Samsung Galaxy S Advance, Midrange Performer

The Samsung Galaxy S Advance was released in April 2012 and holds some really nice features in its basket full of advanced goodies. Besides being an attractive and wise phone, it’s also available at an affordable price, so why not check it out in the following review ? There are some big chances that you’ll like what it has to offer and consider buying it.

Main specs:

• Quad-band GSM and dual-band 3G support
• 14.4 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA support
• 4.0" 16M-color Super AMOLED capacitive touch screen of WVGA (480 x 800 pixel) resolution; Scratch-resistant coating
• Android OS v2.3.6 with TouchWiz 4 launcher
• 1 GHz dual-core Cortex-A9 CPU, Mali-400 MP GPU, 768MB of RAM
• 5 MP autofocus camera with a powerful LED flash, face and smile detection
• 720p HD video recording at 30fps
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n support; DLNA and Wi-Fi hotspot
• GPS with A-GPS connectivity; digital compass
• 8/16GB of inbuilt storage, microSD slot
• Accelerometer, gyroscope and proximity sensor
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• microUSB port
• Stereo Bluetooth v3.0
• FM radio with RDS
• Gorilla Glass
• 1.3MP secondary camera
• Document editor
• File manager comes preinstalled

Full specs here.

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In the phone’s box, you’ll find the user manuals, a charger, the microUSB cable, a pair of headphones with in-ear plugs and some additional differently sized buds. No microSD card, but the phone’s internal memory is of 8 or 16 GB, which is quite enough for most users.

The Galaxy S Advance is a good looking guy, measuring 123.2 x 63 x 9.7 mm and having a weight of 120 g. Even if it’s all made of plastic, it seems to be strongly built and looks great. I especially liked the interesting pattern on its back, which keeps the fingerprints away from sticking to it and looks nice. The phone has a curved back and can be easily handled with one hand, as it’s light and slim; your pockets will like it too.
The phone features a 4 inches Super AMOLED capacitive touch screen that has a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels and a 233 ppi pixel density. The contrast is very good, the colors are bright and vibrant, the sunlight legibility is great and so are the viewing angles.

Above the screen are the earpiece, a secondary camera for making video calls and the ambient light and proximity sensors.
Below the display are two capacitive haptic-enabled keys for Menu and Back, with a physical key for Home between them.
The left side of the phone holds the lonely volume rocker. Also lonely is the Power/Lock key, which can be found on the right side.
The top of the phone is bare, meanwhile the bottom is pretty crowded, hosting the microUSB port, a 3.5 mm audio jack and the mouthpiece.

The phone comes loaded with Android 2.3.6 Gingerbread and is upgradeable to v4.1 Jelly Bean. Also here is the TouchWiz user interface, which grants a wonderful experience. The Galaxy S Advance is powered by a NovaThor U8500 chipset, has a dual-core 1 GHz Cortex-A9 processor, Mali-400 GPU, 2 GB of ROM and 768 MB of RAM. It’s very snappy and works just fine, without annoying you with lag or anything like that.
At the telephony department, you have a great phonebook that stores tons of info about your contacts and syncs with your social networking accounts. Smart dialing is available and the phone offers a very good call & reception quality.
At the messaging area, your messages are organized in threads and displayed as conversations.
Instant messaging is handled by Google Talk and for emailing, you have Gmail and a generic email app for your other accounts.
For texting, the Android virtual QWERTY keyboard is very easy to use.
The Galaxy S Advance has a rich set of connectivity features. You have support for quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, 3G with 21 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA, dual-band Wi-Fi b/g/n, DLNA, Wi-Fi Hotspot, High Speed Bluetooth 3.0 with A2DP and microUSB 2.0.

Browsing is wonderful on the phone, as you’re being offered support for Flash 11, text reflow, multiple tabs, double tap and pinch zooming and others. The pages are loaded fast and fit the screen nicely.
The Galaxy S Advance is equipped with a 5 megapixel autofocus camera that takes pictures at a maximum resolution of 2592 x 1944 pixels and has a LED flash companion for assisting in low light situations. You also get settings for geo-tagging, touch focus, face and smile detection and others. The image quality is very good.
The video camera also does a great job and is capable of producing 720p videos at 30 fps.

For audio playback, you have a nice TouchWiz player and some nice features, like the DNSs sound enhancement, several equalizer presets ( a user defined one included), the possibility of searching for a song on YouTube or Google and so on.
The video player is very capable, handles DivX or XviD files without a problem, has support for subtitles and more.

The Galaxy S Advance features the Polaris Office application for viewing and editing Word, Excel and PowerPoint files. It can also view PDF files. Some other useful apps are the Memo, Mini Diary, Task, Voice Recorder, Calendar, Alarms and so on.
The phone comes with a built-in GPS receiver that has A-GPS support and Google Maps for navigation.
A 1500 mAh battery is on board and will keep your phone alive for a little over a day of intensive usage.

In conclusion, if you’re looking for a reliable, smart, good looking phone that’s also available at an affordable price, the Samsung Galaxy S Advance will definitely satisfy you and you won’t regret making the decision of buying it.

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Samsung I9100 Galaxy S II, Want some Icecream?

