Mobile Computing News

Photo: Samsung

Android’s handset lineup is getting very good. No, scratch that. Android’s Samsung Galaxy S is by far the best mobile phone Samsung has ever developed, and one of the best mobile phones available on Android.

The Specs

The Galaxy S has a 1GHz Samsung processor, and weighs in at 118g. It has an attention grabbing 4-inch super AMOLED display, with a resolution of 800×480. Its dimensions come in at 122.4×64.2×9.9 mm, making it a full millimeter thicker than the iPhone 4 (oh, the horror).

The Galaxy S sports a pair of cameras, one a front facing VGA camera, and the rear-facing camera a 5-megapixel beast capable of snapping 720p video. No flash though, so you’ll have to make do by ensuring you shoot in well-lit areas at all times. It also packs 48GB of memory, so you won’t want for space to store your media in.

The inspiration

The Samsung Galaxy S, however, clearly draws a lot of inspiration from Apple’s iPhone. The general design motif is clean lines, few buttons, and an unbelievably gorgeous screen.

The Samsung Galaxy S has (what Samsung is calling) a super AMOLED display coming in at 4 inches. That is notably larger than the iPhone’s screen, immediately setting it apart from that device. It has a chrome bezel, which seems an expensive, neat touch, but all that it does is draw attention right back to the centrepiece on the handset, its display.

The innovation

Samsung has overlayed their TouchWiz 3.0 over Google Android for added customisability – similar to the way the HTC Sense UI is used for the same purposes. We found TouchWiz 3.0 to be the weakest area for Samsung’s handset. The mobile OS overlay comes from a poor base with Samsung’s other smartphones, and it isn’t long before the legacy mistakes start creeping up. Widgets seem sluggish, which is the antithesis to the blitz-quick response of everything else on the handset. Here you get seven home screens, inclusive of both icons and widgets to work with.

The verdict

Samsung has a bona fide hit on its hands. The Samsung Galaxy S does a fantastic job of showing off just how capable Google Android devices are when paired with the right hardware. While we’re not completely sold on TouchWiz 3.0 as an overlay for Android and have found it to be inferior to HTC’s Sense UI, for example, it is a good example of Samsung coming to better grips with software, too.

At nearly £500 it’s not cheap, and being so similar to the iPhone 4 may be a turn-off to some, but we’re sold without reservation. This is easily one of the best smartphones on the market, and adds another credible contributor to the Google Android line.