Samsung Galaxy Ace S5830

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Hey guys, welcome to the review of the iPhone 4G...uh...oops..sorry about that, actually this is the review of the Samsung Galaxy Ace S5830! Cant blame me now, can you? The phones look strikingly similar! Well lets continue with the review...

BUILD: Well as you can see from the picture alongside (I couldn't help but attach a comparison picture :) ) the 'new' Samsung Ace bears an uncanny resemblance to the Iphone 4G..the same built,the same silver steel rim, the exact positioning of the camera.. I can go on! The phone comfortably fits in the palm and weighs a measly 110 gms. The Volume rocker,Memory card slot and the lock key are found adoring the steel 'iphone' rim.(Strangly there is no camera key...hmmm) The top of the phone holds a USB jack and the 3.5mm Headphone jack. The back holds a 5MP camera with flash(Yes, a samsung phone with FLASH!) and the speaker. The only physical key in the front is the 'menu' key while the send and end keys are 'feather touch keys'.

INTERFACE: The phone has a 3.5inch TFT capacitive touch screen which holds 16 million colors though with an average resolution of 320*480. Still the interface looks bright and colorful enough to sooth your senses. Under the direct sunlight viewing is poor. The touch response is very good and no lag observed. The Android Froyo (Version 2.2) is the USP of the galaxy ace. The menu interface is suave and Samsung is contemplating introduction of customisable skins(it seems). The phone boasts of very decent multitasking. The on board QWERTY keypad is also a comfortable experience. The phone also supports multitouch and has integrated social networking in Contacts.

SPECIFICATIONS:The galaxy ace has a 800MHz processor which boosts the web browsing experience. The phone has built in memory of 158 MB and can support expandable memory upto 32GB. The Bluetooth version is 3.0 and the USB version is 2.0. Besides this the phone also has Wi-Fi connectivity and 3G which is capable of speeds of 7.2 Mbps. The phone has a powerful 1350mAh battery which powers 11 hours of talk-time and 640 hours of standby time!! Thats 26 days!!

CAMERA: The 5 MP camera with auto focus and LED flash is a decent one given the price of the phone. It has a digital zoom of 2X. It has various shot modes like smile,continuous and panorama. The video recording though is not at par with average standards. The VGA recording with 15FPS is too poor in this second decade of the 21st century!

MULTIMEDIA: Due to the Android support, you can download different players to support various video formats.The YouTube app on Android is just extremely powerful – you can share and like videos.The music player is the Android Music Player and bears a resemblance to the Iphone player. Song and album interface is also similar. The speaker on the device is loud while the sound quality on the headphones is very good. Galaxy Ace also has the good old Radio.

NEW FEATURES:

SWIPE: The Swipe input works great on the GALAXY Ace. All you need to do is press the first letter of the word and then swipe your finger through all letters without lifting your finger..Ta Da! You have successfully 'SWIPED' your word. The 3.5 inch screen size complements the SWIPE system.

ANDROID FROYO (Ver 2.2) : This is the latest version of android available in Mid Range phones. The Froyo is 5 times faster than Android 2.1 and it also supports Flash 10.1. Applications installed from the computer can now be updated via the phone itself! Voice search is one more addition to the features wherein you can speak out your search queries rather than typing them. And count in the 12000 odd apps lying at your footstep too.

THUMBS UP: Android 2.2; 5MP camera with LED flash and auto focus; 3.5 inch screen; processor.

THUMBS DOWN: Built similar to iPhone 4G; poor video recording; low inbuilt memory

The phone is expected to have a retail price of Rs. 15000/-

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-Amol Nair (anamysterio@gmail.com)