Samsung Galaxy S i9000

After testing this little beauty (although for a cell phone it is not so little), I must say that I am impressed. Well, impressed in different way than with Nokia N900. Both have their advantages and shortcomings, but they are extremely good within their own herd. N900 is a serious tool, it is designed for geeks who breathe linux. It is more like a pocket sized computer which happens to be a phone, also.

Samsung Galaxy S i9000 is totally different. It is clearly intended as an iPhone killer, and I think it succeeds in that role. It has created lots of fuss in electronic forums, and people seem to be quite eager to get their own Galaxy S. And why not, it has such features that there is very little room for criticism.

4″ Super AMOLED screen
8 or 16 Gb internal memory
5 Mpxl camera, with HD video recording.
Android 2.1 (official 2.2 update should be released soon)
1 GHz processor
Xvid and DivX in HD
Bluetooth 3.0

First impressions
Galaxy S lacks a physical keyboard, but then it also extremely thin. Super AMOLED screen is extremely sharp, bright and pleasurable to look at. Reading magazine articles and books is enjoyable compared to screens with size of 3 inches.

As the current trends dictate, many features and feature integrations are designed for social media in mind. With Galaxy S it is very easy know what is happening and to whom, let others know what you are doing or thinking etc.Battery life of Samsung S is something that you can expect from a smartphone. It means that you usually have to recharge it every day or night. This of course depends a lot on how you use it.

It is very easy to connect Samsung S to other devices. Linux compatibility is excellent, and everything works out of the box. You can transfer files via USB and Bluetooth, share 3G broadband connection through wifi, bluetooth and USB, transmit music and video to other devices etc. Windows users have less luck, since there are lots of problems with Kies. You may be able to use it mass storage without Kies in Windows.

Only surprising thing is that the phone has no camera flash light at all. On the other hand, LED flash is quite useless, and cellphone cameras cannot be compared with real camera (especially with SLR), so I am not disappointed. I have used many cellphone cameras, and usually I have found out that they are OK in optimal lighting conditions. But in non-optimal conditions they are usually quite useless (BTW, all the pictures in iPhone proper handling article were taken with Samsung S)

Screen
This SuperAMOLED screen is really extraordinary. You can use it very well in sunlight. Well, I have to take my sunglasses off, maybe they filter certain wavelengths or something like that. It is actually quite enjoyable to watch videos or read newspaper articles and books on it. It is surprising that there is so much difference between 3.2″ or 3.5″ and then 4″ screens.

User Interface
This is Android 2.1 plus Samsung tweaks. Very intuitive and easy to use. You get some Samsung applications and widgets as a bonus.

USB connections
It is very easy to control your USB connections. Just go to Settings, About Phone and USB settings. There you can select whether the USB connection works as network connection (tethering), mass storage etc. You can use these features without installing any drivers or software on your Linux computer. At least in Ubuntu, system automatically activates usb ethernet connection usb0 or mounts phone memory cards. (instructions).

WiFi and Access Point
Galaxy S has wifi and you can use both to access WiFi network or to turn your phone into WiFi Access Point (not the same time, of course). This second feature is quite handy if you have flat rate broadband connection. Turn AP on from settings. Now your phone is Access Point with WPA encryption. You should see it in your computers network menu, and connect to it normally.(instructions). This should work regardless of operating system on your PC (Linux, OS X, Windows,…). However, WiFi drains batteries heavily, so I suggest that if you intend to do more than just check couple of webpages, then recharge Galaxy simultaneously.

Bluetooth
Galaxy has Bluetooth 3.0. It works very well with BT headphones etc. It even works with Sony Ericsson MBW-150 Bluetooth watch with OpenWatch application. With it phone notifies you calls, email, tweets and you can control media functions with it You can get it from SmartMadSoft. Bluetooth is sometimes quirky. At least in my case, it sometimes seems to forget that a device has been paired previously, and you have to unpair and then pair it again. I have not experienced this kind of behavior on other handsets.

Speed
Galaxy S is stupendously fast. Even 3D games like Asphalt 5 run smoothly. Sometimes there may be slight hick-ups, but usually these happen when system checks email, tweets etc on background while you are running some heavy applications. And the Froyo (Android 2.2) update promises even more speed.

Structure
Galaxy S is very slim but quite large. Backside cover is quite flimsy and slippery plastic “card”. It is nice looking, but not sturdy or robust like Nokia N900. Probably breaks quite easily. Considering, that phones and smartphones are meant to be used everyday and carried along, they should also be designed for such use, not like some precious and delicate jewelery. As a side note, antenna works very well – it does not matter where I grip it.

Camera
Even without flash it takes very good pictures. I especially like panorama feature. When activated it guides you to take series of shots, which are then instantly integrated into one wide panorama picture. You can use this with phone in both horizontal and vertical orientation. There are also some fun filters and settings in camera which beautify persons, makes cartoon-like pictures and recognizes smile.

Samsung connections
If you happen to have Samsung TV with Wifi, then you can use Galaxy S as an remote controller. You can also send video or music stream directly from your phone without any wires.

Linux compatibility
Galaxy S works quite well with Linux. At least in Ubuntu, you do not have to install any drivers or extra software. Bluetooth and usb connections work out of the box. File transfer works with bluetooth and usb (switch to Mass storage mode in usb settings). Tethering works like charm, just choose PC Internet mode in usb settings (instructions).

Windows compatibility
Mass Storage mode should work in Windows, but otherwise there are problems. You can download program called Kies from Samsung website, but it seems that I am not the only one who experienced nothing but trouble. In it is pain to install, and even if you manage that, then there is a great possibility that it will not connect with your Galaxy S. At least that was my case. I installed Kies on 3 separate machines (both XP Pro and Vista), and could not get Kies connected to Galaxy S. This is a serious problem for those who use Windows.

Overall
Very impressive phone, indeed. Experience using this phone is so smooth, that I can almost forget all the pains experienced with phones year ago.

TeknoMagus