Recently I got my hands on a Samsung Galaxy 5 for a short moment. I actually wanted to buy this phone before getting my hands on my current Garmin-Asus A50. At the price of only RM699, it’s normal to have some doubts whether how well can this Smartphone fares off as a low-end smartphone.
Pic from http://my.samsungmobile.com/mobile-phones/samsung-galaxy5
And in this 1 week, I get to fully experience this phone. There’s only one thing in mind when i first got my hands on this device, “Wah, so small one.”
With the price of only RM699, I naturally have a lower expectations of the phone such as the following:
1. Slow accelerometer response
2. Low screen resolution
3. Screen too small for typing comfort
4. Lacking on functionality
5. Bad camera
The first thing I test out on this phone is the accelerometer response. Surprisingly, it is quite responsive. I’m making this judgement based on comparison with a smartphone I previously owned which still might cost around RM1.8k to RM2k. That phone I used, had quite a slow accelerometer response and sometimes I had to wait several seconds to get the screen to align itself. While at times, it didn’t work at all. For this Samsung Galaxy 5, this is not much of an issue. Of course it might due to lag of installed apps but so is the smartphone that I compared with. I think Samsung did a fairly good job in that functionality which I think is the most important feature for a smartphone as small as Samsung Galaxy 5.
(I’m not going to reveal the smartphone that I compared with as I think should not tarnish the brand like that. Several hints are the phone is not my current A50, running on Windows Mobile 6.5 and is one of the leading smartphone brand in the market right now)
As for the low screen resolution, I guess this is to be expected for a price of only RM699. However, I think it is still ok and the colors are still very acceptable and nice. My judgement of its resolution are always blinded by the awesomeness of my dad’s Samsung Galaxy S AMOLED screen.
As for the 2.8” screen, it is definitely too small for me for my typing comfort. I like my touch screen phone to be bigger. I guess this should appeal to people who want their phone to be small and elegant. it is not to my taste and I do have some problems typing on its QWERTY keypad. However, I love the Swype function in this phone. You can even choose to “write” on the full 2.8” screen itself. I’m not used to this way of typing but I think if you are used to it, this shouldn’t be a problem.
Swype Function
The camera quality is actually not bad in my opinion. See and be the judge yourself.
This is actually a night outdoor shot. Pretty good for such a camera.
I thought the phone might be lacking on functionality but I guess you can never go wrong with its Android 2.1 OS. You can download apps from the Android Market and if that’s not enough. There’s a market place called Samsung Apps where you can download apps as well. Pretty cool if you ask me as I get an extra market to download from.
For those who are wondering, there are some apps on Samsung Apps that are not available on the Android Market and vice versa. So there you go. Definitely Twice the fun. It had all the basic social apps such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. So there wouldn’t be much complains from me.
The design is quite cool to me. I like the combination of glossy black and black meta texture on the phone. It’s quite cool and it doesn’t really look like a low-end phone at first glance. There are some bad points on it such as it can’t watch HD videos, camera quality can be better etc. However, being at the price of only RM699, I think it is quite a catch to buy this phone. I still think it is worth all the money.
My rating out of 10 (based on the value of money) would be a 7. 7/10. It’s worth the RM699 and definitely for those who wanted a good phone with low budget.
