HTC HD7 Review

 The last Windows Phone 7 device we reviewed, HTC Mozart, left us highly disappointed. Although the hardware was quite decent, the software failed to impress us. Apart from being slick and visually appealing, it had little more to offer, whether it was in terms of built-in features or third party applications. In the light of such strong competition from Apple and Google, Microsoft's latest offering just comes across as an incomplete package with a large "Work In Progress" sign over it.
 

Today, we have another Windows Phone 7 device with us and it's called the HTC HD7. For those keeping track, this is the third avatar of this handset, the first being the HD2 running the infamous Windows Mobile operating system and the second being Sprint's Evo 4G running Android. The phone has now been modified to run Windows Phone 7 and we are about to find out how good is it as a premium smartphone.
Bundle

• HTC HD7
• Battery
• USB cable
• 3.5mm stereo headset
• Power adapter
• Start here guide
• Quick guide
• Safety and regulatory guide

Build and Design
HTC rarely fails with the design of its smartphones and the HD7 is unsurprisingly a handsome device. It is immensely large though, thanks to the massive 4.3-inch display but also incredibly thin at just 11.2mm at its thicket point. The front is nothing but the display with the top and bottom portions made as thin as possible. The earpiece on the top is a thin slit with a mesh grille underneath, with a similar grille seen on the opposite side for design symmetry. Along with the speaker, there is also a proximity sensor and an LED hidden underneath it. Of course there is no video call camera because Windows Phone 7 does not support that feature, yet.
 

Below the display are the three keys for back, homescreen and Bing search. Once again, as on the Mozart, these keys are touch sensitive, which is not at all a good idea, considering how easy it is to accidentally press one of these buttons and exit the application. Imagine playing a game and right when things get very interesting, you press the homescreen button. By the time you are done pulling out your hair and go back to the game, you will find it starting all over again because there is no multitasking. This is the point where you pull out the remaining hair.

The sides of the phone are finished in metal, with plastic buttons protruding out from it. On the top, there is the power button, which is terribly soggy and doesn't give any feedback to confirm whether you have actually pressed the button or not. The volume buttons on the right are slightly more usable but the camera button is again terribly annoying. It feels like it is there just because Microsoft has made it a mandate for every Windows Phone 7 device to have one and HTC obviously doesn't think it is a very good idea. It's pointlessly thin and almost flat with the phone. And even though it is a two-step button you won't be able to tell unless you dig your nail in. At the bottom of the phone is a 3.5mmheadphone jack and a micro USB port.

On the back of the phone you can see the 5 megapixel camera lens at the top with dual LED flash on the left. The lens is left exposed to whatever damage that comes its way. It is surrounded by a kickstand that makes a nice clicking sound every time it is opened or closed. The area below the kickstand is finished in bright yellow which contrasts nicely with the black on the rest of the phone. Unlike some phones we have seen in the past, the kickstand does not launch any application when opened.  

The battery cover has to be pulled out from the top and once you do, you'll notice it feels rather flimsy. Inside, you will find the 1230mAh battery, which looks comically small compared to the dimensions of the rest of the phone.

When closed, the battery cover leaves rather unsightly gaps around the edges. The cover seems about a millimeter too small in every direction. You can even see a tiny glimpse of the SIM card inside through the lower gap. We expected better attention to detail from HTC.

The overall build quality of the phone is pretty good and it feels solid in your hand. It is also fairly light, probably because of the smaller battery and the fact that metal is sparingly used, and it is thin as well, which makes it easy to carry around in your pocket.

Display
The HTC HD7 has a 4.3-inch, 800 x 480 resolution, TFT LCD. HTC probably thought it was okay to ship a device with sub-standard display on premium handset but we beg to differ. The HD7's display is probably the worst we have seen on a premium handset. The picture looks dull and lifeless like on one of those cheap LCD TVs, the response time is painfully slow and causes visible ghosting every time you scroll that doesn't do the smooth transition effects on Windows Phone 7 any justice and the colors are pale and often incorrect. For example, the red color theme in Windows Phone 7 looks almost orange. The display also has poor contrast, poor black levels, mediocre viewing angles and washes out almost completely under the sun. Also, it's neither scratch resistant nor smudge resistant. It might seem as if I have some personal vendetta against it but it really is quite horrible. I did not expect such poor performance at this price.

One good thing about the display though is its size, which is ample. This does come in handy while web browsing or typing, when the added real estate makes it easier to see everything at once or hit the keys accurately. And although video playback would have been quite enjoyable, the quality of the display ruins it. 

Hardware
The HTC HD7 runs on Qualcomm's Snapdragon platform. Unfortunately, it uses the 1st generation QSD8250 instead of the 2nd generation MSM8255, found on newer smartphones such as the Desire HD and Desire S. Because of this, it loses out on the faster Adreno 205 GPU and instead uses the older Adreno 200. It has 576MB of RAM, 512MB of ROM and 16GB of built-in storage, which cannot be expanded. The HD7 has a built-in accelerometer but neither a gyroscope nor a magnetometer.
 

SoftwareAs mentioned before, the HTC HD7 runs on Windows Phone 7, which is pretty unfortunate. Although Windows Phone 7 showed great promise and still has a lot of potential in it, the truth is right now, there is no reason why one should choose it over either iOS or Android. It lacks in two crucial areas: features and applications. Applications is understandable, it's a new platform and will take a time to get a decent number of applications but the lack of basic features such as copy and paste and multitasking is just appalling. These are some of the things that even a basic Sony Ericsson phone has and there is absolutely no reason why an OS launching towards the end of 2010 should not have them. Sure, Microsoft has promised to bring them eventually, but then why should I spend so much money on these phones with missing features now when I can get an Android phone instead where everything does work by default? Yes, the interface does look great and it works pretty well too but that does not make up for the lack of useful basic features that Microsoft has missed out on. If all you care about is a fancy interface or don't mind waiting for Microsoft to take its own sweet time to add functionality which should have been there from day one, Windows Phone 7 is for you. Thankfully, for the majority who would think otherwise, there are a healthy number of options to choose from the Android camp.  

