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Samsung Galaxy S (1st generation)

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Samsung Galaxy S
File:Samsung-i9000-galaxy-s.jpg
ManufacturerSamsung Electronics
TypeCandybar or Slidersmartphone
Release dateJune/July, 2010
Operating systemAndroid 2.1 (Upgradable to 2.2) [1] with TouchWiz UI 3.0
CPUSamsung Hummingbird S5PC110, 1 GHz
Memory512 MB RAM, 2 GB Flash
Storage8/16 GB (Flash Nand Memory)
microSD (up to 32 GB supported)
Display4.0 in 800×480 @ 233 ppi WVGA
Super AMOLED
(0.38 Megapixels) with mDNIe
GraphicsPowerVR SGX 540
Input5-point[2] Multi-touch capacitive touchscreen display, 3-axis accelerometer, additional 3-axis gyroscope, digital compass, proximity & light sensors, Swype
Camera5 Megapixel with Auto Focus but no flash, 720p HD Video, Self shot, Action shot, Panorama shot, Stop motion, Smile shot, Add me
Front-facing VGA camera (on select models)
ConnectivityDual band CDMA2000/EV-DO Rev. A 800/1900 MHz CDMA 800/1900 MHz EVDO Rev. A, WiMAX 2.5 to 2.7 GHz; 802.16e 2.5G(GSM/GPRS/EDGE): 850/ 900/ 1800/ 1900 MHz; 3G (HSDPA 7.2 Mbps, HSUPA 5.76 Mbps): 900/ 1900/ 2100 MHz; Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n); Bluetooth 3.0; USB 2.0, DLNA, Radio FM
Dimensions122.4 mm (4.82 in) (h)
64.2 mm (2.53 in) (w)
9.9 mm (0.39 in) to 14 mm (0.55 in) (d)
Mass118 g (4.2 oz) to 155 g (5.46 oz)
PredecessorSamsung Galaxy i-7500

The Samsung i9000 Galaxy S is an Android smartphone that was announced by Samsung in March 2010. It includes Android version 2.1. Samsung has delayed the expected Android 2.2 which it initially claimed was expected to be available on GSM variants at the end of September 2010[4] and U.S. CDMA variants before the end of 2010. There is growing speculation from various sources that this update may be delayed up until late October and November.[5] It features a 1 GHz "Hummingbird" processor along with 8–16 GB internal Flash memory, a 4-inch 480×800 pixel Super AMOLED (Pentile) widescreen, capacitive touchscreen display, a 5-megapixel camera in addition to a VGA front-facing camera,[6][7] and a PowerVR graphics processor yielding 90 million triangles per second, making it the fastest graphics processing unit in any Android phone to date.[8] In addition being amongst the first phones to offer Bluetooth 3.0 and/or Divx HD,[9] at 9.9 mm it is at time of release the thinnest Android phone in some of its variants.[10]

Samsung sold over 500,000 of this smartphone in just over the first month of sales in South Korea.[11] As of July 13, 2010, Samsung has sold over 1 million units globally.[12]

Launch

The phone was initially launched in Singapore on June 4, 2010 priced as low as $0 on a two-year contract and SG$1098 (approx. $780 USD) without a contract.[13] Before the end of its first weekend on sale in Singapore, Samsung tweeted that Singtel, the exclusive carrier to sell the device in Singapore, were sold out of devices.[14][15] On Friday June 25, 2010, the phone was launched in Malaysia and South Korea through Maxis at RM1699 (approx. $515 USD) with a 12-month data plan contract and SKT at 295,000 won (approx. $243 USD) with a 24-month data plan contract respectively.[16][17] It was released in the U.K., Europe, and parts of Asia in June 2010. It is set to launch on over 100 carriers worldwide in 100 countries.[18] U.S. Variants named as Epic, Vibrant, Fascinate and Captivate were released from June through September 2010. The Australian release of the Galaxy S was in early July 2010, exclusively on Optus. The cost of the handset is $0 on a two-year contract ($49 AUD per month service plan). Other Australian carriers such as Vodafone, Three and Telstra scheduled release of the Galaxy S in September 2010.

Reception

Samsung is shipping an initial 1 million units of the Galaxy S to its carrier partners to satisfy demands for the phone.[19]

CNET Asia gave the Galaxy S a favourable review with a score of 8.4/10. The Galaxy S was compared to current high-end Android-based phones such as the HTC Desire, Xperia X10, Nexus One, and smartphones using different operating systems like the iPhone 3GS, which runs iOS, and HTC HD2, which runs Windows Mobile in CNET Asia.[20][21]

GSMArena.com described the Galaxy S as having "perfect audio quality," claiming the phone's superior all-round performance made it a "new leader of the Android pack".[22][23]

After some hardware problems surfaced (see reported problems section) reviewers have started to give lower scores for this phone.

