Samsung

Samung Galaxy Ace

Network

HSDPA 7.2Mbps 900/2100 EDGE/GPRS 850/900/1800/1900

Dimension

112.4 x 59.9 x 11.5 mm (113g)

Display

3.5” 320x480 HVGA 16M TFT

OS

Android 2.2 (Froyo)

Download applications

Android Market Samsung Apps

Social Hub

Integrates SNS, Email, IM and Calendar Accounts Integrated Calendar (Google/Facebook/Outlook)

Integrated E-mail

Gmail MS Exchange ActiveSync

Processor

800MHz (MSM7227-1 Turbo)

Connectivity

WiFi 802.11 (b/g/n) Bluetooth technology v 2.1 USB 2.0 (High Speed)

Camera

5.0 MP AF Camera with LED Flash Single Shot, Continuous Shot, Panorama Shot, Smile Shot

TouchWiz UI for Android

Multiple Homescreens Hybrid Widgets Search in Browser

Battery (Standard) Li-on
1,350mAh Talk time: up to 627min(2G), up to 387min(3G) Standby time: up to 642Hr(2G), up to 421Hr(3G)
Video
QVGA@20fps / WVGA@30fps Codec : MPEG4, H.263, H.264 Format: 3gp(mp4)
Music
3.5mm Ear Jack & Speaker MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+
Memory
150MB + inbox 2GB + microSD (up to 32GB)
Android Browser
RSS reader
GPS
A-GPS
LBS
Google Maps™, Latitude, Places Google Maps™ Navigation(Beta)
Sensor
Accelerometer Sensor, Proximity Sensor, Digital Compass
Additional Features
Quicktype by SWYPE ThinkFree (Document Viewer & Editor) AllShare Multi-touch zoom FM Radio (RDS)          Samsung’s Galaxy Ace is yet another new Android toting handset from the company that churns out smartphones like a slot machine with a winning line churns out coins. OK, maybe not that fast. But you get our drift. The Samsung Galaxy Ace costs £230 and as such it falls into the crowded middle ground. More expensive than the Galaxy Mini you have a right to expect that it offers more features, and indeed you get them. At first glance, though, the Samsung Galaxy Ace looks a bit bland. There’s a certain iPhone take to it with the rounded silver rimmed corners and single central button, and while it competes on the grounds of measurements (112.4x59.9x11.5mm and 113g for the Ace 115.2x58.6x9.3 and 137g for the iPhone 4), it doesn’t actually look as slick. Next to the single Home button are two backlit touch buttons which light up when you press Home or touch their locations. It is nothing we have not seen before, but it is neat. We do like the slightly textured backplate which makes for fairly good grip, and the side mounted microSD card slot which means you can hotswap cards. A 2GB card augments the somewhat mean 158MB of built in storage. The screen measures 3.5-inches which makes it about the smallest we’d like to use for multimedia rich stuff like video viewing and web browsing. It is large enough for good responsive keyboard action, though, and Samsung bundles Swype which you can turn on and off in the Settings area. Swype lets you make words without lifting a finger from the keyboard, and some people find it a lot faster than pecking at individual keys. The web browsing experience is pretty good, though the 320x480 pixel resolution means that small text is fuzzy and often unreadable. Under the hood Android 2.2 provides the main power and there is an 800MHz processor keeping things strumming along nicely. Unless, that is, you want to watch embedded video. There’s no support for Flash so you can’t watch embedded video in the BBC web site – or plenty of others. The smartphone basics of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, HSDPA and GPS are all sitting pretty, and they work well. The speed with which web pages load, for example, is perfectly acceptable, and Google Maps worked for us without a hitch. You’ll see from all this that there have been compromises made with the Samsung Galaxy Ace in the shape of low screen resolution, shortage of built in memory and the absence of Flash support, but there are some plus points too like a sharp and vibrant screen and a fairly nifty hardware design. Into the mix comes a somewhat hamstrung camera with video capture limited to 320x240 pixels. Stills shooting sits at 5-megapixels and there is a small LED light to assist with duller conditions. Despite the video camera’s low resolution the camera is capable of some reasonable quality stills. It won’t blow your mind, but it is adequate for a quick snapshot here and there. This being a Samsung handset you’ve got TouchWiz sitting on top of Android and it looks very familiar. You start off with three home screens. Pinching in on any one of them allows you to add more to a total of seven in all. Hardwired to each of the three home screens you have to begin with, and any you add, are four shortcuts at the bottom of the screen that take you to the phone dialler, contacts, messaging and the full apps screen. You can customise home screens with widgets, and Samsung augments Android with a few widgets of its own, but we didn’t see anything that really excited us or that we have not seen before. Samsung adds a few apps to the standard Android set though again there’s nothing that really blew us away. We do like the interface for the FM radio which Samsung seems to be putting on a number of handsets at the moment. It has a dial icon for changing stations and an old fashioned bar showing what channel you are listening to. Four station presets can be hardwired onto the screen for quick switching. There’s also a little memo app for making brief notes to yourself, and Social Hub, which picks up Twitter and Facebook, but we tend to prefer using dedicated apps for both, of which there are plenty. There’s also AllShare for sharing video, Pictures and Audio over Wi-Fi to other devices, Shazam, and Samsung’s own app store to complement the Google Market. In the end, the Samsung Galaxy Ace doesn’t do anything we have not seen done before, and while its battery kept us going for a day easily, we wonder how well it will fare in what is a crowded section of the market.