 

 

Connectivity
The HTC HD7 is a quad band GSM handset. It supports HSPA, Wi-Fi 802.11n, Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR and A-GPS. We had no issues with call quality and network reception on the HD7. The Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS performance too was satisfactory.
The HD has Internet Explorer Mobile as the web browser. Currently, it's the only browser you can have on Windows Phone 7. It's a pretty good browser with fast page loading and smooth scrolling. The large screen is also very conducive to browsing. Right now, the only drawbacks are the lack of Flash support and on rare occasions, inaccurate page loading.

However, the Bing Maps application doesn't impress as much. The maps are poorly detailed and using it to show you directions is a complete no-no, unless you want to go round and round in circles and land up miles away from your destination. There was even a bug in the Maps application, where using the search button activated the Bing web search instead of searching within the Maps application. It will get better with time but right now, it just sucks and is not even close to matching the performance of Google Maps.

Transferring data to the phone can only be done through the Zune software on Windows and the Windows Phone 7 Connector on Mac. Ironically, it is the latter that I personally found to be the better of the two. It had a simpler and no-nonsense interface that would let you do the task of transferring data without excessive visual flair, like the Zune software. The only thing that the Zune software does and the Mac client does not, is downloading the applications on the desktop and then transferring them on to the phone later on, an ability we often miss on Android. The HD7 has 16GB of storage capacity, which we found to be more than enough for our music and video files, however if you want more storage, then you are out of luck as there is no way to expand it.

Multimedia
Camera
The HTC HD7 has a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and dual LED flash. It is, without a doubt, one of the worst cameras I have seen on a mobile phone. The colors are inaccurate and highly saturated, the details are poor, there is a rather prominent pink spot in the middle of every image, the low light photos are noisy and the flash gives every image a foggy, fairytale look. It doesn't help that the camera software does not remember the last used settings and that there are very few settings to begin with (no manual white balance, for example). Also, the camera button wasn't the most comfortable that we have seen.
 

The reason why the colors look so oversaturated becomes apparent once you look at the pictures on the phone's display. Since the display actually has very dull color output, HTC has boosted the colors in the camera so the pictures taken look good on the phone at least.
Click here for the camera samples.

Music
The Zune player does the job of playing audio files on the HD7. It supports MP3, AAC and WMA files. The player itself does not have built-in equalizers but HTC has installed an application which lets you do that. The player has a very slick, minimalistic interface like the rest of the OS but we wished the album art was a bit bigger. There were minor annoyances though, like the inability to drag the progress bar to a particular location; instead, you have to press and hold the track skip buttons. 

The audio quality of the phone is good, very good in fact if you are using good quality headphones. The loudspeaker, however, is disappointingly weak. It's not even half as loud as you'd expect it to be.

Images and Videos
The image gallery in Windows Phone 7 is pretty neat. You can view as well as upload images on services such as Facebook and SkyDrive, although we would like to see more, such as Twitter and Flickr in the list. The image viewer is like what one might expect these days; you can pinch to zoom and swipe to move between images.

The video player is rather disappointing. Not only is it utterly featureless, it also lacks support for popular codecs such as DivX and Xvid. Couple this with the boring display and the kickstand on the back feels like wasted effort.

Battery life
The HTC HD7 has a 1230mAh Lithium Ion battery. For a phone with so many features and such a large display, the battery is unusually small. We assume HTC skimped on a bigger battery to keep the phone's profile as slim as possible. This does negatively affect the battery life though, as it struggles to last even a full day on a single charge. And we weren't even using 3G, which we will begin with our next cell phone review. With the phone being 3G enabled, its battery life is bound to go further down south.
 

Verdict
The HTC HD7 is a disappointing combination of incomplete software and mediocre hardware. Its biggest drawback is the Windows Phone 7 operating system, which just doesn't have anything to offer right now apart from a slick interface. It lacks features, some of the UI decisions aren't intuitive or user friendly and it has few good applications to boast about. To add insult to injury, the Windows Marketplace isn't available in India yet, nor is the Zune music streaming service. It's difficult not to think of dumb blonde jokes when talking about Windows Phone 7. And although it shows promise, we would rather advise buyers to go for it once it reaches its full potential, whenever it does.

Unfortunately, the hardware fails to impress as well. The software would mature eventually but the hardware can only get outdated and it isn't very impressive to begin with. Apart from the good looks and the large display, the HD7 has a terrible display and camera and a loudspeaker that is more of a loud squeaker. Even the battery life is below average; the phone struggles to last even a single day on a full charge.

Priced at Rs. 25,999, the HD7 is rather expensive. And when you add in all the drawbacks, it seems like a rather sour deal. And it's not as if you are strapped for choice; with excellent phones such as the Galaxy S I9003 costing much less, it leaves one with fewer reasons to even consider this phone. We would rather suggest you go for the Desire HD instead, if it is just the large display that you desire. It may not be a lot better in terms of hardware but the software is a lot more mature and usable. Plus, there are actual apps for you to download.


 

 

 

 

Note the pink area in the center of the image. 

