Our Samsung Galaxy W Review

Samsung Galaxy W Shoots for the Stars

The Samsung Galaxy W shoots for the mid-range stars in the smartphone universe. A full touchscreen phone, it offers most of the features the “big boys” offer like multi-touch input and auto-rotate. You can browse the web, listen to music on a loudspeaker or through an earpiece, store contact info, take pictures or video, listen to FM radio or sync with social media sites. There’s a lot to like about this phone including the quality that Samsung has so vigorously defended in its cell phone products.

Great Hardware

This is a mid-range camera, and yet it’s loaded with great hardware. There is a 1.4 GHz single-core processor and half a gig of RAM. With the Samsung Galaxy W you get 2 cameras – a 5MP rear camera and a front facing camera for video calls. The rear camera has an LED flash. The smartphone also has a video system able to capture 720p footage at the speed of 30 frames per second.

The display is 3.7 inches which means it’s medium sized. The 480 x 800 pixels dish up good resolution and this phone also can handle sunlight well, which is a nice treat. The display does not get washed out when you’re outside, and a lot of smartphones can’t make that claim. The buttons and jacks are easy to locate and use too.

Design You Can Hold

The phone was designed with a curved bottom and a flat display side. The case is dotted to make it easy to hold which a lot of people appreciate (it’s scary when you drop a smartphone!). The phone is very lightweight at 112 grams despite being of average thickness. It contains a 1500mAH battery that can last anywhere from 1 to 2 days depending on how much time you spend talking in 3G mode or using the fuller functions like the video camera.

Interface – Reaching Out to the World

The Samsung Galaxy W runs on the Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread. Of course, Samsung had to add its proprietary influence so Gingerbread is customized with TouchWiz 4.0. TouchWiz makes image, icon and text transitioning smooth and fast. The phone comes with tons of widgets and other tools too. You’ll find Social Hub of particular interest. It integrates your emailing, social media, messaging and texting capabilities. There’s Game Hub, Music Hub, media streaming AllShare, and so much more. When it’s time to type, you can use the on-screen keyboard which is perfectly aligned to the screen.

The web browsing function also works great with rapid page loading and scrolling. Of course, you can do double tap and pinching as well. There’s Wi-Fi and Bluetooth as well as FM radio and GPS available.

One other great feature to mention is the fact the phone has Kies Air which lets you sync your files between the phone and the PC.

What We Liked

This is a comfortable phone in that it provides everything you expect with good quality. We like the many apps and tools that come with phone or that you have access to. The phone presents vivid graphics on an easy-to-see screen. You also get Adobe Flash. The proprietary Samsung hubs are efficient and quickly give you access to a host of services, games and applications.

What We Disliked

The main dislike is the voice call quality which can be muffled or hollow at times. Some people find the design to be uninspired but for the price and features that is not to be considered a major factor in your decision to buy or not buy.

Our Final Verdict

Overall this is an excellent phone that provides a full range of functionality. You can do pretty much everything with this phone. It is an affordable phone too and especially considering all of the features it offers. It’s easy to master the many options. The buttons are well placed for most fingers, the organization of the display makes sense, and the phone is quickly ready to use out of the box.

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	Samsung Galaxy W
General
Form Factor	Candybar
Dimensions	115.5 x 59.8 x 11.55 (mm)
Talk Time	1070 mins
Standby Time	570 hours
Weight	115 g
Quad Band	Yes
Photo and Video
Integrated Camera	Yes
Camera	5.00 megapixels
Camera Flash	Yes
Video Player	Yes
Phone
Voice Recognition	Yes
Polyphonic Ringtones	Yes
Smart Phone	Yes
Internal Memory	4GB
Memory Card Type	upto 32GB
Messaging
Instant Messaging (IM)	Yes
MMS	Yes
Video Messaging	Yes
Screen
Colour Screen	Yes
Touch Screen	Yes
Screen Resolution	480 x 800 pixels
Screen Colour Depth	16M colours
Connectivity
3G	Yes
EDGE	Yes
Bluetooth	Yes
Email	Yes
GPRS	Yes
HSDPA	Yes
Web Browser	Yes
Wi-Fi	Yes
GPS	Yes
Music and Radio
FM Radio	Yes
MP3 Player	Yes
MP3 Ringtones	Yes
Additional Content
Downloadable Content	Yes
Downloadable Games	Yes
Downloadable Ringtones	Yes

Samsung Galaxy W Full Specification

General

Photo and Video

Phone

Messaging

Screen

Connectivity

Music and Radio

Additional Content