Samsung Galaxy 551 review: Value line

The organizer misses document viewer

The calendar has four different types of view - agenda, daily, weekly and monthly. Adding a new event is quick and easy, and you can also set an alarm to act as a reminder.

The organizer centerpiece - the calendar

The agenda view shows a list of all the calendar entries from the recent past to the near future. It’s a very handy tool when you need to check your appointments for the next few days.

There is also a calculator aboard. It is nicely touch optimized - the buttons are big enough and easy to hit.

The Calculator

The alarm clock app is descent and allows a huge number of alarms to be set, each with its own start time and repeat pattern. Voice recorder is also available.

The Clock app has the alarm options • Voice recorder

As usual Samsung has included the My Files app – a simple to use but functional file manager, which also doubles as an image gallery. It can move, copy, lock and rename files in bulk, even send multiple files over Bluetooth. It will only browse the memory card.

The My Files app

Unfortunately there is no document viewer pre-installed, but you can get one from the Android Market.

Applications

Samsung filled the Galaxy 551 with a few of their home-brewed applications and we really appreciate their work. Most of them are quite useful and can be updated via Samsung Apps – the secondary app repository on your phone . Whenever Samsung updates some of the current apps or widgets, or releases new ones, you’ll find them here.

Samsung Apps repository

The AllShare app allows you to stream content to and from different kind of devices (TV or computer). We didn’t give it a proper run for its money, but we guess it works over DLNA.

The Memo is self-explanatory and works only with text.

AllShare app • The Memo

Social Hub is the messaging and media sharing Holy Grail – this one app allows you to create a message (it may pack media content too) and then send it to various services – SMS/MMS, email, social networks.

Text and Go does almost the same job, but updates only your social network status.

The Social Hub • Text and Go

The popular Layar Reality browser is also pre-installed. It’s a search app enhanced by augmented reality. Your search results for various POIs – gas stations, hotels, parking, restaurants, shops, etc – are returned and displayed in an augmented reality environment using the handset’s GPS and camera.

Layar in action

All the apps are in the Android Market

The Samsung Galaxy 551 is running the latest available version of Android, but has a WQVGA screen, giving you somewhat limited access to the Android Market (some apps won’t run on low-res screens).

The structure of the Android Market is quite simple – featured apps on top and above them, three sections (Applications, Games and Downloads). There is also a shortcut up there for initiating a search.

The Android Market will give you access to over 100 000 applications

The Applications and Games sections are divided into subsections (e.g. Communication, Entertainment etc.) so you can filter the apps that are relevant to you. Of course, there is also an option of displaying them all in bulk, but you’ll probably need days to browse them all that way.

There are all kinds of apps in the Android market and the most important ones are covered (file managers, navigation apps, document readers etc.).

GPS relies on Google services

The Samsung Galaxy 551 comes with a GPS receiver, which got a satellite lock in about four minutes with A-GPS turned off. A-GPS can speed this up quite a bit, but requires Internet access.

It comes as no surprise that Google Maps come preinstalled. Unfortunately, voice-guided turn-by-turn navigation by Google Maps still has limited region availability.

Google Maps Navigation menu and the message you’ll get in most of the countries

Still, even without Navigation, there is some kind of guidance: your route and current location appear on the screen so you'll reach your destination eventually, but you’ll need a co-pilot to read you the instructions for that one.

Google Maps

Quite naturally, the app also supports the Street View mode. In fact, this mode is probably the best part of Google Maps. If the Street View is available in the area you're interested in, you can enjoy a 360-degree view of the surroundings. When the digital compass is turned on it feels like making a virtual tour of the location!

Using Street View • What’s near by?

The Galaxy 551 doesn’t come with a third-party SatNav solution preinstalled but you can easily snatch one off the Android market. There are both paid and free options on offer.