 
 

 

 

The second image has been captured by the Samsung Wave 2.  

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Nokia X3 Touch and Type Review

Nokia might be selling a lot of smartphones but their primary product continues to be the cheaper Series 40 phones. But despite that Nokia never thought of bringing S40 up to speed compared to its rivals. All that Nokia would do with every new update is give a small visual update that would make it visually similar to Nokia's S60 operating system, but nowhere close in terms of functionality.

Series 40 6th Edition is not far too different. What they have done is added a touchscreen layer on top, which makes it a bit more relevant in today's mobile world where not having a touchscreen seems like a serious flaw in the spec sheet. This does change a few things though and the resultant phone, the Nokia X3 Touch and Type or simply the X3-02 is unlike any S40 phone that came before. We decided to find out how much of a difference does having a touchscreen on an S40 phone make.

Bundle

• Nokia X3-02
• Nokia Battery BL-4S
• Nokia Compact Charger AC-8
• Nokia Stereo Headset WH-102
• Nokia Connectivity Cable CA-101D
• User guide
• Design and Build
•  The X3-02 is one of the most attractive phones Nokia has ever made. We are glad that they are getting slowly back to making attractive phones, a knack they had lost a while back. The X3-02 is extraordinarily thin and light and feels more like a remote control than a mobile phone. Slip it into your pocket and you'll probably forget that it's there. The build quality is superb too, an area where Nokia rarely falters. The phone feels solid in your hand as it is one single slab of aluminum and every part feels tightly put together.
  
  
  
  Along the clean, minimalistic front, you'll find the face split between a sizable touchscreen display and the large keypad. You'll find the thin earpiece above the display and if you look closely, the proximity sensor near the top left edge. There is no ambient light sensor or video call camera here though. Below is the keypad , which has a rather unusual layout, but more on that later. The bottom edge slopes down to meet the base and there you will see the phone's single loudspeaker. The microphone, in case you are wondering, is placed in the keypad, between the '9' and '0' keys.
  
  
  
  
  
  On the right side of the phone are the volume control keys and the phone lock button. These keys are rather thin and flat, which makes them tricky to operate. Being a music phone, we expected the volume keys to be given a bit more prominence by the design team. Below, what might seem like a camera shutter button, is actually the release button for the battery door. A similar button is found on the left side of the device, which also happens to be the only thing that is there.
  
  
  
  
  
  On top of the phone is the charger port, micro USB port and 3.5mm headphone jack. The micro USB port is squarish, so it can accept similarly shaped cables sold by Nokia with phones like the N8 and E7 that have the USB On-the-Go feature. However, we doubt the X3-02 supports this feature.
  
  
  
  
  
  On the back is the 5 megapixel camera lens but with no flash for company. The microSD card slot is under the battery cover and is hot swappable.
  
  The phone is sold in Petrol Blue, White Silver and Dark Metal (pictured here).
• Display and Keypad
  
  Now let's get to the Touch and Type part of the phone, starting with the display. The display on the X3-02 is a 2.4-inch, 240 x 320 resolution, 262k color, resistive touchscreen. As far as the image quality is concerned, the display is mediocre. It looks dull and the viewing angles are quite horrid. The display washes out a bit under the sun but remains visible. The touch response of the display is good though, as good as resistive screen technology can allow it to go. Nokia has also added an excellent haptic feedback, which is so incredibly precise that it gives the impression of pressing a button when you are just touching the screen.
  
  
  
  The keypad on the X3-02 is really nice and large. The keys have a really good response and are a pleasure to operate. What spoils the fun somewhat is the layout, which is quite unconventional. The last row of keys has been turned upright and placed on the right of the number keys. Those used to using standard phone keypads, which includes all of us, will take some getting used to this new arrangement.
  
  The keypad also has couple of shortcut buttons. The messaging key gives you the option to create a new message or visit your inbox when pressed. The music keys simply bring forth the playback controls instead of launching the music player.
  
  
  Software
  
  The Nokia X3-02 runs on Nokia's Series 40 6th Edition operating system. The major changes between this and 5th Edition is that it has been altered to run on touchscreen devices. As with Series 60 5th Edition, Nokia has taken minimal efforts, simply making everything larger so it can be operated by thumb. This was fine on S60 devices that had bigger displays but on the 2.4-inch display of the X3-02 everything looks a bit too large. But this only applies to items that are meant to be touched, so text in messages, for example, will appear of normal size.
  
  Thankfully there is none of that single tap-double tap nonsense found in S60 5th Edition phones. Everything can be accessed by a single click. If you need additional options, press the Options key or press and hold on that item for additional options to appear.
  
  The homescreen is customizable. You have four panels on the screen and you can choose from a bunch of options to add there. Unlike Symbian ^3, however, there is just one homescreen, so you have limited customization option. But there is the Go to function assigned to the left soft key, which you can fill with options that could not go on the homescreen.
  
  The OS supports J2ME apps, of course. Nokia has provided some on the phone and you can download more from the Ovi Store or from other sources, such as GetJar. The latter would be a better option as Ovi Store currently has a very limited range of applications available.
  
  We were surprised to see a complete lack of social networking apps on the X3-02. Nokia's other recent phone, even Series 40 phones, have some sort of Facebook or Twitter application on board. It's disappointing that Nokia did not see it fit to include them on a phone targeted mostly at the younger audience.
  
  There is a mail client and a IM application built-in that support all the popular services and allow you to quickly select a service and enter your account information.
  
