Samsung Galaxy S Duos S7562 preview : First look

Stills and video

The Samsung Galaxy S Duos comes with a 5MP camera and is able to capture photos at a maximum resolution of 2560 x 1920 pixels.

The interface is virtually the same as on the Galaxy S III - You get two shortcut bars on each side of the viewfinder - on the right you get the still camera / camcorder switch, a virtual shutter key and the gallery shortcut (which is a thumbnail of the last photo taken).

On the left you get several controls and the good news is that you can pick any four shortcuts to put there - you can easily have all frequently used features just a tap away. The fifth shortcut always points to Settings.

The camera interface

The actual images are good with a pleasing colors and good dynamic range. The noise is kept reasonably low, but there's quite some fine detail that gets eradicated in the process.

Samsung Galaxy S Duos camera samples

Even if this is the best Samsung can get out of the Galaxy S Duos we're not complaining. The images look good enough, especially considering that this is not a camera-centric device. We could still see improvement once the final unit arrives into our office.

The Galaxy S Duos gets a C for the effort in video recording, but nothing more. It captures video in VGA resolution at around the 30 fps mark. The bitrate of the videos hovers around 3300 kbps.

The camcorder interface is almost the same as the still camera's - you get the same customizable panel on the left for up to five shortcuts.

Camcorder interface

Here's an untouched VGA video sample for you guys.

ICS browser is good

The Samsung Galaxy S Duos has the ICS version of the Android browser, which is one of the last ones before Chrome takes over the show entirely. Naturally, you have the option to install one of the other third party browsers available at the Play Store, including Chrome as the Galaxy S Duos is a 4.0.4 device.

The Android browser

The browser supports both double tap and pinch zooming along with the two-finger tilt zoom. There are niceties such as multiple tabs, text reflow, find on page and so on. A neat trick is to pinch zoom out beyond the minimum - that opens up the tabs view.

Tabs view

We had issues with the Flash support on the Galaxy S Duos but this could again be the non-final software to blame. Otherwise there's no reason why the S Duos might have trouble with Flash content. The ARMv7 chip in theory supports Adobe Flash.

The Web browser comes with Incognito mode, which enables you to surf the web without the browser keeping track of your history or storing cookies. You can also switch to a more minimalist UI, which currently is in a Lab stage. It disables most of the browser's user interface and gives you a quick five-button layout to access the basics.

First impressions

The Samsung Galaxy S Duos picks up where the Ace Duos left off - and has built more smartphone muscle around the dual-SIM bone. A bigger and better screen and more processing power are sure to please the more demanding users, and the Galaxy S III inspired design is the best thing that could happen to what's more or less a niche device.

On the "smartphone" side, the S Duos is hardly more than a low-end phone but its ICS platform helps it score a few extra points. The "dual-SIM" support puts the whole thing in a different perspective. Devices that handle two SIM cards target a specific audience and the dual-SIM smartphones are usually basic, affordable packages. The Samsung Galaxy S Duos aims a little higher, but is smart enough not to venture in too hostile territory.

There's a bit of work still to be done on the Galaxy S Duos. Some things need to be ironed out while others simply need fixing - like the lack of proper Flash support in the browser. Overall though there's nothing more serious than the usual bugs of a beta unit, which should be sorted by the time the Galaxy S Duos is ready for primetime. Having laid our hands on it we can safely say that this is a device with some potential and we'll be keeping an eye on it in the following months.