Over the past few weeks I’ve been testing a Samsung Galaxy Pro smartphone. The phone runs the Android 2.2 operating system and departs from the usual large screen devices in that it has a QWERTY keypad below the screen. The phone uses the similar layout to a Blackberry or Nokia E series device. The QWERTY keyboard has 4 rows of keys. The screen is 2.8 inches and has a QVGA resolution of 320×240 pixels and is a capacitive touchscreen.
The 2.8 inch screen is capacitive touch as mentioned earlier, but not multi-touch. A couple of things let the screen down in that it has a very low resolution as well as a relatively small viewing angle which makes the colours look washed out after turning the device a little. It reminds us of the screens found in phones a few years back. The capacitive touch screen does respond to touch very well though.
The phone is made of plastic all around which in some ways does make it lose some appeal, but in favour of the phone, it’s also quite rigid and light weight. Not much can be found around the device in that on the bottom side, there’s just a mic. On the left, an up/down volume rocker, the right is the power button and the top a microUSB connection for charging/connecting the phone. A 3.5mm headphone jack can also be found on the top.
Taking off the back cover, you’ll find a slot for the microSD card and a SIM card slot.
What we like about the hardware is that it’s light and the keyboard works very well. The 4 rows include three lines of QWERTY and below that, function keys, space and arrow keys. Writing out messages was quick and the tactile feedback that the physical keyboard provides is excellent. As with any keyboard, physical or virtual, you do need to get used to the keyboard and the slightly different positions of keys such as the function, enter keys, but after a few text messages the usage becomes very comfortable.
The Galaxy Pro uses the Android 2.2 operating system. It works quite well on the small screen with the capacitive touchscreen adding a better way to navigate around the device. The version of Android isn’t standard as Samsung has added the TouchWiz 3.0 interface over the top of the OS. This adds a number of icons to the left of the screen which give quick access to the varying functions of the device. Icons can be moved around a total of up to 7 home screens if desired with each screen having up to 12 icons.
The camera on the back is 3 megapixels and it does have autofocus. On the downside, when video is captured it is captured at 320×240 pixels which doesn’t give the best quality when compared to most modern smartphones.
Overall, the smartphone is good for those who are not interested in a full touchscreen and want to stick with Android rather than Symbian or BlackBerry OS. The keyboard is fantastic as is the touchscreen. The main let downs are the low resolution screen with quite a small viewing angle.
In the UK, the Galaxy Pro is available on the Three network and comes on the One Plan which has a hefty amount of data (all you can eat in their words), as well as 5000 text messages and 2000 minutes as well as 5000 Three to Three minutes. The phone is free on a £27/month contract.
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