  The web browser on the X3-02 is pretty disappointing. It is the same old browser that S40 phones have been sporting for a long time now. The page loading is a bit slow, the rendering isn't particularly accurate and it runs out of memory as soon as you start browsing heavy websites. It's best for browsing mobile optimized web sites. We wonder what happened to the WebKit browser that debuted on the 6700 Classic but was never seen after that.
  
  The UI is smooth most of the time. Occasionally it does bog down a bit but this is infrequent enough to not be a major concern.
   
  
  
  
  
  
  Connectivity
  
  The Nokia X3-02 is a GS quad band 3G HSPA handset. It supports HSDPA 10.2 Mbps, HSUPA 2 Mbps, EDGE Class 10, GPRS Class 10, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth 2.1. We were surprised by the inclusion of the Wi-Fi in this phone but since the web browser is not up to the mark it feels slightly wasted. The HSPA connectivity could have also been made better use of had there been video calling functionality in the phone. There is also no GPS in the X3-02.
  
  
  Multimedia
  The Nokia X3-02 has a 5 megapixel fixed focus camera. The camera quality is not as good as one might expect from a 5 megapixel sensor. The images are noisy and a bit cold. There is also an excess of sharpening, which was completely unnecessary. Low light images are poorer in quality and there is no flash as well. The camera also records VGA resolution videos at 15 fps of mediocre quality.
  
  The X3-02 is a music phone, so audio quality matters. As expected, the phone does sound good through the headphones and the phone comes with a decent pair in the package. It's shocking though that there was no memory card bundled with the phone, which is not what we expect from a music phone. Thankfully the loudspeaker on the phone was exceptionally powerful and of good quality, something you would expect on a music phone.
  
  The image viewer was standard fair. There is no pinch to zoom and all that fancy stuff that we now expect from every touchscreen phone, but it is decent. There is also a basic editor for cropping images or adding effects.
  
  The video player was a bit of a surprise. It is virtually identical to the player on other S40 phones except for the fact that it supports Xvid codec. We tried a few clips and they worked well as long as the files were under 480p resolution. Still, the display was a bit too small for watching movies, but a TV show episode can be watched comfortably on it.
  Battery Life
  With little in terms of features to put strain on the battery, the X3-02 happily managed to run for two days on a single charge with 3G enabled, that too just on an 860 mAh Li-Ion battery. We are not used to phones lasting this long and started wondering whether the battery meter is faulty.
  
  
  
  
  
  Verdict
  
  
  
  
  The Nokia X3 Touch and Type is priced at Rs. 8,109. What we liked about the phone most was the design and the fact that it is a simple, easy to use phone. But now that we think about it, it's a bit too simple for our taste. We have come to expect a lot more in terms of features and functionality at that price. But perhaps there will be some who won't mind paying that amount for something that is easy to use and carry around. And of course, those who don't buy anything other than Nokia. Yes, we have those in India.
   

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Samsung Galaxy S LCD GT-I9003 Review

Samsung Galaxy S GT-I9003 is branded for India as Galaxy S LCD 4GB but elsewhere it is available as Galaxy SL (16GB version). Personally, I would call it a toned down substitute of Galaxy S I9000. It indeed was surprising to see this version out so late and almost a year after the launch of Galaxy S I9000 handset. Had the handset arrived alongside or at least three months after the GT-I9000 launch, it would have made more sense and would have sold more.

Samsung has introduced this new Galaxy S LCD 4GB loaded with Android 2.2.1 Froyo by default. Despite clear technical differences between this handset and the Galaxy S I9000, people can't help but compare both devices. Throughout the review, I would be referring it as GT-I9003 and the Galaxy S as GT-I9000, just to avoid confusion.

Currently, there's a dearth of Galaxy S I9000 handsets and the shortage of Super AMOLED displays has been cited as the main reason behind this. Obviously, Samsung has moved on to the new Super AMOLED Plus technology that is better and has been used in upcoming handset - Samsung Galaxy S II GT-I9100.

In the absence of GT-I9000, you'd certainly like to know about an Android device that looks almost the same and is packed with a few new goodies in it. Before you get to know how Galaxy S LCD performs, take a look at the differences between both the phones.

Differentials

Characteristic	GT-I9003	GT-I9000
Display Technology	Super LCD (C-Type)	Super AMOLED
Operating System	Android 2.2.1 Froyo	Android 2.1 Eclair (now with 2.2)
Processor	1GHz TI OMAP 3630	1GHz Samsung Hummingbird
GPU	PowerVR SGX530	PowerVR SGX540
Battery	1650mAh	1500mAh
Bluetooth	2.1	3.0
Storage	4GB	8GB/16GB
Thickness	10.6mm	9.9mm
Weight	131g	118g
Height	123.7mm	122.4mm

From the above table, it is clear that Galaxy S LCD would stay behind a bit in terms of graphic and processing performance. Both smartphones have processors running at the clock speed of 1GHz but due to different manufacturing design differences, there could be a marginal variation in their performance. The TI OMAP 3630 CPU is the same which has been used in the Motorola Droid X. 

Design and Build

Firstly, let's get over the handset's Apple iPhone like looks. Samsung did it with Galaxy S and now has kept the same design for Galaxy S LCD. When the Galaxy S GT-I9000 and GT-I9003 are placed next to each other with non-active screens, there's hardly any visible difference. Technically, there's a slight difference in weight and height between both devices. The overall finish of GT-I9003 is almost the same with rectangular Home button and two capacitive keys - Menu and Back.

Galaxy S GT-I9000 alongside the GT-I9003

With a glossy finish, the plastic body of the GT-I9003 quickly catches fingerprint smudges and requires frequent wiping to ensure that the screen appears clean. Despite gaining some thickness and a bit of height, the new Galaxy S LCD indeed is slim.

