Another gadget to review. And now is the low-end's turn, the Samsung GT-S5360 Galaxy Y. This entry level smartphone now become mainstream in Indonesia, but become hardly criticized in some other parts of the world.
I got this thingy after i got a million Rupiahs (approximately US$98-100) from a poster competition. I'm not winning it though, just got only top 10 nomination. With adding the prize money with some of my allowance, i can buy this quite small smartphone. Here, let's take a look from all sides (including the box!)
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| The leather pouch - bought it myself for Rp 60K *slap* |
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| The feel of Galaxy Mini on it's USB cover. |
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| The BeatsAudio earphone is fake, but have a quite good sound. (The Samsung's original still better) |
The design feels like "fusion" between Galaxy Ace (GT-S5830), Galaxy Mini (GT-S5570), and Galaxy Gio (GT-S5770). The majority feels like Ace, USB cover and audio jack positioning from Mini, and Gio-textured home key. Overall, it's simple but elegant. But the back and menu key feels too cheap, since they don't have light on it. And the 4:3 screen makes it looks like "real low-end Android smartphone". Two-tone colour makes it a bit weird but cool.
The main hardware specs (not great at all):
-CPU 832MHz Broadcom BCM21553, ARMv6 architecture.
-Memory 290MB RAM & 190MB user memory (Provided 2GB MicroSD, upgraded to 8GB)
-GPU Broadcom VideoCore IV with OpenGL ES 2.0
-Display 3" Capacitive Touch TFT, QVGA 240*320.
-Camera 2MP Fixed Focus, no flash 1600*1200
-Network Quad-band GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz, HSDPA 7.2Mbps, Bluetooth, GPS.
Allright, let's peek the insides, start from the TouchWiz UI. This is the homescreen.
Equipped with TouchWiz 4.0 UI (same as Galaxy S II), Galaxy Y seems to be the second phone to adopt TW4.0. But it kinda forced, the screen is only about 240x320 pixels. But still, TouchWiz 4.0 looks pretty good here.
"Swipe to unlock" - Samsung's default lockscreen since TouchWiz 4.0 (love this).
Messaging
Threaded view seems to be standard for texting these days, especially on smartphones. Unfortunately this one doesn't support background. Kinda disappointing, but you can't expect anything more on cheap smartphones right? Moreover, the 3" screen seems too small to use the portrait QWERTY mode. Landscape is recommended, but for me, it's okay to use portrait mode since i can use it fluently.
Gallery
Android's stock gallery, with video and images mixed. I almost never use the standard video player (except for this review), usually i prefer MX Player.
Music Player
Well, since using Gingerbread 2.3.x, Samsung customized its Music Player. The same one with Galaxy S II's, this music player looks pretty nice. Flower image appears if there's no album art detected on the file. But, the loudspeaker is kinda disappointing. The sound is too low, but it can ring loudly for incoming calls. The stock earphone feels great for me, the sound is clear and nice if you choose "Rock" equalizer preset. Personally, i don't really like 5.1ch effect, but it's still good.
Task Manager
The plus point from Samsung's Android smartphones with it's TouchWiz. Preinstalled Task Manager!
Maps
As an Android smartphone, GPS support and Google Maps preinstalled is a must. But the receiver is not really good, slow receiving and sometimes lost its connection so suddenly. But the receiver can get a signal in a place that my friend's car's GPS can't.
Memo
Samsung's Memo app, it's useful somehow. You can call this a bloatware, but when i check the size, it's too light to call a bloatware.
Clock
Available on Desk clock mode and Alarm clock mode, with nice interface.
That's all about the interface, now let's suck eh, start to check the performance.
Video Playback
This Broadcom GPU actually can compete the Adreno 200, but Samsung is smart enought to limit its capability. Flash isn't supported here (but Galaxy Y Duos GT-S6102 with same hardware, the Flash support is enabled). Maximum video playback supported is 480x360 in Hardware Decoder, but if you use Software Decoder it still can play 640x360 smoothly and 720x480 with a bit laggy. 854x480 actually supported, but due to Samsung's limitation it feels reaaaaallly laggy! I've tried it! But this suckness only happens on stock ROM. Recently CyanogenMod has released another Custom ROM for Galaxy Y, directly supported by Broadcom to unleash it's true power (i will try it sometime).
Gaming
As i said before, the hardware limitation makes it sucks. But in rooted stock ROM, you can play HD games, just install ChainFire 3D and enjoy. But due to it's suck QVGA resolution and small screen, only light games feels good. Playing Osu!droid here is really torturing!
Benchmark
Benchmarked using Quadrant Professional, Galaxy Y only score 861. Yeah as I said before, never expect anything special on a cheap low-end device.
Battery Life
1200MAh is still not enough for an Android device, even the low-ends.The battery life of Galaxy Y is about approximately 20 hours, usage of JuiceDefender will increase it.
That's all about Samsung Galaxy Y, overall it's not really satisfying at all, but for a starter it's not bad too. See ya on my next post.
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