Techolic

Android war is brewing up here in India, too--Samsung i7500 Galaxy reviewed

Little did any of the phone enthusiasts expect that the Android phones would battle it out in India. But it looks like everyone was really caught off guard because we currently have all the three Android-based phones available (officially) in India.

HTC has brought the Hero via Airtel and within a couple of days we now have the Samsung i7500 Galaxy available on the Tata DoCoMo networks. So, it sure seems to be a war brewing and the networks are trying to cash in on the "Touch Revolution" that most folks are getting attracted to. Still no sign of the Apple iPhone 3GS around the corner, and even if it were to be launched here, the pricing on Indian shores will be sky-high.

Looking at the Samsung i7500 Galaxy, this comes with a really awesome 3.2-inch AMOLED screen that has a rather impressive 320 x 480-pixel resolution. This phone runs the current stable release of the Android OS v1.5, also known as the Cupcake version which has the standard home screen featuring well-known widgets such as Google Search and shortcuts to a few other Google apps. It surely is going to be a really nice experience to watch videos and YouTube on the AMOLED screen. But it's kind of sad that Samsung engineers didn't even care to change the wallpaper for the Galaxy--since it sports the same wallpaper that the Samsung Omnia HD ships out with.

The Galaxy has a very similar setup to the HTC Hero in that there is a set of keys just below the display. Interestingly, it does not feature a trackball and comes with the rather old D-pad system that doubles as a joystick. The Galaxy also sports a 5-megapixel autofocus camera, but this comes packed with the much-needed LED flash which the Hero seems lacking in. The Samsung also has a dedicated camera button placed on the right side.

The Galaxy sports a microUSB port rather than any proprioterary ports for charging and also for data transfer. It's good that there's a 3.5mm audio jack, which allows you to plug in your earphones of choice. One other interesting feature is that the Galaxy offers an inbuilt memory of 8GB, with a microSD slot to expand the storage much further.

Where the Galaxy lacks is on the UI front since it runs the vanilla Android interface and not any UI packs as used by HTC, which would have made the Samsung more interesting. By the way, the Samsung Galaxy is touted and advertised as the "world's slimmest Android phone". The price tag in India for the Samsung i7500 Galaxy is Rs29,000, which is almost in the same price range as what the HTC Hero is retailing at. This, I feel, makes the HTC Hero a better phone to go, with its value for money and a really nice UI. The Galaxy, for me, looks like it's competing only with the HTC Magic. You can find out more about the HTC Hero and other HTC phones here.

Samsung Galaxy i7500 vs. HTC Hero

Recent Comments

binoyxj: @montbkk lol! what was that? :D more »

montbkk: You mean I won but don't get the printer! more »

binoyxj: Ohh! thanks for the info Jason! i was wondering what happened :) more »

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