Hardware

Processors

The Samsung Galaxy S is powered by a system-on-a-chip based on a 45-nanometer CMOS process and composed of two main microprocessors: a 1-GHz ARM Cortex A8 based CPU code-named "Hummingbird", co-developed by Samsung and Intrinsity[24], used to run the OS and applications; and a PowerVR SGX 540 GPU made by Imagination Technologies which supports OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0[25] and is capable of up to 90 million triangles per second. The system has 512 MB of dedicated RAM (Mobile DDR).

Screen

The Samsung Galaxy S uses a 4.0-inch (100 mm) Super AMOLED touch screen covered by Gorilla Glass, a special crack and scratch resistant material.[26] The screen is a WVGA pentile display manufactured by Samsung.

Software

User interface

The phone employs the latest proprietary Samsung TouchWiz 3.0 user interface (UI). Unlike TouchWiz 3.0 on Samsung Wave, it allows up to seven homescreens. However, different from other Android UIs, TouchWiz 3.0 actually allows users to add, delete and rearrange homescreens. The program launcher is also different from other Android UIs: when it's opened, it brings up an iOS-like program menu which allows you to customize the arrangement of program shortcut icons. In addition, three of the four icons at the bottom of the screen can also be edited to user's liking. The Epic 4G, which debuted on the Sprint network on August 31, as well as the Fascinate which debuted on September 9 on Verizon both feature a specialized version of TouchWiz based on TouchWiz 2.5. Because of the Epic 4G's QWERTY slide-out keyboard, the homescreen needed to be able to rotate into landscape mode, and accordingly several key features and applications are absent on the Epic. TouchWiz 3.0 devices do not support this feature, and because of that difference, the Epic 4G ships with a heavily modified TouchWiz 2.5 interface. The adding, editing, and re-arranging of homescreens, as well as several other features found on TouchWiz 3.0 devices like the Vibrant and Captivate, is not supported in the version of TouchWiz that ships on the Epic 4G.

The most important aspect of all three generations of TouchWiz UI is the widget interface. The most prominent widgets that come with the Galaxy S are the daily briefing, weather clock and the buddy widget. Daily briefing brings up all essential day to day information (finance, weather, AP mobile news, schedule) in one page. The weather clock is a classic analog clock with the selected city's weather displayed below the clock. The buddy widget allows you to text and call your contacts quickly. In addition to Samsung widgets, standard Android widgets can be added and removed from the homescreens.[27]

Bundled applications

Other provided software includes the Layar Reality Browser, a program that visualizes GPS direction, and Aldiko, an ebook reader. The phone also comes with various upgraded versions of software that came with Samsung's previous generation of smartphones (such as i8910HD and i8000 Omnia II).

Media support

The Galaxy S comes with support for many multimedia file formats, including 2 lossless audio codecs, video codecs and video formats: Video codecs: mpeg4, H.264, H.263,Sorenson codec, DivX HD/ XviD. VC-1 Video formats: 3GP (MPEG-4). WMV (Advanced Systems Format), AVI (divx), MKV, FLV Audio: FLAC, WAV, Vorbis, MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, MID, AC3, XMF

Variants

United States

  • AT&T released a variant of this phone for the USA on July 18, 2010 under the name "Samsung Captivate". It includes 16 GB of internal flash, but does not have a front camera or LED camera flash.
  • T-Mobile released a version of the phone called the "Vibrant" on July 15, 2010[28], making it the third Android 2.x phone officially supported on the T-Mobile network (after the Nexus One and MyTouch 3G Slide). The price is $199 with a new, two-year contract, or less through some distributors.[29] Current T-Mobile customers can upgrade with a two-year contract extension for $149.99. It does not have a front camera, nor does it have an LED camera flash. T-Mobile is bundling the film Avatar, preloaded onto a microSD card, with the phone.
  • Sprint announced the release of "Samsung Epic 4G" for August 31, 2010. It features a 4G radio, a full QWERTY keyboard and reworked version of Android 2.1, as well as some downgrades from other Galaxy models, such as a reduced functionality version of TouchWiz, and a number of applications removed. This version is 14.2mm thick. This includes the front camera of the international version and also adds a camera flash and comes bundled with a 16GB micro SD memory card.
  • Verizon released a "Samsung Fascinate". It removes the front camera found in the international version, but adds a camera flash.[30] The phone was made available in Verizon stores on September 9, 2010.
  • US Cellular will be receiving their own version of the phone in October 2010, but pricing and a name have not yet been revealed.

