Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
MicroUSB port
Stereo Bluetooth v3.0
FM radio with RDS
1500 mAh Li-Ion battery
• Screen: 4-inch Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen with 16.7 million colours, 480 x 800 pixel resolution
• Storage: 8/16GB internal, expandable via microSD
• Processor: 1GHz Cortex A8 Hummingbird CPU; 512 MB RAM
• Camera: 5 megapixel autofocus camera with face, smile and blink detection; 720p HD video at 30fps
• Wireless: Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n
• Other Features:
GPS with A-GPS connectivity
Digital compass
Accelerometer and proximity sensor
Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
MicroUSB port
Stereo Bluetooth v3.0
FM radio with RDS
1500 mAh Li-Ion battery
Pros
• Nice design
• Wonderful 4-inch screen
• Fully featured
• Integrates well with Google and Windows
• Wonderful 4-inch screen
• Fully featured
• Integrates well with Google and Windows
Cons
• Buggy software
• Voice quality
• Voice quality
