Hello everyone. I had bought a Samsung Galaxy S S-LCD (i9003) two weeks ago. Got it for ~18k including tax. Sorry for the kinda-late "review". I was familiarizing myself with Android (this is my first). I've just updated it to 2.3.5 (GB), and now can say something about the phone.
Why did I choose this phone? Because the other candidate (SE Xperia Neo V) apparently had heating issues.
Also, its battery capacity was slightly lower. And it had a smaller (3.7 in) screen. I don't intend to mess with ROMs and stuff, so the relatively less dev support available for this phone wasn't much of a bother.
First impression - wow! Mainly because I wasn't used to such large screens. You may laugh, but at first I thought it was a SII in the wrong packaging....
Its typical Samsung -- black plastic, with metal round the sides. Not ugly. Just don't compare it with SE's beautiful-but-fragile phones.
The 4-inch S-LCD is gorgeous. Its supposed to be one of the best LCDs in the industry, up there with IPS tech. I didn't dare test the scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass, but you can take Samsung's word for it. At the top, on the left are the proximity and the ambient light sensors, with the 0.3MP (VGA) secondary camera at the right. The menu button's at the bottom, flanked by touch-sensitive 'menu' and 'back' keys.
The back has the primary camera at the top-left corner and the speaker to its right. The back cover is relatively secure, compared to Nokia's phones, where it took just a slide to open. For this phone, you must use your nail to wedge open the cover. MicroSD slot is under it, but not under the battery itself. SIM card slot is next to it, but you can't insert/remove the SIM unless you remove the battery.
The interface - TouchWiz on top of Android. The phone comes with 2.2 aka FroYo. It's not outrageously slow, but here and there it lags noticeably. In my opinion, FroYo gave Android a bad name with its laggy and battery-sucky experience. You can update to GingerBread via Kies, or take it to a service center if you feel you're gonna brick it by just being in the same room
. GB fixes most of FroYo's problems. Battery life has noticeably improved, and I haven't encountered any lags so far. This is the smooth experience I had been expecting from the 1 GHz CPU.
The 5MP auto-focus camera is very good. Tapping the object in the viewfinder will focus on it. It can record video at 720p, 30fps.
Will upload sample pics soon.
The i9003 comes with XviD and DivX codecs preinstalled, along with the ability to play H264/MP4 files. This is very important IMO, as software based decoding via third party apps is more resource intensive.
With FroYo, battery used to last less than a day, with usage pattern being watching videos for 30mins, browsing via WiFi for 2hrs, trying out apps, and some gaming, plus the usual texting/calling. Gingerbread gives you a lot more. I'll get back on this.
Pics and updates soon.
Update-- The retail box comes with the phone (duh!), 1650mAh battery (not extra), AC charger, USB cable, in-ear earphones, and thats it. Oh wait, I got a bluetooth handsfree worth ₹999 for free. As with other phones, the user guide is next to useless, giving you the same old regurgitated....... stuff.
The box says the phone has 4 GB available memory, but only part of that is user available. 1.87 GB reserved for apps and stuff, 72 MB for messaging and other personal data, and then 1.5 GB as an internal SD card. This shows up when you connect your phone to a PC, apart from any external SD cards you might be using.
As promised...... pics!!!
Size Comparison
Didnt take off the plastic cover on the back yet....
Camera Samples
Autofocus capability
---Macro Shots---
Samsung Galaxy S-LCD i9003 -- my take
keep it up.
Linear Mode