Canada

  • Rogers announced availability under the "Samsung Galaxy S Captivate" name. It will be identical to the Samsung Captivate on AT&T in the U.S..[31]
  • Bell released a version of the Galaxy S with support for its 850/1900 MHz network on August 6, 2010, under the name "Samsung Galaxy S Vibrant".[32]

Brazil

In Brazil there is only one model of the Galaxy S, based on the i9000 base model, but with the addition of an ISDB-T 1seg tuner for digital television. They are manufactured locally by Samsung, to take advantage of tax cuts associated with the local production. It is possible to record ISDB-T 1seg broadcasts to a memory card for playback later, and take screenshots of the programs. The tuner also supports features like a programming guide and Closed Caption.

Reported problems

GPS and compass errors

Galaxy S users and Samsung[33][34] have reported major GPS and magnetometer / compass problems with the Galaxy S[35], Captivate[36], Vibrant[37] and Epic[38]. GPS problems range from the device not being able to lock on to any satellites, to the phone freezing when the GPS is used, and to the signal being intermittently dropped. These problems prevent the phone from acquiring location, Google Maps and other location-based applications are often handicapped on Galaxy handsets not acquiring satellite GPS, and falling back to less accurate terrestrial tower triangulation of the mobile's position from the nearest 3/4 available relay towers. The magnetometer which is built into the device is also reportedly having problems determining the correct bearing and renders inaccuracies to the end-user.

Several fixes have been attempted by users, with varying results. A fix for one of the several problems includes changing the LbsTestMode of Samsung's current Android 2.1_update image.[39]. Samsung has recently confirmed though that multiple problems and causes exist[40] and has indicated they are to release an update to address one of the causes in September. Samsung had claimed fixes had been implemented in the more recently released Sprint Epic variant but professional reviewers and users have found major GPS problems with that model as well.[41][42]. Users report better results on Epic aGPS by disabling "use wireless networks" land tower triangulation, and enabling "cold start," overriding expired data in GPS assistance cache. [43]

Initial poor 3G speeds on Sprint Epic 4G variant

Users and professional tech review websites testing data speeds on the Sprint Epic 4G variant originally found very low 3G speeds, specifically upload speeds[44]. Laptop Magazine average tests were 72 kbps upload[45], and users reported a maximum of 150 kbps[46], rendering bundled video chat software nearly unusable. Typical U.S. 3G upload speeds are 350 to 500 kbps. Epic 4G's 3G data speeds were considerably lower than other competing 3G devices on Sprint's network. Although Sprint originally denied the issue, after widespread media coverage, Sprint addressed the Epic's 3G speed caps in an OTA maintenance update in late September 2010. [47]

Three-button recovery mode issues

Around mid August there were reports from consumers who discovered their phones had the three-button recovery mode disabled. This mode allowed users to restore their phones back to factory settings by reflashing the entire device if a major software error was encountered and the phone would not boot. Most of these reports were surfacing from Australia, Canada and France.[48] There were suggestions that it had been disabled deliberately by Samsung. The development community investigated the possibility that Samsung had applied a software modification to remove this feature.[49] It was then discovered that the recovery mode feature appeared to be randomly disabled on new handsets. There were suggestions that there were three assembly lines at Samsung's manufacturing plant and one of these lines appeared to be producing the defective phones. A poll was conducted on Whirlpool to determine if this might be the case and the results appeared to indicate the assembly line theory to be possible with ⅓ of phones having this mode disabled.[50]

Samsung Mobile Canada released a downloadable software update on the 17th of September which appears to resolve this problem.[51] Users of phones from other regions also reported resolving this problem using this update, although this is obviously not recommended by Samsung.[52]

FM output

The FM radio tuner output is disabled on some variants, and on the remaining, left channel only.[53]

Verizon Fascinate

On September 10, 2010, a day after Verizon made the Fascinate available in stores, a list of known hardware bugs was released. The list was presumed to be from an internal memo at Verizon, suggesting that the carrier was aware of the problems.[54] In addition, users report GPS issues. There is also criticism of Verizon's decision to supplant Google Search with the less-popular Bing Search as a default.Android 2.2.[55]

