Having a 5Mp camera on board sounds good, but again, Samsung hasn't really done anything to distinguish it. It has flash and autofocus - with a nicely defined double press to the shutter button, one step to focus and a second to take the snap - but there's no zoom, multi-shot facility or timer, no colour settings or panorama option, let alone any of that fancy face and smile detection that's now becoming common on mid-range cameraphones.
Sample Shots: Outside
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Next page: Sample Shots: Indoors
COMMENTS
Is this the first Android phone supporting WCDMA 850?
I've noticed that these reviews never include the supported WCDMA frequencies - OK all phones are now quad-band GSM - but if one is interested in using a phone on a particular network (Telstra NextG / WCDMA 850 in Australia in my case) it is useful to know which frequencies are supported.
In this case, a bit of looking around suggests that this one is WCDMA: 850/900/2100 (Tri-Band) - does this make it the first Android handset supporting 850 WCDMA?
Please add supported frequencies in reviews in future.
Galaxy
I've had one for a while now, and after being a lifelong Nokia user I'm loving it.
To answer a couple of questions, it's Android 1.5. Latest rumours suggest that Samsung will be skipping 1.6 and releasing 2.0 in Q1 2010 (I believe this is the same for the HTC Hero, although there are unofficial 1.6 firmwares available for that so I've heard).
The "sync notification" alert tone mentioned in the article can be turned off in the settings menu, the headphones one I don't know, I've not tried.
Yes the Samsung NPS software is crap and doesn't really work apart from to update the phone, but as someone has already pointed out, contacts and calendar etc. is synced with your google account anyway. So there's no need for the app's sync features. You can of course still access the SD card on your computer as a removable disk too.
Camera crap? Well, yes. But that's the same for all the current crop of Android phones, but I think it's OK, certainly in daylight.
Poor battery life? Not for me, I've had over 100 hours between charging and the phone was still at 30%. If you've got background data syncing, wifi, gps, loads of twittering facespace widgets updating every 10 minutes then yes, it's not going to last long.
One possible cause for the big battery drain is apparently if you're using the frankly terrible case that samsung provide with the phone. It keeps the camera button pressed down and prevents the phone from going to sleep.
Do I regret getting it? Not so far, so long as Samsung continue to provide updates to last my 18 month contract period I'll be happy. The HTC offerings do seem to have better support though.
With more and more manufacturers releasing Android phones I think things can only get better.
@aa77
It's Android - it uses your Google contacts and calendar, there's no need to manually sync anything. Ok, once I decided to get a G1 it took a little upheaval to move my stuff over to Google in the first place, but it wasn't difficult, it just involved letting go of some outmoded habits.
Now I get exactly the same access to my calendar, mail and contacts no matter whether I'm using my phone, desktop, laptop or work PC, with no tedious syncing. Plus I share calendars with my family, so any of us can edit it and it all updates for everyone in real time.
Returning the phone because it wouldn't sync, in my ever so humble opinion, is kind of missing the point.
Oh yes, I forgot to mention...
I forgot to mention in my last post that the battery life can be extended to at least 2 days if you turn off the wireless, bluetooth and gprs. You can install some widgets which allow you to turn these on and off at a touch rather than crawling through the menus. I'm sure I can get even more time out of it if I change the syncing periods of certain apps.
