Samsung Galaxy S (2010)

Heaven – Best phone around... love it to bits!!!!! I Waiting for a while before upgrading to this...just wow does everything. The screen is so great... and the pictures it takes and the 4k recording is crazy good. I do recommend this to everyone who is sitting on the fence about this phone... it is worth it! Battery Life... and the camera nothing

Update to Supernexus specs and this is awesome phone – This phone is a spare after I dropped my S2 Samsung phone on the ground, After 10 mins using it, I decided to have a crack a uploading the supernexus update and flashing the firmware. All the instructions are on the internet...and now this thing is very fast, just like my s2. It works like the newer Nexus phones , and it's just as fast. Recommend… Read more

taking the time to read and update, as there's an abundance of info of how to do it. It can be upgraded.

Worst phone ever! – Being told it was the best phone on the market I obliged and trusted their opinion. I will never purchase another samsung phone again!!! Grossly over rated!! IPHONE BY FAR THE BEST!!! Not responsive!!! Too large....waste of my time and hard earned money!!!! Key pad so badly set out!!! Everything is wrong with this phone! Hate it with a passion!!!! The screen Everything!!!!!

Awful. Samsung should publicly apologise for this phone – I'm afraid my experience of the Galaxy has been a very disappointing one. Can't wait for the 2 years to be up so i can get rid of it finally. Where to start? Constantly freezes, is so slow that half the time you give up and put the phone down in total frustration. Doesn't do half the things it claimed to do. Syncing with facebook hasnt been… Read more

possible - cant join contacts, facebook application runs so slow that you give up, calendar syncing also faulty. Forget about loading photos from gmail or facebook, freezes the phone and you might get your photo to display after waiting an hour. Calendar - adding things to calendar a million times and them still not showing in the calendar, facebook birthdays appearing more than once in the calendar for every time i tried to reset the snyc because it wasnt working properly.

Texting frustrating, at times i have gone back to my old nokia 8210 because its quicker to send a message with the old predictive text than with swype or the manual way on the samsung keyboard. Battery life is totally useless, less than a day, sometimes charging two or three times a day if mobile AP has been used at all. Tried to install new software/operating system in the hope that it might run better - this was extremely difficult because the damn phone wouldnt link with a laptop USB, even with the so called "kias" software. When after hours we finally did install new software, it ran a little better, but still gave up hope of using facebook ever on the phone, still as slow as a wet week. GPS so slow to find your location you might arrive at your destination before it finally loads up on google maps.

Samsung wont be getting another cent out of me. I wouldnt have one of these phones again if they paid me to have it. My partner and i are both "tech savy" people, and even we couldnt get this useless thing running properly with new ROMs. A phone should just work anyway without needing all this time and effort installing new ROMs and [censored word removed]. Samsung you [censored word removed]. This phone should never have been released with all these bugs in it. Time consuming piece of [censored word removed]this phone is.

Don't even bother with an iPhone. This is value for money, every cent of it – To begin, this phone was a bonus. I went on a plan and had the decision to choose between this and an iPhone 3S, and of course, this was the best of the two. As much as it lacks in some areas, it majorly picks up in others. To begin with its' aesthetic design, it's beautiful. The power/sleep button on the right side, with volume on the left.… Read more

Home button down the bottom, accompanied by two touch-sensitive buttons either side (menu on the left, "back" on the right, and a 3.5mm headphone jack at the top which sits next to the USB port, covered by a slider.

The glossy finish, back and front, finishes it off, leaving it looking very smart and stylish. It is also amazingly light. Compared to any iPhone, this has had any excess weight shaved off, which may feel odd at first.

There is also a loudspeaker locates just next to the camera lens, which works quite well, even though some think it's a little quiet.

To get into the nitty gritty of the firmware, to say the least, it excited me every time I go to use it. The customasability of the software is endless. It looks great, and is very smooth in its' operation. It provides you with links to everything. Other small features, such as when you angle the phone to your ear while in a call, the screen turns off, and when you tilt it back to look at it, the display re-appears to end the call, use the dialpad or whatever. Simply going into phone mode gives you instant access to call logs, dialpad and contacts.