Galaxy S LCD has a 4-inch Super Clear LCD display which supports multi-touch and offers 480x800 pixel resolution. It is needless to state the display is big enough to watch a 720p HD video and pinch-zoom the photos or webpages. Oh yes, the display does support pinch and zoom gestures for the home screen, photos, web pages, documents and in several other apps.

Slim Twins

At the back, lies a speaker that is decent enough in places filled with ambient sounds. This smartphone has a 5 megapixel camera albeit without LED Flash. Looks like Samsung did not hear several users and geeks ranting about the lack of LED Flash in Galaxy S I9000. Most likely, the GT-I9003 has been manufactured using the GT-I9000 reference design as well as parts. The latter seems a more plausible reason.

To the right lies the Power/Lock button and on the left lies the Volume rocker keys. On the top lies the 3.5mm audio port and next to it is the MicroUSB (USB 2.0) port covered with a sliding lid. The SIM card slot and the microSD card slot are located at the back panel cover. This phone comes with 4GB internal storage out of which you will get only 1.5GB free for installing apps or putting multimedia on it.

Both Samsung Galaxy S GT-I9000 and S LCD GT-I9003 have 512MB RAM but since the latter houses a different processor and GPU, the available RAM is more - 478MB.

Update: The Super Clear LCD display does come with the Gorilla Glass Technology. 

Operating System and Interface

The Galaxy S LCD GT-I9003 comes with Android 2.2.1 Froyo by default unlike the Galaxy S GT-I9000 preloaded with Android 2.1 Eclair. But the recent Galaxy S GT-I9000 devices already had the Froyo update running on them. The Android 2.2.1 Froyo richness has Samsung's proprietary TouchWiz 3.0 UI running on it which also brings a few useful features. After unboxing the smartphone, I plugged it to Samsung Kies to get Froyo build update and later connected to Wi-Fi for updating the Google Apps.

Galaxy S GT-I9003 has new lock screen that can be unlocked by swiping on either sides instead of swiping it upwards. The smartphone retains the homescreen like the one on GT-9000 and has seven panes. If you pinch across the touchscreen, you'll get to see all seven panes stacked up in the editing mode. For adding widgets or changing the wallpaper, press and hold anywhere on the active homescreen to get the pop-up menu. Samsung has added a couple of new live wallpapers but do remember that live wallpapers tend to eat up a lot of battery life. The bottom of the screen shows the usual icons wherein the right most is the gateway to the Applications Menu.

The TouchWiz 3.0 UI over the Android 2.2.1 Froyo brings a built-in Task Manager which is so amazing that you won't need to install other Task Managers from the Android Market. The built-in task manager is slick and very easy to use. It shows details about running apps, downloaded apps, RAM being used and Storage details.

Samsung bada OS had intuitive swipe gestures implemented in the Phonebook. The same feature has been added to the GT-I9003 and so while using the Phonebook, if you swipe left to right on a contact, you can make a call to that contact. Swiping right to left will let you compose a new text message to the respective contact. This swipe implementation is certainly cool. The Phonebook also gets the SNS (Social Network Services) Integration so you'll get to see activities of your contacts on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and your office's Microsoft Exchange supporting accounts as well.

Most important improvement has been made in to the Status Bar - the Toggle switches given in Bada OS have been implemented to the Android 2.2.1 Interface. When you pull down the Notifications bearing Status Bar, you'll find the Toggle Switches for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, Silent Mode and Auto Rotation lock. That indeed is very helpful.

Heavy text messaging users can make the best of the built-in SWYPE feature that is a predictive text input technology meant for faster text input. It comes with a very limited library of its own but is programmed to learn from the words that exist on your mobile in your contacts, texts, notes, web browsing history and documents. To activate SWYPE, keep your finger tip pressed in the input area and a pop-up menu option will show up asking you to choose between SWYPE and Samsung Keyboard. Samsung has also added the Nuance developed XT9 predictive text input for those who type out loads of emails and text messages via their phones. Clearly, typing is good fun for those who try and get used with the SWYPE as well as XT9. For the rest like me, we will have to struggle with wrong key presses and use the Backspace key a lot.

ThinkFree documents viewer and editor comes quite handy while editing your documents while you are on the move. You can also sync your documents to the ThinkFree virtual storage if you have an account.

The eBook reader resembles the iBooks App on the Apple iOS. However, if you are not comfortable with the UI then you can certainly get the Adobe Reader from the Android Market.

Social Hub and Samsung Apps store are pre-installed but it was a bit painful to get it activated. I had to register with two different IDs for Samsung Account and Social Hub. Do note that the Social Hub Premium is a device specific service and the Samsung Social Hub's Facebook Page clarifies:

Social Hub premium service is device-specific for some countries. For instance, Social Hub Premium is available on Wave II (S8530), Galaxy Tab (P1000), and Galaxy Ace (S5830) in India.

This is an Android handset so you can sync your contacts to your Google Account. Alternatively, you can save them on Phone or SIM.

Google Voice Search has been integrated but it hardly worked for me even though I tried to mimic accents. So, the trick is to choose English (India) language from Settings > Voice Input and Output > Google Voice Recognition Settings > Language. After having done that, the Google Voice search will work like a charm BUT only if you've data connection active- GPRS or Wi-Fi. I recommend using Wi-Fi settings for better results.

The only function I found annoying and buggy was the automatic screen rotation which would turn the portrait mode to landscape even when I had held the phone upright. I believe Samsung needs to fix bug with the ASR.

