Samsung I9000 Galaxy S review: From outer space

Introduction

Our homepage is the natural home of the deadliest smartphone carnivores. We normally don’t mind but this time is different. Are we about to start feeling a wee bit nervous or what. It’s a beast that tops the food chain, instilling fear and terror into the hearts of its prey. Our test lab is Jurassic Park, and the next predator we are about to meet is the T-Rex. Luckily we have a team of skilled keepers, capable of taming it.

Samsung I9000 Galaxy S

The Samsung I9000 Galaxy S has so much muscle that trying to impose your will with brute force is pointless. No sir, this creature needs to be befriended, patted on the back until it starts to trust you. But once it lets you jump on its back it will give you the ride of a lifetime.

Key features

• Quad-band GSM and tri-band 3G support
• 7.2 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA support
• 4" 16M-color Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen of WVGA (480 x 800 pixel) resolution
• Android OS v2.1 with TouchWiz 3.0 UI customization
• 1GHz Cortex A8 Hummingbird CPU; 512 MB of RAM
• 5 MP autofocus camera with face, smile and blink detection
• 720p HD video recording at 30fps
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b, g and n support
• GPS with A-GPS connectivity; Digital compass
• 8/16GB internal storage, microSD slot
• Accelerometer and proximity sensor
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• microUSB port (charging) and stereo Bluetooth v3.0
• FM radio with RDS
• 1500 mAh Li-Ion battery
• Great audio quality
• Slim waistline at only 9.9mm thickness
• Document editor
• File manager comes preinstalled
• Secondary video-call camera
• Swype predictive text input
• Excellent choice of preinstalled applications
• Full Flash support for the web browser (after 2.2 update)

Main disadvantages

• No flash for the camera
• No dedicated camera key
• The all-plastic body is a real fingerprint magnet
• Feeble loudspeaker

The largest Super AMOLED display in business is a great feat but the Samsung I9000 Galaxy S won’t stop there. The slim-fit case has room for a 1GHz processor and a 5 megapixel camera with HD video recording, while the Android 2.1 (Éclair) OS is the latest… uhh, wait a minute, there’s a weather update. We’re getting reports of a Froyo drizzle on Samsung’s party.

Anyway, Éclair it is – with the Samsung’s home-brewed TouchWiz UI on top, which we’ve already found to notably improve the usability of the interface. Oh, and you are also having a choice between 8 and 16 GB of internal storage, which should be more than enough to store those DivX and XviD videos the Galaxy S can play right out of the box.

Samsung I9000 Galaxy S at ours

Update, 28.07.11: We've added an overview of Samsung Dive.

Is there really anything more to want in a full-touch smartphone? Of course there is – it’s how all those parts come together. So let’s see how the Galaxy S does the math – we start with ergonomics on the next page.