The settings give you control to almost anything, including vibration intensity.

Another nice touch is the menus. Unlike on a iPhone, with the Galaxy, you get two choices. Either, fill your screen with widgets and apps, or, neatly place all your apps on separate screens, or, place them all away in the app menu, which is located by pressing one of the icons on the default icon dock.

Aside from all that, it has great support for any type of media. It even supports .flv files, and comes with a reasonably good music and video player(s).

The package also includes a 5 Megapixel camera, in the typical place on the top left of the phone (from the front), unfortunately on the S1 model, with no flash. Aside from the lack of a flash, the camera performs brilliantly, and comes with loads of options to play around with.

On top of all of that, there are very little downsides to this phone, the major one being the keypad usability. Unlike on an iPhone, where you can type as fast as you prefer, this phone doesn't allow it, and if you're lucky enough to install Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), you may have this problem fixed. Basically, if you type too fast after taking off swipe and auto-insert, you'll get a random jumble of letters and numbers.

One other problem is the battery life. It's nothing to worry about, but I suggest downloading a free version of "JuiceDefender" from the marketplace, which will improve battery life quite well.

I hope you enjoyed this short essay. I'll stop typing now so you can get more opinions ;) Ease of use, looks, loudspeaker, receiver volume, firmware, usability and its' sheer brilliance. It pleads to be customized with launchers, widgets and whatnots. Slow, unresponsive keypad, meaning you can't type as fast as on an iPhone. Battery life needs to be boosted with JuiceDefender. Can be a little laggy at times.

Pretty good phone, but with a few if's and but's – This is my first smart phone, and I was deciding if spending the cash on the iphone was worth it. I decided not to, as I an iphone was really overkill considering I have other devices that cover all the bases an iphone offers! The Samsung was recommended, and came on a cheap plan - only $5 more than the sim only plan I was on with my own phone -… Read more ·  2

so really for $5 per month I shouldn't complain, but I will, just a little. The qwerty keypad is difficult to get used to, very sensitive, and you need to constantly watch what is being typed in to check for typos as the editing process is easy but time consuming! And I have small fingers - if you have large fingers forget it. I am a very light user, 2 alarms per day, between 6 and 12 texts, and possibly 5 minutes maximum talk time. Even with this light usage, the battery barely makes it through 24 hours, and even though pretty much everything else has met my expectations, the battery life kills it (haha) for me, and so overall I have been a bit disappointed. Good price, slim and light, excellent screen, easy to use. Short battery life.

Hard like a rock!! – Hi i own a galaxy s1 the very first galaxy s and its a great ph it never plays up on me. i droped it more than 2times with and without the cover and droped it in water twice and it works just fine. there maybe scratches but my screen is a ok and phone never slows down like other phones. love this phone. Reliable

Very Happy – With no doubt the galaxy s is one of the best smartphones ever made.I used one for 1 year and it's still kicking.The best part ( in my opinion ) about the galaxy s is that awesome 4 inch Super Amoled Display. For me a mono-core 1GB Hummingbird processor is enough to keep me ticking. As for the OS , Android 2.3.4 is a good software ( even if it… Read more

freezes time to time ) and for my needs with a smartphone, this is more than enough. Awesome Screen , Great software , Many Good Apps No Flash on camera

Easy to use with all the features – This phone is easy to use, easy to read. I can access the internet and download any android app. There are lots of covers available. The touch screen senses touch readily and the swype keyboard is just so easy and fast to use. It gets dragged around in my handbag everyday so is robust and after a couple of years use is still going with no problems. Easy to use and great looking  Show reply