Multimedia Walkthrough

Watching photos on the phone's 4-inch display is fun. The built-in Gallery App shows up all photos and the videos on your phone as well as microSD card storage. The Gallery App has a nice user interface with photos stacked up and distributed in different album groups like Camera, Screenshots, Others and Videos in Media. You can edit or share an entire album by pressing and holding your finger for more than a second. You will get bars on top and bottom of the window that will offer you options for selecting the photos and details. You can either Select all or Delete them all at once. Alternatively, you can share these photos with others via Picasa, Bluetooth, Gmail or as MMS. You can also arrange your photos by different options like by date.

Every album will show photos in stacked or grid views and these views can be adjusted with a small toggle slider located on the top right corner.

Even though the smartphone has a 5 megapixel camera sensor, it gives an average performance with noise in the photo quality. Of course you're going to miss the LED Flash and it will make several hold a grudge against Samsung for a long time. The camera has several shooting modes like single shot, smile shot, panorama and action shot - amateurs can expect decent performance. Just like other smartphones, the camera offers Negative, Black & White and Sepia options. You can fiddle around with the ISO settings and white balance to get the required image quality.

Samsung has added enough settings for getting good quality photos which clearly turn futile while shooting after dawn. The camera is capable of recording 720p HD but there's no HDMI out for sourcing it to an HD display.
Radio listeners would be pleased with the Stereo FM radio that works with the packed Samsung headsets which has the RDS module.

Music aficionados will have a good time with the music player that shows four tabs showing All Songs, Playlists, Album and Artists. Tap on the capacitive Menu button and choose the Go to Disc View to get the eye-candy view to see all the songs or album. The music player offers visualizations for those who wish to enjoy the Spectrum like bar visualizations when a song is being played. Audiophiles would certainly love the stock player that plays lossless FLAC files out of the box and all they need is hook in a good pair of in-ear earphones. Even the Winamp App for Android plays FLAC files.

You can adjust the Effects as per your listening habits to choose between Normal, Wide, Concert Hall, Music Clarity, Bass Enhancement and Externalisation.  For the music, you can set the Equaliser to presets offered or put it on your own custom settings.

Stock Video Player in the Galaxy S LCD is a pure bliss as it supports .mkv, DivX and XviD files out of the box. I loaded a 700MB file on the phone memory and enjoyed it. Scrolling on the timeline was smooth and the response was immediate but the video playback stuttered a bit. There's no reason to pin-point at the PowerVR SGX530 because the video didn't stutter with RockPlayer Lite to view the video. I expect the planned Android 2.3 Gingerbread update to bring a better video player that doesn't stutter during video playback. Though the smartphone's native Video Player is capable playing .mkv container files, it doesn't support all video codecs. 

GPS and Layar

GPS locking with Google Maps was one of the early and crucial issues with the GT-I9000 and I hoped that it didn't exist in GT-I9003. But I was disappointed partially. Even this phone continues to have quick GPS locking issues. Whether I used the GPS or turned on data connection for A-GPS support, the accuracy level is still around 500-600 meters. It was the same with my backup phone Nokia E63. Apparently, the smartphone offers A-GPS support and is dependent on data connectivity to fetch the exact location.

Anyhow, if you're a Google Maps user then you can make the best of the Places, Navigation and Latitude layers that have been pre-installed as separate apps in the Froyo by default.

Layar interface is something every Android smartphone owner must use. Layar is an Augmented Reality browser that shows you digital information that is around you and your device. It shows all information around you like the buildings, important structures, restaurants, malls, bus stops, airport, etc. through the Layar App. For instance, when I fired up layer, it showed me Open Cell IDs (GSM Network Cells) and number of restaurants close to my place under the tab - Nearby.

You can either choose from the digital information available under the tab Nearby or select appropriate ones from those listed under Layers. If you go to the Layers tab and choose a Layer like the Open Cell ID, then it will open up your phone camera. At the top right corner of the screen, a circular radar shows GSM Cell towers closeby.

After working late in office, I was hungry. So I simply opened Layer and searched for Pizza and it showed me details of a Pizza Hut pretty closeby (in around 1KM distance) from my office. Furthermore, you can set filters from the Categories under Settings to show you relevant information that matters for you. This is a very nifty but data intensive app.

Battery Life

Samsung has added a 1650 mAh battery in this smartphone and it certainly adds extra juice to the smartphone. Since the GT-I9003 comes with a bit better battery, it certainly offers a couple of hours more than the GT-I9000. The 1650mAh battery easily fits into the GT-9000 which has 1500mAh battery so for those who're looking for an extra couple of hours for Galaxy S should totally get this one, if available. Do note that Samsung has replaced energy efficient Super AMOLED with the Super Clear LCD and also the battery issues that existed with that Galaxy S have been fixed.

Normal usage of the phone which involves number of calls, text messages, listening to music for about 30 mins and web browsing (over GPRS) for about two hours makes the battery last for almost about 1.5 days. Whenever I used GPS or downloaded apps over Wi-Fi, the battery started dropping rapidly. Even while watching an AVI file that was about 45 mins long, it would eat up about 10 to 12 percent of the battery life.
 
You can get up to two days of battery life if you turn off background data, uncheck Auto Sync and use GPRS only when required. That would give you a considerably high battery life. To conclude, I can say that the battery life of this smartphone is decent and would normally last for more than a day if used judiciously. It charges in around 2 hours and obviously takes more time if charged via a USB port.

