Samsung Galaxy S i9000 for review
Samsung GALAXY S comes
with a huge 4” Super AMOLED display, significantly larger than the only
other such screen on the market – the 3.3” one of the Samsung Wave.
This gorgeous window to the phone's soul is hinged to another novelty
from Samsung – the 1GHz Hummingbird heart of the device. It is Samsung's
answer to the Snapdragon cores found in the current cream-of-the-crop
handsets.
Working in tandem with the newest edition of the TouchWiz UI,
these unique features of the Samsung GALAXY S should ring in what the
company names Smart Life into your existence – a sophisticated companion
from dusk till dawn. Will the phone live up to the hype, or will it be
just another victim of stretched marketing imagination? Now the only
smart thing left to do on our part, is to review the GALAXY S where the
rubber meets the road...
One of the best things about the Galaxy S has to be its 4-inch Super
AMOLED display. This has a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels (WVGA) and
measures 4 inches diagonally. An Android phone with a similar screen is
the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, though its resolution is slightly different at 854 x 480 pixels.
The "Super" moniker for the screen identifies it as one using Samsung's new AMOLED technology. The advantages compared with regular AMOLED are that it's thinner, brighter, uses less power and has better screen legibility under direct sunlight. One of the first things we observed about the touchscreen was that it's very sensitive to our fingertip touches. It responded to the lightest of touches, which is good when you want to type fast and not worry about missing letters. Watching videos was a good experience, thanks to the large display and eye-popping colors reproduced by the panel. Furthermore, you can watch DivX HD videos stored in the memory without messy format conversions, perfect for those who plan to use the Galaxy S as a media player.
We took the Galaxy S out under direct sunlight, comparing it with the HTC Desire which is equipped with a regular AMOLED screen. At maximum brightness, the Galaxy S did not appear to do any better or worse than the Desire in this test. Now, this isn't a bad thing. As we've noted in the HTC Desire review, this meant text was readable under direct sunlight, so most people will do fine using a browser or following a map when under the noon sun.
The "Super" moniker for the screen identifies it as one using Samsung's new AMOLED technology. The advantages compared with regular AMOLED are that it's thinner, brighter, uses less power and has better screen legibility under direct sunlight. One of the first things we observed about the touchscreen was that it's very sensitive to our fingertip touches. It responded to the lightest of touches, which is good when you want to type fast and not worry about missing letters. Watching videos was a good experience, thanks to the large display and eye-popping colors reproduced by the panel. Furthermore, you can watch DivX HD videos stored in the memory without messy format conversions, perfect for those who plan to use the Galaxy S as a media player.
We took the Galaxy S out under direct sunlight, comparing it with the HTC Desire which is equipped with a regular AMOLED screen. At maximum brightness, the Galaxy S did not appear to do any better or worse than the Desire in this test. Now, this isn't a bad thing. As we've noted in the HTC Desire review, this meant text was readable under direct sunlight, so most people will do fine using a browser or following a map when under the noon sun.