Shocking – It is absolutely the worst phone I have ever owned. So many problems that I don't know where to start. It continuously overheats whilst charging or talking. It freezes during calls and you're unable to end a call, retrieve it or do anything else with the phone except restart it. The touch screen decides to stop working intermittently, so again… Read more

you're unable to make the phone function at all. The volume function only works sporadically, ie it's supposed to be on silent but still makes noise. I sent the phone back to be repaired but was told there's nothing wrong with it. It's quite astounding to think that they're supposed to be such poor in quality. To top it all off, they're not even user friendly...far more difficult to navigate than they should be. It fits in the bin Everything

WORST PHONE EVER! – This phone is the worst thing i have ever bought! total waste of money, just trying to send or write text is frustrating, i can't read mms messages because they don't even load, trying to download apps is a nightmare because they don't download, it is constantly freezing and the touch screen isn't near sensitive enough (thought it was screen… Read more

protector but took it off and still doesn't work) If i could give it negative stars, i would! i would correct the mistakes in this review but i sent it on my phone and the delete button doesn't work!

everything!

I like it but – The phone is a good size and easy to use .I have had a galaxy ace and this is a little quicker .I haven't gone to all of the icons and found out what they do but will get there eventually . I like the weather app. and have it on the home page and check it often before planning the day . Light and easy to use The hold key keeps coming on and… Read more

interrupts calls and we can't hear each other and have to hang up and re dial .Had the same problem with the ace and hoped with an upgrade it wouldn't happen but it has and I am very cross about it !

nice phone but too many problems – the phone is brand new, hasnt been dropped cracked or anything, after just a month the touch screen starting freezing up, couldnt open any apps, the whole phone was useless, kept turning on and off and would let me dial. sometimes the screen would go black and white, stripy or totally blank. too many problems in the early stages, cant wait to get… Read more

rid of it the appearance, light weight touch screen is awful, have to press several times to get response, not very durable, too many glitches, has problems even from early stages

Disappointed – Gone back to my old iPhone 3GS after using Samsung Galaxy S for 5 months. I found it very frustrating when it came to uploading new software. The phone would also get extremely hot during use. The most irritating thing for me was that it would constantly get stuck. I won't be returning to galaxy of this experience. Swipe

Can't stand this phone any longer! – I was conned into buying this phone as the store didn't have any iPhones. I have taken it back on numerous occasions as it takes about 5 min after turning on to actually be able to make a call. Lags terribly and apps actually disappear from the home screen. I keep on being told to update the software but the darn thing won't connect to the computer - the Kies system is rubbish and it won't operate as a USB. Software lags, bad service

Love it! Have had it for 2 years now! – This phone has been great, it's fast, the battery runs for ages and I love the way it looks! I've had virtually no issues with this phone. Someone broke my screen (they used A LOT of force), don't ask why, and so when it got fixed they updated the operating system to Honeycomb which I dislike. It now freezes a lot, etc. But this never… Read more

happened till they changed the software on it, so it isn't the fault of the phone. Reliable, aesthetically pleasing, easy to use, good battery life, excellent screen resolution. New operating system doesn't work as well on it.

Purchased mine with gingerbread o/s no problems at all – I can't fault the phone, battery life is good as long as you don't leave wi-fi, bluetooth and gps on full time. Everything, it's a gresat phone

This phone is essential - and very practical – Samsung galaxy is without a doubt one of the best phones I have ever used. Fantastic visual appearance, large easy to read screen, easy to use and follow instructions. Applications are easy to find, download and use. Updates easily using a computerized system. Smartest smart phone on the market to date Reliable Short battery life

application always not responding – I always received this application is not responding pop up window then I have 3 options : force close - wait- report. It is extremelly annoying. The screen often became blank or just a black screen for a few minutes. Not always responsive. It freezed more than it actually worked! It's really frustating. Is it the nature of the phone or my phone… Read more

is faulty? Anyone experiencing the same problem? bright screen freezed all the time. refer to my opinion above

Samsung S – Anything Samsung makes is always the best All my mobiles have been Samsung and they just get better and better Easy to use and last for ages Highly recommended AAA

Can do better – I have a Samsung Galaxy which I loved in the first few months but now find it very slow. It keeps on freezing or switching off. Sometimes it even cuts a call and goes to lock screen. Very frustrating. I like the set up of the phone as well as the "draw pattern lock". Freezes, switches off and is slow.