Pricing and Verdict

Currently, the new Galaxy S LCD 4GB smartphone retails in India for around Rs. 19,500 to Rs. 21,000 depending on where you buy it from. Samsung has scaled down the Galaxy S GT-I9000 to make it a more affordable version. This scaling down hasn't offered much to the GT-I9003 except the better battery which you should mostly consider. Due to the internal hardware difference between GT-I9000 and GT-I9003, it's kind of unfair to compare both of them. Instead, Galaxy S LCD GT-I9003 is comparable to the freshly announced Acer Liquid Metal that comes with 800MHz and better Adreno 205 GPU. Yes, though the processor speed is less, it does have better graphics.

Personally, I was quite satisfied with the performance that this 4-inch Android 2.2 Froyo smartphone costing Rs. 20,000 offered. From lossless music playback to the different video formats (.mkv or DivX files), the GPU performance surely justifies the lower price though many may count it dated. The price point of Rs. 20,000 is highly tempting as many would buy it considering the features offered while many would consider adding a couple of thousands to buy the Nokia N8. No phone maker is going to offer you the best of all worlds - high quality camera, 1080p HD video recording, faster (dual-core) processor, best graphics chip, Bluetooth 3.0, GPS, HDMI port, blasphemous mobile OS and practically everything else in Rs. 20,000. You'll have to choose the priority features, make up your mind and then go for appropriate phone.

The Galaxy S GT-I9003 is certainly a good buy for those have strict Rs. 20,000 budget. You're getting a 4-inch display, 1GHz CPU, Android 2.2 Froyo with Gingerbread update due soon and much more. Samsung has implemented a few features of the bada OS in the GT-I9003 and made it more intuitive. Now, you have to wait till Samsung rolls out Android 2.3 Gingerbread update in coming few weeks for the Galaxy S I9000 and Galaxy S LCD I9003.

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Samsung S8530 Wave II Review

When we reviewed the original Samsung Wave, we were greatly impressed by the overall performance of the phone. But what we really liked about that phone was that despite the laundry list of features that it had, it was quite affordable. Due to shortage of its Super AMOLED displays, Samsung had to discontinue that phone but since it was its flagship bada handset, it couldn't just let it go. So, in its place, comes the new Samsung S8530 Wave II.

 

The new phone brings some notable changes. First of all, the display is now bigger and instead of Super AMOLED, Samsung is now using the Super LCD. The new phone also runs on bada 1.2, which brings about some useful changes. The new Wave II is also a bit cheaper, which makes it even better value. Read on for the full review of this handset.

Bundle

• Samsung S8530 Wave II
• Battery
• Charger
• Stereo Headset
• Data Cable
• User Guide
• 2 Software CDs
• 2GB microSD Card

Design and Build:

The Samsung Wave II looks almost identical to its older brother. The design shows subtle differences, the most prominent being the new chin, which houses a different looking set of buttons. The front side is now completely flat as against the concave front of the original Wave. The phone is obviously longer because of the bigger display. From the back, the two phones look exactly the same, except for one minor difference. We noted in our Wave review that the battery cover looks to be of a slightly different color than the rest of the body. In the Wave II, this issue is fixed and everything looks just the way it should. The camera lens cover and the LED flash are diamond shaped just as they were on the original Wave, even though the front menu button no longer has that shape on the new model. One more thing I'd like to note is that the black plastic at the base of the phone is actually translucent, so you can see some of the circuits inside when you are under a strong light.
 

 

As before the design of the phone is very nice. It has a very premium feel to it and the dimensions and finish of the materials makes you want to hold the phone in your hand. The build quality is terrific, as is usually the case with Samsung phones. Just based on its looks and build, the phone manages to create a very good first impression.

Display
The biggest change to the phone is the display. When Samsung moved from Super AMOLED to Super LCD, a lot of people worried that this would adversely affect the image quality of the display. Samsung's Super AMOLED has become some sort of a benchmark in mobile phone displays, along with Apple's Retina display and people feel anything less would be a serious downgrade. But one must not forget that this is Samsung and even if it is not Super AMOLED, it will never ship its phones with sub-standard displays.

Whatever fears we had regarding the display performance were put to rest when we first switched on the phone. Quite honestly, Super LCD looks as awesome as the Super AMOLED. If you feel it is inferior, it is possibly because of a placebo effect. The only time Super AMOLED's superiority comes across is in viewing angles, which were a bit better. But apart from that, we had no complaints with the Super LCD on the Wave II. As an added bonus, it is now bigger compared to the one on the Wave.
The display is also covered by a scratch and smudge resistant glass, although there is no information on whether it is Corning's Gorilla Glass. We tested it by rubbing our keys against it and couldn't produce any visible damage.

Hardware
The Samsung S8530 Wave II runs on Samsung's Hummingbird platform. It consists of a 1GHz ARM Cortex A8 CPU and PowerVR SGX 540 GPU. This is the same combo that was found on the I9000 Galaxy S and is actually superior to the one on the I9003 Galaxy S. The phone has 2GB of internal memory for applications, messages and files, 512MB of RAM and expandable memory via microSD cards, which, unfortunately, is placed under the battery, just like on the original Wave.

Software
The Wave II has bada v1.2, which brings some improvement over its predecessor, although most of them seem to be under the hood because we did not spot anything that was radically different apart from the browser, which is now better than before. bada is still one of the better mobile operating systems out there with a good, easy to use interface and plenty of features. But what holds it down right now is the poor choice of apps that are available for it. It is hard not to get depressed when you browse through the Samsung apps store, trying to find something interesting but failing to do so. We could only find a few applications and games that we actually wanted to download. Everything else was just rubbish.
 