See also

References

  1. ^ http://twitter.com/SamsungMobileUS/status/17368587945
  2. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRCDRXYJBCY
  3. ^ "Samsung Unpacked". Retrieved 18 April 2010. {{cite news}}: Text "date 2010-04-18" ignored (help)
  4. ^ Samsung UK Mobile (5 August 2010), "The official Samsung UK Mobile Twitter feed", Twitter
  5. ^ http://top10.com/mobilephones/news/2010/09/samsung_galaxy_s_android_2_2_update_delayed/
  6. ^ "Samsung i9000 Galaxy S Android Smartphone In Action – Video", Geeky Gadgets, 24 March 2010
  7. ^ "Samsung Galaxy S GT-I9000 Android 2.1 smartphone announced", SlashGear, 23 March 2010
  8. ^ "Samsung Galaxy S "Hummingbird" chip to have 3x GPU power of Snapdragon", Android and Me, 26 March 2010
  9. ^ "Galaxy S in a Hurry to become world's second Divx HD phone", Engadget, 23 March 2010
  10. ^ "5 reasons to wait for the Samsung Galaxy S", Android and Me, 30 March 2010
  11. ^ http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2010/07/133_70404.html
  12. ^ "Samsung Galaxy S to add 10 million Android users?". CNN. July 13, 2010.
  13. ^ http://www.techknots.com/mobiles/samsung-galaxy-s-to-arrive-in-singapore-first
  14. ^ http://www.eurodroid.com/2010/06/samsung-galaxy-s-launched-in-singapore-already-sold-out/
  15. ^ http://twitter.com/samsungsg/status/15544638024
  16. ^ http://www.soyacincau.com/2010/06/28/first-impressions-samsung-galaxy-s/
  17. ^ http://www.bizplace.co.kr/biz_html/content/naver_content_view.php?seq_no=32653&page=1&b_code= (Korean)
  18. ^ http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2010/06/03/2010060301729.html
  19. ^ http://www.totaltele.com/view.aspx?ID=456021
  20. ^ http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/mobilephones/0,39051199,45229322p,00.htm
  21. ^ http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/mobilephones/0,39051206,39000063c-20000066q,00.htm?&sort=2/
  22. ^ http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_i9000_galaxy_s-review-478p6.php
  23. ^ http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_i9000_galaxy_s-review-478p9.php
  24. ^ Samsung. "SAMSUNG and Intrinsity Jointly Develop the World's Fastest ARM Cortex-A8 Processor Based Mobile Core in 45 Nanometer Low Power Process". Retrieved 2010-09-01.
  25. ^ Imagination Technologies Ltd. "POWERVR Graphics". Retrieved 2010-09-01.
  26. ^ http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/24/samsung-galaxy-s-sporting-gorilla-glass-to-protect-that-precious/
  27. ^ http://www.samsunggalaxysforum.com/samsung-galaxy-s-how-to/can%27t-connect-to-kies/
  28. ^ http://galaxy-s.t-mobile.com/
  29. ^ http://tmobilephones2010.com/2010/07/t-mobile-ramps-up-with-samsung-vibrant-get-it-for-99/
  30. ^ http://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/cell-phones/SCH-I500RKAVZW-features
  31. ^ http://redboard.rogers.com/2010/samsung-galaxy-s-captivate-coming-soon-to-rogers/
  32. ^ http://galaxys.bell.ca/index.html
  33. ^ http://mobile.engadget.com/2010/08/02/wheres-the-gps-fix-for-the-samsung-vibrant-and-captivate/
  34. ^ http://androidforums.com/samsung-captivate/128026-everyone-who-having-gps-problems.html
  35. ^ http://androidforums.com/samsung-galaxy-s/104872-gps-issues.html
  36. ^ http://androidforums.com/samsung-captivate/128026-everyone-who-having-gps-problems.html
  37. ^ http://androidforums.com/samsung-vibrant/132109-gps-doesnt-work.html
  38. ^ http://www.anandtech.com/show/3891/samsung-epic-4g-review-the-fastest-android-phone/10
  39. ^ http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=728611
  40. ^ http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/17/samsung-galaxy-s-gps-gate-two-problems-not-one-and-what-to-do/
  41. ^ http://androidforums.com/samsung-epic-4g/163692-testing-gps-satellite-usage-your-new-epic-right-way-have-use-wireless-networks-off.html
  42. ^ http://www.anandtech.com/show/3891/samsung-epic-4g-review-the-fastest-android-phone/10
  43. ^ http://androidforums.com/epic-4g-support-troubleshooting/179689-gps-cache-problem-workaround-tested-working.html
  44. ^ http://androidforums.com/samsung-epic-4g/166945-lousy-down-up-load-speed-3g.html
  45. ^ http://blog.laptopmag.com/superphone-face-off-htc-evo-4g-vs-samsung-epic-4g/3
  46. ^ http://community.sprint.com/baw/thread/43883
  47. ^ http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2010/09/sprint_epic_4g_update_arrives_to_solve_3g_upload_speed_issues.html
  48. ^ http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=749470
  49. ^ http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=756002
  50. ^ http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1524760&p=1
  51. ^ http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150262535205538&id=260085296049
  52. ^ http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=784704
  53. ^ http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=739599
  54. ^ http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2010/09/10/samsung-fascinate-known-issues-document-leaks/
  55. ^ http://www.htlounge.net/art/13430/verizon-makes-google-search-optional-for-samsung-fascinate-using-android-2-2.html
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