Good at the start – Was good at the start, but it tends to freeze alot and slow down quiet a bit. Screen size is big and good. But not happy with battery life and speed. Picture quality and big screen. Battery, freezing, too slow

Slim nice big screen – This is the best phone i was going to get a iphone but went for this instead and every person that i know that has an iphone sead this is so much better it is very easy to use nice and slim but has a very big screen the only prob is if you leave the GPS and the WIFI on all the time the battery only last a day but i just turn it on when i want to use it and off when finish Very easy to use Battery life

2 years of contract sooooo bad – This device freezes all the time, don't even try to take photos, it can't handle it... It stopped connecting to every google apps (included market). You can not upload more than pictures on gmail with it, no pdf,no office documents... Need to take battery and sim off at least twice a day, sometimes it seems to work but...black screen... Overall, a… Read more

piece of joke, simply useless. It does NOT have a GPS function (it does but cant find your position even when gps Is on for several days). Spent hours back to the dealer and litterally days on the phone with technical support. The battery can not last all day in normal use. Screen is way too bright even when set to minimum and mot oleophobic, by the time I typed this, I cleaned three times the display. Sometimes it gets gsm reception but wont go 3g, no internet... Reception is from far the worst I have seen on a handset. I am definitely not a mac addict but next time, I go Iphone, no choice sorry. This thing just doesn't work. Disapointed and can't wait for the end of my contract to get rid of it. Y may think what you want, I have done everything to make it work (new softwares, settings...) nothing to do, it just does not work. Absolutely nothing Battery, display, reception, size, gps, software

God Gave Us Man, Man Gave Us Samsung Galaxy S Then Man New It Was GOD! – I have now used the the Samsung Galaxy S for a while, friends that had the IPhone4 & after they had a play with the Samsung Galaxy S now 4 out of 6 of them now use the Samsung Galaxy S or Samsung Galaxy S2 what they enjoyed the most was the fact you can use a memory card in them Can't beat profection Slow on App production. But thats the Android Market Fault & not the Phone's.

Love it , but – Speakerphone not loud enough!Sometimes when im talking to someone, i cant hear them,but they can still hear me, i look at the phone and there is a pause sign on screen, and i thought this phone wasn't supposed to do that. Apps and reliable phone Speakerphone not good enough, not loud enough, no flash for camera Show reply

Terrible – GPS works intermittently .....battery life is poor .... wifi turned itself for some unexplained reason .... read forums on these problems and you'll find they are common complaints. Nice clear screen, light weight. Terrible lag which is very annoying when you're in a hurry ....

crap sick of sending it away for repair and sumsungs tettible customer service – my battery leaked samsung didn't care! I have always looked after this phone yet it constantly turns off! cuts off in phone calls decides not to get sms when it feels this phone is so crap it must have feelings! the features are goood if it actually worked but then it always annoys me that all apps I ever want are iphone what gets me most is… Read more

the terrible customer service as I said I looked after this phone and they treat me like crap yet my friend drops her iphone 4 in the toilet and the apple shop replaced it free of charge now thats what I call customer service! will buy an iphone next time never another Samsung! nothing as it doesn't work! everything never buy another Samsung thing ever!

This is a great little smartphone – I have use a couple of other brand smart phones and have found the Samsung able to deliver everything I need from a mobile phone and a portable mini PC Memory capacity both internally and via micro SD. Easy to use, download apps and even as a GPS Does not have a flash for the camera Show 2 replies

Great phone – Having used the Galaxy S for about 3 months now it is easily the best smartphone I have owned. Great performance, small & light which is great for mobility. Not a big fan of the Samsung applications supplied by the android market makes it easy to find replacements. The Kies software to sync the phone from your computer is what you'd except… Read more

(terrible) but you can get away without having to use it. Fast, reliable, customizable Still no android 2.3 available (Supposedly coming soon)

Decent phone – Pretty fast for a phone that’s been out for well over a year. GPS is slow and unreliable at times. OS is a bit buggy (not necessarily Samsung's fault). Battery life is terrible. Fast, reliable Poor battery life

This is no SII – Seriously, this is no SII. Have you seen a SII ? Have you used an SII before? I never own this product, but certainly, I have touched one before. My housemate owns one. And this cannot compare with my SII! However, Samsung has came out with the best iPhone killers ever. This is one of them, just a version older than SII. Its reliable. It comes… Read more

with great functions. Fantastic.

