Samsung Galaxy Ace
With just a glance you can see why Apple took exception to this smartphone. The Samsung Galaxy Ace looks remarkably like an iPhone 4. The build quality doesn’t quite match Apple's handset but the ridged back and impressive 3.5in, 320 x 480 pixel screen create a budget alternative to the Samsung Galaxy III.
The 5Mp camera does a great job and there’s a 2GB MicroSD card included so you can manage without an instant memory upgrade. The 800MHz processor is capable and keeps battery life to a respectable day and a half. There are higher resolution screens but the responsiveness and brightness remain impressive for the price tag.
Reg Rating 80%
Price £180
More info Samsung
Samsung Galaxy Mini 2
Boasting a bright yellow removable back cover, the Galaxy Mini 2 looks like a 1980s sports Sony Walkman. The 3.2in screen struggles to beat the Galaxy Ace – it is difficult to read in bright sunlight and has a budget look to it. It’s rugged enough to rival the Motorola Defy Mini but doesn’t offer anything more than that.
You can expect a much better screen and camera (it's only 3Mp) for this kind of money and younger users will demand more – the Sony Xperia U beats the Galaxy Mini 2 hands down. In 2012, the Galaxy Mini 2 feels like a £99 smartphone.
Reg Rating 65%
Price £179
More info Samsung
Next page: Sony Xperia U NXT
COMMENTS
Battery
In phone reviews I'd like to see the battery life measured for each one. Battery life of portable electronics is so important to me. Having gone from a Sony Ericcson P1i (3G, touchscreen with stylus) which gave me over a week to an HTC Desire which would give me a day and a half even when just sitting idle in my jacket. Changing to CyanogenMod extended that to a long weekend. But it's still not good enough.
Battery tech keeps improving but any advantages are negated by useless UI animation, fancy graphics and pointless cruft.
System storage???
Not a single mention of how much space any of these handsets has for application storage which I'd argue is the most important bit of info to have when buying any Android phone, esp a cheap one.
Re: "The Samsung Galaxy Ace looks remarkably like an iPhone 4."
It's a rectangle with rounded corners and single button. Enough to inflame any manufacturer with insecurity problems
What No Ascend G300 ?
By far the best budget android phone.
Re: System storage???
My HTC desire suffered really badly from the lack of system memory for apps., but by rooting it, and installing a different rom that had better memory management and built in scripts to map SD card space as App storage space then limits on storage space was boosted from 120MB to2GB...
since then have installed CyanogenMod 7.2 rc3 and it works better than ever...