Samsung Galaxy S2 is already a classic, millions of nerds cheered the new Android 4.0 Ice Cream sandwich, this new OS from Google is like a free hardware upgrade, it is that good, yes, with better battery life and improved performance. All these on a phone that makes you love the smell of android in the morning.
Galaxy S2, the brightest star until recently, one droid to rule them all. Yeah, it's easy to get carried away, when you look at Samsung’s very own Exynos chipset, the unmatched Super AMOLED Plus screen and the ultra-slim body.

So, let’s begin with a short list of goodies:

Key features:

• Quad-band GSM and quad-band 3G support
• 21 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA support
• 4.3" 16M-color Super AMOLED Plus capacitive touchscreen of WVGA (480 x 800 pixel) resolution
• Android OS v2.3.3 with TouchWiz 4 launcher
• 1.2 GHz dual-core Cortex-A9 CPU, Mali-400MP GPU, Exynos chipset, 1GB of RAM
• 8 MP wide-angle lens autofocus camera with LED flash, face, smile and blink detection
• 1080p HD video recording at 30fps
• Dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 b, g and n support
• GPS with A-GPS connectivity; Digital compass
• 16/32GB internal storage, micro SD slot
• Accelerometer, gyroscope and proximity sensor
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• Charging MHL micro USB port with USB host and TV-out (1080p) support
• Stereo Bluetooth v3.0
• FM radio with RDS
• Great audio quality
• Extremely slim waistline at only 8.5mm and low weight (116g)
• 2MP secondary video-call camera
• Full Flash support and GPU-acceleration for the web browser permit 1080p flash video playback
• NFC support (optional, not without a software update)
• Document editor
• File manager comes preinstalled
• The richest video format support we have seen

Full specs here.

Samsung scored again. After the excellent sales that the first model Galaxy S had, here comes its worthy successor, called Galaxy S II. It is an ultra-compact and powerful smartphone, which had the best specifications at launch and still manages to maintain itself between the best smartphones on the market.

Galaxy S II was launched in February 2011 and still is one of the most popular Android phones on the high end segment. It is also one of the slimmest phones released so far, with only 8.5 mm in thickness it is equipped with a dual core 1.2 GHz processor and has 1 GB of RAM. The manufacturer has sold in the first 55 days of release over 5 million devices.

It arrived in a very small box, inside which there were instructions, a hands free headset with a 3.5 mm audio jack, the micro USB charger and a data cable. Besides all this you get a micro SD memory card of 8 GB.

From the beginning I noticed the small size of the smartphone, especially how thin it can be, actually is the thinnest smartphone yet, with a thickness of 8.5 mm. The other dimensions are normal for any smartphone with a 4.3-inch screen; Galaxy S comes with a length of 123.5 mm and a width of 66.1 mm. It weighs only 116 grams. Almost anorexic.
You get a massive screen in a body so slim, the new Galaxy beats the predecessor on every count: bigger, slimmer, sharper, faster more. Cherry on top, the handling is even better.
The display is a Super Amoled Plus that retains WVGA resolution, one word to describe it : SUPERB. Samsung knows how to make a high end capacitive unit, drop of the hat. It is also very power efficient, has perfect viewing angles and a great sunlight legibility.

The rear has an excellent design and here we find the 8 megapixel camera with LED flash. Under the back cover is the battery with a capacity of 1650 mAh, together with a SIM card slot. To access the memory card you must remove the battery. According to the manufacturer, it provides a range of 710 hours of standby time in 2G or 610 hours in 3G, and a talk time of 18 hours and 20 minutes in 2G and 8 hours and 40 minutes in 3G. Depending on how intense you use it, S2 can withstand two - three days, but you can also drain it in a single day of heavy use.

S Galaxy II comes with Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread easily upgradeable to Ice Cream Sandwich, over which runs the user interface TouchWiz 4.0.
In terms of hardware, Galaxy S II is powerful enough to impress even the most demanding user. It can run any application without breaking a sweat because it is equipped with a dual core 1.2 GHz processor and 1 GB of RAM, all these make it a real monster, it has more juice than many netbooks on the market. The 400 MHz dedicated graphics processor provides the necessary performance in games.
Galaxy S II comes equipped with 16 or 32 GB internal memory, but you also have the possibility of expanding it via the Micro SD card slot, up to 32 GB extra. S2 comes with an 8 GB card already inserted.
Telephony is great, voice commands are easy. The video player offers a simple list-based interface. The battery life playing videos is impressing, it endured over 8 hours of playback; audio output is also very good. The Samsung I9100 Galaxy S II comes with an 8MP auto-focus camera for photos of up to 3264 x 2448 pixel resolution. It comes with an LED flash but nothing in the way of lens protection or physical shutter key. The Full HD video recording is top-notch, full of detail, low in noise and generally, nice and smooth.
Galaxy S II is the dream of every mobile internet user. Besides the Wi-Fi b / g / n , HSPA speeds reach 21 Mbps download and 5.76 Mbps upload. With the right internet subscription, you will have a very good speed even without Wi-Fi.
The web browser is excellent and very fast, due to the excellent processor and abundant memory.

You also get a GPS receiver with Google Maps preinstalled; the large screen makes the phone to be very suitable for in-car GPS navigation.

Bottom line, Samsung Galaxy S2 is an easy phone to recommend, it has everything, it’s the ultimate smartphone. You can check out our monthly contract deals and get yourself a royal treat.

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