I have been using Samsung phones for quite some time now, and honestly I am satisfied with their performance. Well a few months ago I lost my Wave 525 and was forced to get a new phone.. I wanted to buy an Android this time (ofcouse we all want to upgarde, from java to bada, now android!) .. As the purchase was not really pre-planned, I was a bit short on finance.. After all the googling, review reading and so called research I did, I got this phone , Samsung Galaxy y (pure black). Let me share my experience with this phone..
Aesthetics and Look:
There are three variants available,
pure black
black with sliver back
white
I personally liked the pure black one(some things should stay the way they are, fancy pink sparkled mobiles are not for me!).. The phone is 10.4 cm long and 5.8 cm wide.. All that means is, the screen looks a bit small, length wise, as compared to "the ususal touchscreen phones" we see around us. However, over time you get used to it.. The phone fits easily in your palm and provides a nice grip.. The back cover is not that sturdy and though it hasn’t troubled me till now, Samsung could have done better. There’s a single port for both charging and USB connection, which is covered by a plastic lid (like in Wave 525).. Opening this lid gets annoying on the days you have cut your nails! There’s a 3.5 mm audio jack at the top. There are proximity sensors on the top to turn off the lights, while in call to preserve battery.. There are three buttons at the bottom, one physical and two touch sensitive.. There’s a volume up/down key on one side of the phone and a turn off key on the other side.. The phone though lacks a dedicated camera key..
- Specifications
Operating system : Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), Arm V6 device
Phone has FM stereo, mp3 player, camera, 3.5 mm jack, bluetooth, wifi, GPS.
Phone feels light with weight a little less than 100g. As always touch screen is crystal clear and quite responsive. The phone has accelerometer that assists in auto rotation and in playing certain ’’tilt friendly’’ games.. The screen size is about 3 inches with a resolution of 320*240.. The phone supports external memory upto 32 gb and the sd card slot is not accessible from outside.. you have to remove the back cover to insert/remove sd card.
The RAM, as appears on phone, is a meagre 290 MB.. Around 140 MB of which is reserved for android system and "some system services". The phone’s internal memory is 190 MB.. More than half of which is occupied with pre installed, non-deletable applications.. Please note, Internal memory restricts the number of applications that you can install on your device.. After your internal memory is consumed, you can’t install new applications without deleting a few of previously installed ones. If your internal memory is consumed fully, you may not even receive messages, (or anything that requires memory - that means almost everything) till you free up some memory.
The phone has a back camera of 2MP, with maximum resolution of 1600X1200pixels. Camera works just fine for a 2MP phone. Features include some kiddish editing and geo tagging.
- Performance
Let’s do it point wise..
SPEED: The phone’s speed is decent. It doesn’t usually hang. Just understand the limitations of your device. Its not designed for extreme gaming and tasks. Its an AFFORDABLE ANDROID PHONE that performs quite good under its boundaries.. Just don’t burden it too much.
Touch: Touch is responsive. You won’t have any issues about the touch screen. Touch sensitive buttons sometimes face a lag, but that’s memory and speed problem, We will discuss that later. Otherwise its pretty fine.
SOUND: Sound Quality is surprisingly good with headphones.. The default music player though is boring and lacks in features.. The speaker volume however is disappointing.. But there’s an android market full of options.. So you can get pretty decent results with some nice players available in market.
BATTERY: Ask any android owner and he will complain about the battery.. Same holds for this phone.. Lasts at most one day.. You need to charge it up daily.. You can download apps that preserve battery and tere are certain things that helps you save battery.. We will talk about them some other time.. For now, don’t expect too much from battery. However if you are kind to your device, you may get a day long back up. . But not more..
Camera: Its 2MP, I ain’t even writing about this..
APPLICATIONS AND GAMING:
As I earlier said there’s a limitation on the number of applications and games you can install on this device, given the internal memory size of only 190 MB. (Even if an app is installed on sd card, it consumes some part of internal memory.. Will give details about why and what to do to minimize it some other time.. Gosh, there’s so much to talk!)
Having said that, you can download a number of useful applications and entertaining games on this device. You can download star applications from all fields, Navigon and sygic for navigation, Poweramp and player pro for music, Wolfram alpha and what not? When it comes to games, high resolution games can’t be downloaded.. The phone wont support too bulky and graphic intensive games. . However a number of famous games e.g. angry birds, fruit ninja, Raging Thunder and hunderes more can be downloaded.. In short, You will miss a few of applications, and a variety of High Rsolution games. However if you are a first time android user, trust me, you will never run short of applications and games to download..Its more than sufficient for a normal user..
- Things I personally liked
Touch is great..
Phone is easy to use..
Gps lock in quick.. Quite handy for navigation with app like sygic
An array of games and applications are supported.. You will never get bored again!
Haven’t faced any problem till now.
- Things I didn’t like
Low Ram and internal memory.. Sometimes its annoying to choose which application to uninstall when your memory is all consumed.. (There is a thing called rooting that can solve these issues, but haven’t yet made my mind about rooting.. Sometime later, maybe!)
Honestly, nothing else till now.. Can’t really complain about resolution and camera - Itne paise mai itna hi mileage.
- My advice to those who are planning to buy/have recently bought this phone
a. Get a decent back cover and screen guard. I got one from spice hotspot.. It was a combination pack, cost me 300 in total
b. Get atleast an 8 GB memory card.. So that you never run short of space for your songs, videos, pictures and application data!
c. Don’t use too many widgets... They consume RAM and Battery..
d. There are some really good apps available in market.. Grab them all, and make your phone a space ship! ( Maybe I will post a list of must have apps, when I am again in a mood to write.. I don’t get fu**ing paid here!)