Unfortunately, we don't see the situation really improving on the application front, not unless Samsung drops Android and only focuses on bada, which it won't do. Its original plan was to launch several low-end touchscreen phones with bada but now it seems it has chosen to go with Android in that segment as well. When the manufacturer itself is showing so little interest in the platform, the developers cannot be blamed for sharing the enthusiasm.

Connectivity
The Samsung Wave II is a quad band GSM 3G handset. It supports HSDPA 3.6Mbps, HSUPA 2Mbps, EDGE, GPRS, Bluetooth v3.0, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n and A-GPS. We felt that the HSDPA speeds were quite low; most phones these days support 7.2Mbps and although none of the networks in India seem to be delivering higher speeds, it makes sense to have a phone that supports higher speeds and is future proof. The Bluetooth 3.0 support is a good thing but when we tried to transfer a file between the Wave II and the Nokia E7, which also supports Bluetooth 3.0, we got abysmally slow speeds that were more in line with Bluetooth 2.0. Even when we tried to transfer a file between the Wave II and a MacBook Pro with Bluetooth 2.1, we got speeds of around 100KBps, which is far too less.

Wave II supports Samsung's AllShare feature, which lets you stream the content on the phone to a compatible device or watch the content on another device on the phone wirelessly. We did not have a compatible device to test this feature though.

The browser has now been updated and has a much better interface than before. The browser on the older Wave had floating buttons above the bottom bar. In the new version, the browser close button has been integrated in the bottom bar and the other buttons have been done away with, which is fine as they were extremely annoying. Strangely though, with the controls, Samsung has also done away with the functions. You no longer have the brightness control and more importantly, no full-screen mode, which is really unfortunate.

The browser performance has improved slightly but some of the older annoyances remain. The address bar on top pops down every time you touch the screen, blocking the links on the top. Things are even more annoying in landscape mode, with half the screen occupied by the bottom bar and the address bar at the top. The browser supports Flash but a lot of the content does not load properly. The browser also runs out of memory very fast and starts choking when you open a page with lots of images.

Unfortunately, there is not much of a choice available if you don't like the built-in Dolfin browser. You can download Opera Mini but it isn't properly optimized for the Wave II's display.

Multimedia
Camera
The Samsung Wave II has a 5 megapixel camera with auto-focus and LED flash. The lens cover on the back, although easy to clean, is vulnerable to damage. Unlike Nokia, Samsung does not use the Gorilla glass for the lens cover. The LED flash automatically controls its intensity, so if you are close to a subject, the flash drops down the intensity.

The camera interface is the same as that on Samsung's other phones. You get options such as face detection, smile detection, beauty shot, panorama mode, multiple scene settings, macro mode, etc. It is one of the better designed camera interfaces out there. And unlike some of them, it can retain the setting changes when you quit the application.

The camera quality on the Wave II is good. The images generally look very nice with a good amount of detail and natural colors. In bright areas, however, the camera tends to overexpose certain parts of the images, creating white patches that cannot be fixed in editing. This also happens in low light images when you use flash on closer objects. Although the flash reduces its intensity, the sensor blows up the lighter colored objects and turns them white.
Click on images to open the high resolution version. Note that the image quality is slightly reduced as imgur compresses them after uploading.

 

The video recording quality is also pretty good. The Wave II records in 720p resolution and produces some of the better looking videos we have seen from a phone.

Music
The bada OS has a really nice looking music player. But perhaps the best part about it is that it can also play FLAC files, a fact that Samsung chooses not to advertise for some reason. The audio quality is excellent and the phone can also go very loud. Even the loudspeaker is pretty powerful.

There is also a built-in FM radio. The radio interface was well designed and you can even store shortcuts to your favorite radio stations for quick access. The radio quality was good, even indoors.

Videos
The Samsung Wave II supports HD video playback in a variety of formats. Unfortunately, unlike with the older Wave, video playback on the Wave II was bit choppy. It kept dropping frames even on SD resolution video. Format support wasn't reliable as well. At times, it would fail to play the audio in the video. The phone actually has a very good display for watching videos but these issues put a real dampener on our prospects of watching videos on the go. We hope the issues are related to software and that Samsung issues an update which would solve them.
Note: A lot of people are mentioning that video playback is working smoothly on their Wave II. This could mean that the phone we received may have had some software issue, which resulted in the imperfect video playback. Still, we would advise you to check the video playback yourself if someone you know has a Wave II before taking the jump.

Battery Life
The Samsung Wave II has a 1500mAh Li-Ion battery. In our testing, the Wave II lasted for a day and a half, which is quite an achievement for a smartphone these days. Our usage generally consisted of calling and web browsing over 3G network and audio playback for a few hours through headphones. The mail application was running in the background and downloading mails after a fixed interval.

Verdict
The Samsung S8530 Wave II is priced at Rs. 16,499. For that price, the phone is very good value for money. It looks great, has very good build quality, the display is excellent and the phone is packed with features. Unfortunately, as a smartphone, the Wave II does not fare well. The lack of good applications makes it nothing more than a feature phone on steroids. Although that may be fine for some people, most people now want to use applications on their phone would hence find the Wave II very disappointing in that department. We also had issues with the video playback and the web browser, although better than before, could still use some improvement. Actually, we would like to urge Samsung to drop the Dolfin altogether browser and employ Opera Mobile in the next version of bada.
 

For undemanding users, the Wave II could serve as a very good phone. It looks impressive and has a very nice display and an easy to use interface, things that some people value over anything else. Others are, however, advised to look elsewhere, particularly in the direction of Android.

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