Analysis - Samsung Galaxy S review

[HEXUS]

This Android phone has been Samsung’s big smartphone success this year, we attempt to find out why.

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[Barkotron]

I dunno, I think there are a few reasons to get it rather than the Desire (I have this, my wife has the HTC).

For me, there are quite a few things wrong with the Desire that are just not there on the Galaxy S.

1: Screen, especially in sunlight. The Galaxy S screen is far, far better than the one on the Desire. Bigger, more responsive, more accurate. It can actually be used in sunlight as something other than a mirror as well. This is a massive advantage.

2: Storage: there's basically no storage on the Desire other than what you put in there in an SD card. 8GB/16GB plus whatever card you want to put in is a big plus to me. The Desire's room for application installs is miniscule as well (under 200MB, isn't it?), so if the apps you want don't support Apps2SD or you're not on Froyo, you're left with having to shuffle apps rather than just installing what you want. The Galaxy S has 2GB of app install space - between that and apps2sd you're not going to run out any time soon.

3: Camera. The camera on the Galaxy S is decent in good light, okay in not-so-good light, and there's no flash so you're screwed in the dark. However the camera on the Desire (on each of the 3 different ones I've used) is abysmal, whatever the local conditions. Video capture is far better on the Samsung as well.

4: games - 3d games run perfectly on the Samsung, patchy on the HTC. It's just better at processing the graphics. The Quake3 port is particularly noteworthy. Also, I don't know if they've fixed the multi-touch issues on the Desire, but controlling multi-touch games was very unreliable last time I tried. Admittedly I haven't seen a Desire with Froyo on yet, so I don't know how much better that makes things.


There are things that annoy me about the Samsung as with any piece of tech, but I absolutely would not swap for the Desire unless someone offered me an awful lot of money to do so.

[Rob_B]

I had a play with a Galaxy recently, coming from a HTC Desire it's just a big version of it, I really wasn't impressed with it & it's far too expensive (IMO) Nothing really uses the big screen to make it a worthwhile purchase & it is a bit laggy :/

3: Camera. The camera on the Galaxy S is decent in good light, okay in not-so-good light, and there's no flash so you're screwed in the dark. However the camera on the Desire (on each of the 3 different ones I've used) is abysmal, whatever the local conditions. Video capture is far better on the Samsung as well.

Design flaw on the lens (HTC refuse to acknowledge it but just search & you'll see how many people have it)
The lens cover is flush with the back & is soft plastic so gets covered in tiny scratches. Take a picture with then without your back cover on, its amazing!

Take off the back cover, pop the lens out with a cotton bud, put a tiny dot of toothpaste on the lens and rub with a soft cloth until the micro-scratches are gone, pop the lens back on but inside the back cover (there's even a space for it!)
apart from cleaning of the odd bit of dust now & again it won't scratch anymore