The Philippine Online Chronicles

"2314 Whitespace Manila," to a geek mind read too much like a space sector precinct of that intergalactic police force, the Green Lantern Corps. It was however a short white warehouse that was converted to house events. In particular, it would be location of Samsung and Globe’s launch of the flagship phone, Samsung Galaxy S.

Covered by black curtains, beyond the foray was a gym-size hall. At the end of it was an elevated stage with a runway. Wrapped as background of the stage were three wide blue screens, one on the left, a center screen and on the right. It hauntingly replicated Samsung's launch party at a mobile conference in Barcelona early this year to launch Samsung Wave 8500. While Wave showed the world like it was looking at an undersea universe, the space theme made the massive display look like the bridge of a starship.

Fast-forward past the introduction, and gorgeous fashion models finally brought out the phone. Confidently strolling down the runway, they brought the phone into the crowd.

Sexy features

Alphabet soup

Galaxy S is almost as sexy as the stunning and light creatures that brought her down the runway. Galaxy S weighs 119 g, and she is 64.2 mm wide, 122.4 mm in length and is 9.9 mm thick. Galaxy S is slightly thinner than its cousin, Samsung Wave. Her memory is 16 GB or 8 GB and is expandable to 32GB via microSD slot.

The phone has the usual alphabet soup --- HSUPA 900, 1900, 2100 as well as EDGE/GPRS QuadBand, Bluetooth and WiFi 802.11 b/g/n ready.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a modern smartphone if Galaxy S couldn’t do SMS, MMS. Not to mention the ability to send email, have a calendar and that memo app, all mainstays of the smartphone.

Onboard Galaxy S is a 5-megapixel camera that has auto focus. You can view video off this phone through a buffet of video standards--- mpeg4, H.264, Windows Media, 3GP, AVI, MKV, Flash video and a lot more. Likewise, for audio playback is a who’s who list of audio formats from AAC, AAC+ MP3, WMA, OGG, FLAC and much more.

Galaxy S has Augmented Reality. Powered by Tele Atlas POI, this feature allows the phone to show the user’s surroundings and displays information via Camera-view.

Samsung also included an eBook reader with this phone.

This phone comes with the ThinkFree app that lets you view and edit Microsoft Office 2007 documents. This phone is DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) technology, meaning you can stream the videos on this phone for example to a DLNA compliant display, as well as share data with similarly compliant mobile phones.

Social Hub

What’s more, Samsung is pushing its Social Hub, which means it is integrating your social networking sites, email and calendar accounts. This is the same Social Hub network that comes with the Samsung Wave. They are really making a big deal of this feature, believing that people would want to be able to access Facebook from the mobile phone. It is a great feature for social creatures.

The engine

Not that it would mean much to the common person, but this phone is driven by a 1Ghz processor, one of the fastest in the mobile industry. To put things in perspective, a 1Ghz processor drives Apple’s iPad, and this phone runs off the same clock speed.

Now that we have gotten the usual rattling of features, two things make this phone stand out and will be the deciding factor why you would get this phone.

Android 2.1, and 2.2 Froyo

First, it is driven by Android.

Galaxy S runs Google’s mobile operating system, Android version 2.1 (Éclair). While it doesn’t come out with the latest version of Android--- Froyo (Android version 2.2), Samsung announced during the launch that it will update Galaxy S to that Operating System version. What this means is that a Galaxy S user will have access to the web, as well as the thousands of applications being sold or freely downloadable on the Android Market as well as Samsung Apps.

The geek crowd simply adore Android because it lets them do things to a mobile phone that one would typical not do. It can pinch and zoom photos and makes it pitch and yaw for games. For the normal, person this may not mean anything at all, except that it looks and acts like iPhone’s user interface.

Galaxy S like its sister phone, Samsung Wave, will have TouchWiz 3.0 User Interface.

Super AMOLED

Second, the 4.0-inch, WVGA (480x800) Super AMOLED (Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode) display is simply one of the most gorgeous displays on a mobile device to date.