Android Operating System is reliable. And there are definitely more free apps for Android OSs in the market. I have been a great supporter of Android phones, and if you want something less fancy than an SII, get this. This is a start. Android OS, Cheaper than an SII, Fancy, awesome Come on, its no SII

egarbage – This is my first Android phone and has been a con act from day one, it does stuff when it shouldn't and then doesn't do stuff when you want it to. An example was when a mate called we were talking for 2 minutes and it began to play my sons Nursery Rhymes, sometimes it wont hang up a call until you turn it off, the battery is barely able to cope,… Read more

the best all time classic was when it changed the wallpaper all by itself, no kidding. It has features that are useless and others that should be part of the phone, its just not intuitive like a Nokia or Sony and I reckon Samsung knows this hence why the version 2 came out barely 2 months after I bought this piece of rubbish, another thing, I charge it far more often than my Sony and heaven help you if you run the Internet on it, it becomes the V8 of phones, guzzling power like no tomorrow. True Samsung don't give a damn about customers and I have proved it and walked to their competitors. There is only one positive about it and that's the clarity of the screen. The Swype is inaccurate, the messaging system is terrible, once you have started your sms and want to add others you can't you have to copy the message and add the additions and redo the message. For me I went from the best Sony Ericcson I've ever owned to what I rate as the worst Samsung ever and I hate it, with passion I don't think I can last my usual 2 years with this phone I want to get a something else yesterday, I reckon it was designed not in South Korea, but North Korea, absolute piece of poop, don't believe all the lovely reviews below, believe the honest stuff it is the real truth, owners who Samsung has ripped off. Samsung should refund our money for inflicting this phone on the world. Clarity of screen is excellent Too many issues to list

Best phone i have owned, love it! – This is my fourth touch screen phone, and definitely the best one i have owned. I love everything about this phone, the touch screen is very responsive, it has great features, and android software is great. Ive personally never had any issues with the phone. Great price, Android software, Responsive screen.. Lags on occasion.

Bad – Android’s ability to access the file system, setup a shared wireless network sharing 3G, the ability to play numerous media codec’s and the shear fact that it is NOT APPLE, were major drawcards in luring me away from iPhone. The cheap quality Samsung handset with its preloaded, uninstallable garbage applications has been a major turnoff. I’ve got… Read more

my fingers and toes crossed that Google bring Android forward to compete head to head with Apple. Android 2.1 is still a way behind. The handset manufacturers scare me in that they are very slow to upgrade the operating system, and there is no real reason for them upgrading it at all.

I’ve still got 11 months left on this contract. While I’m hopeful of Android, disappointed with Samsung and disillusioned with Apple, 11 months is a long time in this game. One thing for sure is that by July 2011 it will be a completely different playing field. From all reports, Windows Phone 7 is shaping up to be an excellent operating system. Apple will no doubt revise their antenna and handset manufacturers will either look long term to satisfying their customers (i.e. great hardware and OS upgrade assurance), or die in a blaze complaints. AMOLED Screen Upgrading my mobile phone has been an annual event for over 20 years. In that time I’ve owned numerous Nokia, Ericsson, Sony Ericsson, HTC and Apple handsets. I’ve never been one to commit to a handset manufacturer, or operating system. For 18 years, each handset was one degree of disappointment after the other, with notable lowlights being the 3 attempts to live and love a handset running Windows Mobile. You’d think I would have learned the first time, but the lure of hooking into the corporate Exchange Server for e-mail kept bringing me back for a second and third face slap. Things changed dramatically when in July 2008 I purchased an iPhone 3G. Apple took 18 years of varying degrees of disappointment and produced a near faultless handset I actually loved to use.

