My rating for value for money is 4 out of 5, but still some issues are not so small also. Am sure some readers will have some solutions to few things that could not be figured out. If Samsung can read and solve these issues.
I will concentrate more on drawbacks which are visible only during usage. Otherwise as we know tech and features are superb like HDMI video recording and display. It feels nice to watch some movies in breaks in good screen size & clarity. Can have many apps with 804 RAM and dual core 1.2GHz processors. Applications, scrolling etc work superfast and smoothly. Multitasking is possible in many applications.
Bought this after cheating by Nokia as per my service request no. 1-13613934269
Average design(as compared to swanky looks of Sony, HTC etc.). Is it so difficult to have liquid proof design?
Lack of sturdy Gorilla glass which could have remained cleaner without smudges. Not easy to read in sunlight as in some competitor models. Here instead of auto brightness, can use highest.
Dent and shine lose prone metal sides make me wonder if it will remain physical damage prone to soon get out of warranty.
Surface exposed lens of main camera with no possible solution to save it from scratches. I had mainly bought it for HD video recording capability and 8 MP pics. So at least keep it upside down. But, then in pockets how will you save it?
Auto focus for 14 feet was disappointment as despite 10 similar pics of people in a room(with room setting in camera), I could not get a single pic with even below average focus on faces. Normal setting will work. But for long and shorter distance pics I had wonderful experience as it is HDMI camera. Edit function comes from left button press in Gallery where it will ask for download of app.
Many good features of camera disable editing on other required features which is a terrible disappointment and frustration. Panorama and night photography are present.
Wifi Hotspot for sharing device internet with laptop was an issue but seems to have been sorted in their upgrade. Main handset speed is remarkably fast in 2G(Vodafone). Kies(why don’t they tell this in cell settings?) needs to be downloaded from samsung site on laptop for syn, backup and getting data from older other brand cells. During installation it doesn’t show progress and seems to be in unending loops, but leave it for a long time. Select media mode of connection in cell settings.
Samsung has its own apps shortcut- Samsung Apps where in the first page itself they have recommended Song.pk despite hundreds of reviews that it is full of viruses! So, please download only using already installed main Play Store(by Google).
RAM is 804 MB out of which 560 MB is running all the time despite average no. of safe apps. Only in Apps Manager(in settings) can see which apps use high cache. There’s a task manager by long press of main key where- RAM clearing works temporarily & there deleting processes helps as many processes remain in cache even when cell is switched off. Bluetooth, wifi and screen are main draining sources of battery. It has only 4GB free for our usage. Unable to find if any app can increase RAM as virtual RAM by using other unused memory.
No self system to make sure all your songs, movies, pictures get loaded only on external SD card. Except in 1-2 small settings for limited such application.
Had to install MX player as their own can run very few types of movie formats. Can also download an app for changing movie format.
Loudspeaker volume and to small extent quality were an issue, but seems to have been addressed to some extent in software upgrade. Earphones use is like in heaven(vol keeps going above highest to next scale) with unmatched quality of sound. In speaker mode calls, some people could not hear me properly(not sure if affecting certain models with their speakers).
No battery charge alarm and an external app for that didn’t make any sound. In fact as in many cheap phones, it should automatically disconnect charging when it is over. Also, its own internal software reads charging wrongly as even above 95% charging can take more than 30-40 minutes. In fact App of -’Advanced Mobile Care’ gives quite good estimate of remaining time for charging.
Full charging took above 4 hours. From 20% battery status it takes around 3.5 hours for charging, so auto-disconnect feature is needed to utilize it for charging while sleeping at night. Overcharging is very bad for life of battery. Life of battery is generally good for a day’s average use but how do you get so much time to charge?
It is very difficult for a new person to discover how to organize numerous features. I have still not figured out how to do selective copy and paste.
Auto call forwarding was activated and while some data might be getting downloaded, calls got forwarded costing me unnecessarily even when option for forwarding in such cases was deselected. So, I had to really research to undo this whereby a single feature directly deactivates call forwarding and call waiting in both SIMs without option for a selective usage.
Hard right button press gives button for extra auto-sliding window for multi-window format. Can relocate(by pressing and dragging) this button anywhere in screen.
Features include- multi-window, auto-dialling if near ear, battery% indicator, auto-brightness adjustment, track/alert of internet usage, eye-detection feature preventing screen saver to come, easy settings page by moving finger from top to bottom. In movie- screen brightness(increase it for stunning sharpness) & vol adjustment are by finger on screen. Can stretch movie display and lock screen from lock sign.
Auto typing by recognizing handwriting on screen will get 55 rating out of 100 as it has its own limitations in software. Voice assisted search and typing hardly work for Indian accent.
Navigation does not even start 50% times despite all possible efforts of changing location/settings etc. Feature needed to save songs in list as favourites1, fav2, fav3 etc.
23.Before Kies for import of old nos, did this- I had to export, then copy in SD card new folder by connecting cell to laptop as a serial memory device. Left button press in contacts then allows import from desired location. Instead of sms, mode mysteriously changes to MMS(when long messages were typed) automatically many times and is incomprehensible to others even after selecting restricted mode option of MMS. There is no option to completely ban MMS sending.
Connecting cable is short to take phone calls while charging. A spare longer cable could also have been provided.
Buy external SD card of speed 10 for directly 64GB even though it is not easily available but small shops told me it is available for Rs 1850. It is needed for high speed video recording(if lens doesn’t get wasted due to no possible protection of its near the surface lens). But, in Reliance Digital they sold me after a hefty discount 32GB SD card for Rs 2000(outside for 1450)!
I could utilize lots of traveling time to watch several of loaded movies which I could never earlier get time for viewing. We can load lots and lots of movies/ videos in upto 64GB external SD!
For all the specs, speed, camera, features, screen size etc., its a nice phone overall and can be summarized as 4 out 5 rating for value for money. In their ads they hardly show the extent of beautiful features which we have to explore mainly by checking each and every part of settings.