Samsung Galaxy S i9001 Plus preview: First look

5 MP still camera

The Galaxy S Plus repeats its predecessor in the imaging department as well. It has a 5 MP camera with autofocus, touch focus, face and smile detection, and geotagging.

Camera interface

In terms of image quality, the Galaxy S Plus offers no advantage over the original Galaxy S. In short, it’s not the best 5 MP camera around. Images turn out slightly underexposed at this stage and colors are duller than we would’ve liked.

Here are the actual samples for you to check out.

Galaxy S Plus camera samples

We’ve also snapped two macro shots with the Galaxy S Plus camera.

Galaxy S Plus macro shots

Video recorder

The Galaxy S Plus is among the HD-capable smartphones out there. It can record up to 720p videos (1280 x 720) at 30 fps.

The amount of resolved detail is good, noise levels are low.

Camcorder interface

Here’s an untouched video sample from the Galaxy S Plus.

We’ll make sure we conduct a proper camera comparison to the original Galaxy S as soon as we get a hold on a retail Galaxy S Plus unit.

A great web browser

The browser app supports the double tap and pinch-zoom along with the new two-finger tilt zoom. There are niceties such as multiple tabs, text reflow, find on page and so on.

Pages look nice on the ample 4” SuperAMOLED display, although it’s not the same experience as on the bigger, superior SuperAMOLED Plus display.

The Android browser

Tabs and bookmarks are shown in a thumbnail style, while history lists your last visited sites.

Tabs • Bookmarks • Most viewed • History

The 1.2 GHz Snapdragon processor inside the Galaxy S Plus gives a shoulder of support to watching videos straight in the browser. It can play YouTube videos up to 720p trouble free. Flash games in the browser were no problem either. We used Kongregate as our testing playground.

Playing 720p video • Playing a flash game

First impressions

If you lost track of the Samsung Galaxy S spinoffs we can’t blame you. It seems every next sequel gives credit to the original while more or less struggling to justify its own existence.

The Plus edition is supposed to breathe new life into the old Galaxy S. The overclocked CPU provides a gain in speed indeed – and even more to come. On the other hand, the Plus is still stuck at the old 5MP camera, 720p video recording and the old PenTile SuperAMOLED screen.

You can’t look to the future with tricks from the past. In any other case – this would’ve been the harsh verdict. The Galaxy S Plus though has one thing in its favor. It can pretend it's not a proper stand-alone model - and it won't be far from the truth.

If you think the Galaxy S Plus offers little over the original you may have a point. But there's a different way to look at the Samsung I9001 Galaxy S Plus. It could simply be a limited edition localized package. In Russia it’ll be called the Galaxy S 2011 Edition - that's where it will start - and may as well end.

On the other hand, if Samsung see potential, the Galaxy S Plus may reach other markets too. There it will fill a gap between the original Galaxy S and the current flagship Galaxy S II. As long as it’s priced reasonably below the Galaxy S II, it has every reason to hope.