Table of Contents

Samsung does not require any kind of introduction, as many of us are using at least one of their product, every day life. A decade ago this company was only known for it’s TV and now it manufactures everything from monitors, LED TV, hard drives, speakers, memory chips to smartphones. It’s the world’s 2nd largest mobile manufacturer after Nokia.

I agree it’s so late to review this phone since it has been on the store shelves for quite some time now but the phone didn’t make a huge impact on its launch, it gained popularity slowly and I received quite a few requests to review it. Last week, I decided to venture down to my friendly neighborhood Samsung dealer and get myself a Galaxy Ace. This is what I get;

Box Contents

The Samsung Galaxy Ace comes in a purple colored box, and it contains the

1. Galaxy Ace phone

2. Charger,

3. Head phones

4. 2 GB microSD card

5. Data cable

6. 1 extra back cover (white)

7. Samsung Kies CD,

8. A manual (which no body reads),

9. A warranty card.

Physical Appearance

Dimensions and Body

The Galaxy Ace dimensions are 112.4 mm (H) x 59.9 mm (W) x 11.5 mm (D). The body is made of plastic, but feels neither luxurious, nor too heavy nor too light, its only 113g.

The phone looks some what like an iPhone. It has a textured back (the black cover) that feels rubbery and gives a good palm grip.

Samsung has announced that, this grip style will be available in all their upcoming  smart phones.

Buttons and ports

The phone has 1 volume rocker button on left, one power on/off as well screen lock button on right and just below that the microSD card slot. On top, it has 3.5 mm jack port and the standard micro USB data syncing and power port.

CPU, RAM and Storage

The phone runs on 800 MHz Qualcomm processor (MSM7227), Adreno 200GPU, 278 MB RAM and has an inbuilt memory storage of 158 MB, which is not a lot of space, and it will quickly get cramped if you install one too many application in the phone memory.

Camera

The Galaxy Ace comes with one camera at the back. The 5 MP camera has a LED flash that comes handy when snapping photos in low light conditions

Screen

The phone has a 3.5 inch TFT LCD screen with a resolution of 320 x 480 pixels. The colors look a bit lifeless if you compare it to Super AMOLED screens, but at a price range of Rs.14, 000, I can live with it. The display size has an edge over the LG Optimus 1 and HTC Wildfire S. The phone has wide viewing angles, but the reflective glass covering makes it quite difficult to read the screen in sun light. The screen is covered with the famous scratch resistant Corning Gorilla glass.

Voice call quality

While on call the phone works superb, I found the speakers emitting a tinny chirping sound some time. It can be due to network problems or because I have cracked up the in-call volume to maximum. It has a proximity sensor, so when you put it away from the ears, it lights up and you can either end the call, put it on hold or activate the speaker phone.

Phone Book

The phonebook is a piece of cake. The contacts in the phonebook can be connected to their email ids, Facebook profiles, and twitter accounts.

Email

The Samsung Galaxy Ace has an independent email client. It supports multiple email accounts without any problem but maintains a common inbox for them, which can be confusing. It also comes with the default GMAIL app.

Music

The phone’s default music player is average, in terms of interface.Frankly, Samsung could have done a better job with their stock music player. After, I got the phone, I promptly switched over to TuneWiki and Winamp.

The speakers are loud and the quality is acceptable unless you are an audiophile. The headphones shipped with the phone provides decent sound quality but I will recommend to go for a better headphone like Sennheiser, Phillips etc.

Video

The stock video player can play MP4, but no DivX or Xvid format. Fortunately, third party apps makes up for it and will allow you to play a wide range of media formats. 720p videos did not play on the device which makes the support for DLNA totally meaningless.

Adobe Flash Player

Adobe Flash is not supported on this phone. However, you can watch Youtube videos using the Youtube app.

Internet browsing

The stock browser does a pretty good job and is fast in rendering pages. I downloaded the Dolphin HD browser, and it is better and works very well. Also you get tabbed interface.

Task Manager

The Samsung Galaxy Ace runs on Android 2.3.4 and comes with a Task Manager, which helps a lot in getting rid of the unwanted applications. Also the Galaxy Ace has a provision of clearing memory which I found to be helpful to some extent.

Camera

Samsung did a good job by incorporating 5 megapixel camera with flash (See some of the pictures taken through it, below). To my surprise the camera shoots really good quality photos, this coming from a fellow who is a recent convert from the Nokia camp.

I have found many Android based phones within a price range of Rs.14k is not capable of that. It has smile detection mode too. The camera shoots well in daylight while indoor or outdoor. With flash light on in low light conditions, the camera yielded good results, I did not find much graininess in the snap.

The video recording is absolutely horrible. It is capable only of QVGA recording at 15 fps. So video recording through this device is almost pointless.

Battery

The phone is powered by a 1350 mAh battery, which seem low for an Android based device, but due to its 800 MHz processor, the battery works provides 7 hours of talk time after heavy internet usage. However, medium use can keep the device up for a day or even two.

Conclusion

At the end I would say that Samsung Galaxy Ace is a good performer in mid-range segment and holds a good design and build quality. In terms of specifications Galaxy Ace scores more than LG Optimus One and HTC Wildfire S. But LG still has an advantage, because of the price tag of Rs.10, 000.

HTC Wildfire S has a price tag of Rs.13, 500 which is also a great deal. Further the recent price drop of Motorola Defy has made matters interesting. The Defy has a high resolution 3.7 inch screen, a superb UI, and all other candies at an irresistible price of Rs.15, 600. But a price cut by Samsung brought the Galaxy Ace to Rs.14, 000 which was a good comeback to the battle of mid-range Android based smart phones.

I exchanged my old Nokia E72 at the local Samsung dealership and paid Rs. 6000 for the Galaxy Ace. I consider this a good deal since, my Nokia E72 was more than a year and a half old and I got Rs. 8500 for it.

Photos taken using Samsung Galaxy Ace 5 MP camera

(Except the phone image)

Enjoy the Android 2.3.4 (Gingerbread) with Samsung Galaxy Ace!

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