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Samsung Galaxy Portal I5700 review

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Verdict

A great-value Android phone and quick too; a great value phone

Review Date: 15 Mar 2010

Reviewed By: Jonathan Bray

Price when reviewed: Free, on a £20.00 per month, 24 months contract.

Overall Rating

Features & Design
4 stars out of 6

Value for Money
6 stars out of 6

Performance
5 stars out of 6

PCPRO Recommended

It takes more than a simple splash of colour to make a smartphone stand out from the crowd these days, but with its latest Android phone Samsung appears to have ignored this sage advice. From a distance its new Galaxy Portal I5700 looks identical to the top-end Samsung Galaxy I7500, save for a spot of red here and there.

So it needs to make its mark in other ways, and it does so principally through price. Available exclusively through T-Mobile, you can lay your hands on one for free on a £20 per month contract, a very good deal considering the hardware on offer.

For starters, you get a phone that feels better made and more thoughtfully designed for your money. We prefer the soft touch plastic back to the glossy one on the original Galaxy, and the revamped, slightly curvier button panel below the main screen feels higher quality, too. The screen is just as large, with a 3.2in diagonal, and has the same 320 x 480 resolution.

In terms of core specification, there’s not much missing either, with 3.6Mbits/sec HSDPA, Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, an accelerometer for flipping the orientation of the screen and a digital compass.

Understandably, certain areas have been cut back, and the screen is the main focus of this. In place of a lovely OLED display, this cheaper model has only a TFT. As a result it’s not as bright, but it’s still more than acceptable by the standards of most smartphones.

The camera sees a reduction in resolution, from five to three megapixels, and there’s no LED flash to help out in low light either.

There’s no integrated storage to speak of – just 180MB internal and a 1GB Micro SD card supplied in the I5700’s expansion slot. As with the original Galaxy, the version of Android on offer – 1.5 – is both behind the times and untweaked, with very little in the way of software extras. Fortunately, it’s easy enough to add to via the Android Market.

But none of this really matters that much. The camera on the original wasn’t that great anyway, and the memory can be upgraded for very little money. More important is that the I5700 feels much faster and more responsive than its predecessor.

Lists scroll quicker, web pages pan more smoothly and the phone copes better with lots of applications running at once. Its 800MHz CPU takes the lion’s share of the credit for this.

Even battery life isn’t too bad. After 24 hours of moderate use – including 30 minutes of phone calls, 50MB of data downloads, 1hr of music playback and 1hr of screen-on time – we recorded 50% capacity remaining. That’s not as good as the best phones we’ve tested, but it’s a match for the Apple iPhone 3GS.

Despite this we like the Samsung Galaxy Portal I5700. It has a good specification – most notably its fast processor and capacitive touchscreen – and it feels well made, too. For the money, it’s hard to think of a better value smartphone.

Author: Jonathan Bray

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Comments

User comments

Android Eclair 2.1 on its way soon to the i5700, adds a nice cherry on this great sounding budget smartphone cake. Available now if you want to take a (lowish) risk on pre release version:

http://mobile.engadget.com/2010/02/24/new-samsung-
galaxy-spica-rom-leaks-tastes-like-eclair/

Cheers

By sipart on 15 Mar 2010

Official Date on 2.1 Update

I know there are ways to upgrade to 2.1 on this phone yourself but I'd prefer to wait for the official T-Mobile update. Anyone know when T-Mobile will be releasing 2.1 and whether it will be over the air or published as a ROM on their site?

Thanks

By AndrewD on 16 Mar 2010

Seems to be no official Samsung comment, just lots of chatter. But if an seemingly Samsung created 2.1 update exists then a good chnace one will come. The T Mobile G2 2.1 update coming in April officially though - perhaps they will come together.

I suspect a download update, OTA wouldn't be practical with size of update.

One small thread I could find on TMobile forums:

http://support.t-mobile.co.uk/discussions/index?pa
ge=forums&topic=80103895b3bb401266896d4a8005dfd

At MWC some evidence of 2.1 running on the i5700 - cnet had some photos of the i5700 at MWC with 2.1 running.

By sipart on 16 Mar 2010

keen to see 2.1 also. Not sure how it will be implemented though... via Kies? I can't get that to recognise my phone (on windows 7)? Looking on the various fora it would seem I'm not alone either. Any ideas anyone?

By hungrycaterpillar on 16 Mar 2010

2.1 one avaliable! :-)

T Mobile just agreed a £10 a month contract (I know it's long!) and £40 for the phone - it's Christmas again :-D

Not worried about only having 100 mins and 100 texts as I'm just going to use it for data mainly (unlimited (!) fair use policy with contract)

http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/17/samsung-galaxy-
spica-grows-up-to-android-2-1/

:-) :-) :-)

By sipart on 17 Mar 2010

Sorry the long contract was 24 months.

This surly put's it near the A List for a budget smartphone!

By sipart on 17 Mar 2010

mike

This is nonsense. I don't care that much whether Samsung delivers a firmware update for this 'phone; but am so looking formward to the annual offer of a handsand upgrade. Let's look at the facts: Samsung have delivered a handset with a truly horrid piece of software named NPCS ('New' PC Studio) that has no business being on a modern PC. Test it and be horrified, because you should be. Why? Because its sole useful function is to provides the recovery and upgrade path - AND IT DOESN'T WORK. Indeed, as far as I can tell, Samsung UK have spent at least the last 5 months delivering smartphones (all models)without bothering to provide a support infrastructure that's any better than a rather lame forum. If you think that's good enough so be it. Personally, I'd wonder just how remiss a supplier would have to be before you told it where to get off.

By bustacat on 6 Jun 2010

Yes, great phone, horrible NPC.

The software is so bad I hurts.

I downloaded the latest software from the Samsung site (doesn't even list the SPICA! - Samsung, you did produce it right?) and it still says "unregistered device"

Samsung, please get your act together on your software. Your hardware is great but I will have to switch because working with such bad support is too hard on my soul.

By SPICAHOT on 17 Jun 2010

PC Health Warning Required

The dreadful NPCS software is not Windows 7 compatible and has unsigned drivers. It installs 7 subdevices none of which do anything with the Android phone.
It would be better if it wasn't in the box!
BTW I've just sent back a phone to T-Mobile, 3 months after the release of 2.1 by Samsung, they are still shipping 1.5.

By milliganp on 6 Jul 2010

And another thing!

Samsung's support is non-existant and T-Mobile support for Android devices is seriously sub-par.

By milliganp on 6 Jul 2010

Handset too Complicated!

Yesterday I phoned T-Mobile support to return a Galaxy Portal. The reasons I gave were:-
1) The supplied software does not support Windows 7 -9 months after win7 launch.
2) Having installed the software on an old XP machine it does not recognise or support the phone.
3) Samsung has had Android 2.1 available for nearly 3 months but the unit shipped had 1.5.
Today the return packaging arrived and the return code was -Handset too Complicated.
Handset out of date and devoid of meaningful support doesn't have a code!

By milliganp on 6 Jul 2010

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