In June 2010, with my 12 month phone contract up for renewal, I was eagerly anticipating upgrading to the iPhone 4 when the deluge of complaints over the phone’s antenna began flooding the internet. I normally have a cover on my phones so I wasn’t particularly bothered by the “death grip”. It was Apple’s initial denial, then flippant response to the design defect which made me think “I should check out Android.

So here I am with a 3 week old Samsung Galaxy S i9000 with 16 GB of internal memory. I’ve just come back from a vacation, so I’ve had an enormous amount of time to check out the phone and use it for video and audio entertainment, as a camera for those hundreds of holiday snaps and as a phone in remote places.

I took a 12 month contract with Australian mobile carrier Optus. The handset repayments are much cheaper than either of my iPhones; around $27 a month rather than the $54 I was paying for an Apple handset. Samsung had preloaded the device with their own application “Samsung Apps”, which is a gateway to download other Samsung applications. The device was also preloaded with 8 applications from my service provided, Optus. Initially, I was a little surprised. Apple never let Australian telco’s install anything on the iPhone. “Okay Sean, get over it, I’ll check them out and uninstall any I don’t like”. The first Optus application “My Account” is quite useful. It shows my data and phone usage and is not dissimilar from any of the third party apps on Android Marketplace or Apple App Store. The other seven Optus applications were links to the Optus mobile website, where you have the opportunity to spend good money at the lacklustre Optus App Store, superficial Optus Music Store, Optus Mobile TV store, directory assistance and so on. One application, “SocialView” makes it really easy to inadvertently subscribe to regular SMS messages from Optus telling you all the status updates of your friends on FaceBook. The only difference in doing this through the “SocialView” instead of the FaceBook application is that the SMS messages are non interactive, ancient history (by the time you receive them), and you mobile phone account gets charged additional fees for every SMS. After 3 attempts to SMS “stop” back to the Optus automated SMS system, I logged into FaceBook via the Android web browser, blocked the “SocialView” application, then opened the “SocialView” application and deactivated the SMS feature, then the SMS messages stopped. I have yet to receive my first phone bill.

Uninstalling the Samsung applications or the Optus applications (substitute Optus with your own phone provider) is impossible. The applications will not delete. You cannot uninstall them. Even a full reset of the phone will not remove the applications. My only solution has been to drag these unwanted applications to the last page of applications.

Samsung Disable a Major Android Safety Feature

Android provides a setting whereby non marketplace applications will not install on the device. This is to protect consumers from installing dubious or outright malicious software. In order for the “Samsung Apps” application and litany of Optus applications to run on the device, Samsung have deactivated this safety feature, out of the box. If you reset the device, it also deactivates protection. As an out of the box approach to consumer safety, Samsung’s actions are bordering on reprehensible.

Samsung Galaxy S Build Quality

The Samsung Galaxy S feels cheap and fragile. The slide off back cover is a precariously thin piece of flimsy plastic. I found myself holding my breath when removing the back cover in install the sim, battery and additional SD memory card (not included with the device). The iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS had a meticulous build quality which felt strong and reasonably durable in the hand.

The 4” Super AMOLED display is gorgeous. It is without doubt the best screen I have had on a phone. Black is black, not backlit grey. I quickly copied a couple of DivX movies from my PC to the phone before flying out. I wasn’t sure if the movies would scale correctly, glitch, or even display at all. The movies played back faultlessly on the plane trip.

How does the Samsung Galaxy S compare with the iPhone 3GS when making phone calls?

The first part of my holiday was in a remote area of Australia’s far north. Both my partner and I are with the same mobile provider, so I had her iPhone 3GS as a comparison. There were consistently more bars on the iPhone 3GS than the Samsung Galaxy S, but given recent revelations of Apple’s incorrect formula in determining signal strength, you can call this observation irrelevant.