Galaxy’s display is slightly bigger than Samsung Wave, which Lintech talked about in length. The Wave only has a 3.3-inch Super AMOLED display.

The typical way to make a mobile phone display is to have a separate layer for touch sensors and a separate layer for the display. Samsung found a way to integrate the touch sensors and the display.

Super AMOLED is the biggest reason you get to choose Galaxy S. It really is a superb display. Business Week critiqued this display:

“And the 4-in. 800-by-480-pixel screens are indeed impressive. Graphics are sharp, fast and clear, even at extreme angles. If you have to watch Avatar on a tiny screen, this is the screen to watch it on.”

Engadget on the other hand said that this display is more than adept had handling direct sunlight but cautioned that even “Super AMOLED is not immune to some sun damage.”

What’s not Hot with Galaxy S

Not everything is hot with Samsung Galaxy S. As Slashgear noted:

Is the occasionally staccato performance enough to sour the Galaxy S altogether, however? We’re not entirely sure what’s causing the occasional lag – poor CPU throttling perhaps – but we’re hoping Samsung can address it with a minor firmware patch. As it stands, it’s a frustrating mar on what’s otherwise a very strong smartphone experience.

It’s really disappointing that such happens on Galaxy S, Samsung’s Wave works much more flawlessly. While one can’t really compare Apples to Apples with its cousin, Samsung Wave, there really isn’t any other comparison worth mentioning.

Globe and Samsung tie up

Globe Telecom in the Philippines through its partnership with Singtel, was able to acquire an exclusive partnership with Samsung for Galaxy S. In fact, Globe is offering this phone for free, for the entire month of July for plan 2499, which comes bundled with a month’s worth of Globle’s Super Surfing. According Globe, after July this phone will be offered at much higher plan, starting at 3799. The phone is also available for prepaid subscribers for 32,995 and 5 days of Super Surfing.

Cathy Santamaria, Globe’s Brand Head said about this partnership, “Globe and Samsung have always been at the forefront of innovation, and now with the Galaxy S, Samsung has well and truly clinched that positioning. Adoption of Android-powered devices is growing globally by leaps and bounds, and we want our users to have the enhanced experience that the Galaxy S’s Android 2.1 offers, whether for browsing the web or tracking important tasks on your phone. Working with Samsung, we aim to make being Globe-connected a real pleasure.”

Wrap up

The difference between Galaxy S and Wave isn’t as startling. Different Operating System, Android is in the more expensive Galaxy S, while Samsung’s Bada drives Wave. Both sport Samsung’s social hub experience. Both have Super AMOLED display. Both have 5 mega pixel cameras. The minor lack of certain codec’s on Bada as compared to Galaxy S’s more extensive codec support list shouldn’t be that big a deal for most people.

If you’re a Samsung fan and you’re choosing a phone between these two and Android and Apps don’t matter that much to you? Go get Wave, it’s the cheaper Super AMOLED.

What if you’re not a Samsung fan?

This is a phone targeted at consumers, not so much business, so BlackBerry is pretty much safe. Samsung Galaxy S is a phone that is targeted towards iPhone users, and geeks and people who buy luxury. This is touted to be the company’s flagship phone, yet it doesn’t scream luxury. One can excuse such lapse on a phone like Wave which is obviously targeted towards a different demographic. At the very least it screams more “luxury” than HTC Desire.

Don’t get me wrong, the phone is good enough but other than the display, which is superior to just about anything else in the market, this phone doesn’t’ give that wow factor that makes you want to go grab it. At least not at the price point this is being offered.

Between the HTC Desire and Samsung Galaxy S, the latter’s display and look can bring it over the top, but performance issues as reported and encountered by SlashGear makes the Desire more attractive.

The question really is, as a consumer, would Samsung Galaxy S make me forget about iPhone?

At the price point this phone is being sold, then price wouldn’t matter. So between the look of the phone, the hardware features, the software and the apps, it says a lot when this phone is pitted against iPhone.  The answer to the question would have to be, “No.”

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Photos of Samsung Galaxy S, Courtesy Samsung and Globe Telecom