What is not irrelevant is the number of dropped calls I had on the Samsung Galaxy S. In the poor signal strength area we were staying, the Galaxy S dropped phone call after phone call. After the Galaxy S had dropped a call twice (which didn’t take long), I started using my partner’s iPhone 3GS, to find the iPhone faultless. It never dropped a call. I persevered for 2 days and eventually gave up using the Galaxy S as a phone, making calls exclusively from my partner’s iPhone instead.

The second stage of our holiday was in an area with much improved reception, where the Samsung did not suffer the same problems.

The Samsung Galaxy S Camera

The Galaxy S comes with a 5 megapixel camera, which takes excellent photos. The Android camera application puts Apple’s iPhone camera application to shame. There is no comparison. Android offers incredible control over lighting, exposure, special effects, timer and a host of other controls. The application includes an excellent panoramic mode which stitches 8 photos together seamlessly. A green rectangular box and arrows appear on the screen and you simply move the camera slowly from left to right while the camera automatically snaps away as the rectangles line up on the screen. My only complaint is the poor resolution of the panoramic mode; a vertical resolution of 480 pixels.

The Samsung Galaxy S as a media player

The media player is the Android media player, and it is, in a word, disappointing. It is functionally lacking and has the look and feel of the media player on my Nokia handset 10 years ago. There is no support for podcasts and no software for your PC to organise or synchronise your media content. Video and audio are treated independently.

Samsung took the initiative by building their own application called Samsung Kies, which runs on your PC. Unfortunately, one of the 4 drivers required does not work on 64 bit versions of Windows 7, making integration between the Kies software and the phone, useless. I had a quick play with the software and came to the conclusion that it is not the solution, reminding me of Nokia’s clumsy offering. Android is screaming for Google to come up with a solution which all vendors and end-users can use, which brings together audio, video, podcasts, pictures and applications into a great bit of software like iTunes, only better, which shouldn’t be hard and would be a great drawcard for encouraging people to move to the Android platform. This software should also backup and synchronise content (like iTunes).

I downloaded a podcast application from the Android Marketplace but found it superficial and irritating that I couldn’t separate Podcast audio from music audio on Android’s media player.

Android 2.1 on the Samsung Galaxy S

Android is rough around the edges but promises great things. Performance on the Galaxy S is sometimes surprisingly good and sometimes inconveniently bad. The Galaxy S, despite its powerful 1 Ghz processor, often freezes. I’m convinced this is a problem with the operating system, not the phone. My previous iPhone 3G and 3GS never froze in 2 years. The iPhone 3G was at worst, at little slow at times. The Samsung Galaxy S sometimes freezes completely for periods of 5 to 30 seconds, giving no response or no indication that it is doing something. There are controls to “kill” running applications, or you can reboot the handset, however, freezing still occurs from time to time. This is unacceptable these days and will hopefully be addressed in Android 2.2 or Android 3.0.

On the topic of Operating System upgrades, Samsung are in no hurry to pass them on to the end user. It is frustrating knowing that Android 2.2 has been released for a while now and that Samsung won’t commit to a timeframe better than “fall 2010”. That will make it at least 4 months after the operating system’s release date. One of the key selling points of the iPhone has been instant and worldwide availability of operating system updates. I find myself asking the question “At what point will Samsung decide they will no longer provide operating system updates for the Galaxy S?” Samsung are a handset manufacturer and make nothing from the operating system, so there is really no incentive for them to provide an operating system upgrade path. There are hacks available to install a non-Samsung sanctioned update, however to risk voiding your warranty and worse still, making your handset unusable in the unsanctioned upgrade process.

The Android Marketplace

There are an enormous number of applications in the Android marketplace. I have tried a dozen or so, particularly applications I found useful on my iPhone. While the Marketplace is loaded with offerings, I have found most of the applications lightweight compared with the iPhone versions. The free FaceBook application, for example, is poor in comparison to its iPhone sibling. I’ve found the same situation for almost every application I’ve downloaded from the Android Marketplace.

Conclusion