Samsung Galaxy S Glide Review

December 29, 2011 John Reyvaldi Review

Samsung Galaxy S Glide was released precisely 6 month after the initial release of Samsung Galaxy S II. Judging by it’s specs, this handsets is well positioned between Roger’s Galaxy S Captivate and Samsung Galaxy S II LTE. Galaxy Glide is currently powered with a 1 GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 processors, has 1 GB RAM and 8 GB internal data storage. Packed with dual cameras, 8 MP camera in rear side and 1.3 MP in front. Sports 4 inch screen size with 480×800 resolution and also feature Super AMOLED technology. Samsung Galaxy Glide is currently run on Android 2.3.5 with the addition of Samsung TouchWiz 4 UI tweak.

Phone

Well, this is not the thickest QWERTY smartphone we’ve ever tested. It feels little bit heavy when we try to hold on to this device. 4 inch screen with 5:3 ratio isn’t something that you usually seen on a 1 GHz smartphone. Overall, Galaxy Glide is little bit thick and bulky.

Normally, a Samsung device will feature curves for it’s design. But you won’t find similar thing in Galaxy S Glide. It is quite plain. You’ll notice that there’s extra space below the four physical buttons. We believe that they made this extra room for the slide-out QWERTY keyboard underneath it. No big deal. Although we think it is little bit awkward.

Again, this 4 inch device is perfectly fit in our hand. But if we can make a wish, we would like to add some thickness to make it more comfortable to hold. Samsung did a great job on this. Whether you slide out or keep in the keyboard, hold it in landscape or portrait mode, the device is still manage to deliver great balance.

As soon as you turn on the phone, you’ll experience the display from WVGA Super AMOLED technology. It might be the best screen we’ve got two years ago. But as we tested it now, it feels little bit outdated. Anyway, the screen is manage to deliver great brightness, nice color saturation, excellent contrast, and wide viewing angles. We’re notice that white color feature little bit blue tint and it is hard to read a text when you zoom it out.

Power button is placed on the left side. audio jack and a sliding drawer that protect a USB port are placed on the top side. On the back side, you can find the primary 8 megapixels camera that feature LED flashlight technology. The whole case feels plasticky and cheap. Fortunately, it’s back cover got some textured finish. So you won’t slip your device while doing some fast paced typing.

Keyboard

Galaxy Glide is the first Samsung’s device that feature slide out keyboard. So far, we are very pleased with the keyboard performance. When we take a look at it for the first time, the keys look small and shallow. But we figured it out later that all of them feature enough spacing to accommodate big thumbs. Keyboard’s keys are made entirely from rubber plastic.

This slide out keyboard only feature four row keys and there’s no keys for number. But you can find some special keys like www/.com and period. Four arrow keys presence are correct. Samsung also manage to emulate the four physical button on the keyboard. So you will still get the full experience, even if you work on landscape mode.

Performance and Software

It is fair enough to consider 1 GHz Tegra 2 processors as mid-range chip now. There’s plenty of chip manufacturer that able to surpass those kind of processors, like Texas Instrument, Qualcomm, or even Samsung itself. Nvidia also launch their latest Nvidia Tegra 3 chip, which feature mini quad-core processors.

Despite from it’s ancient processors, Galaxy Glide is manage to deliver fast and smooth performance. The whole android system run pretty stable. We can’t tell you the difference between UI performance of Galaxy Glide and Galaxy S II, which is powered with better 1.2 GHz dual-core Qualcomm processors. Web browser performance is also great. When we press the home button after launch an apps, we experience less delay time. But off course, this device is only manage to score low points on our benchmark test.

In order to access your apps list, all you have to do is press and hold the down button. You can do it anywhere you want and an extra dock will appear. You can also add shortcut for your favorite app. Simply drag the app icon in to the docks and you’re finish.

Camera

Camera’s shutter speed is pretty fast. It is also smart, which is mean that the camera can adjust the setting based on the light condition that surround your environment. There’s plenty of effect and settings that you can choose, one of them is the amazing macro mode. Overall, the camera performance, quality, and software are fine. You can easily turn on/off the LED flashlight feature. Switching between different white balance setting is also won’t took you so long.

The camera is also capable to do 720p HD video recording. It’s compatriot, LG Optimus 2X can do better with 1080p video. But that’s no problem for us. The video quality is fine and plays smoothly. Although you might facing some problem with light condition. Uh, the sound quality that captured by the built-in microphone is not too good either.

Network Speed and Call Quality.

Galaxy Glide work perfectly under HSPA+ 21 mbps network and manage to retrieve 5,76-8 mbps for it’s average download speed. While for the upload speed is currently stable around 1-2.5 mbps. Sadly, the pingtest shows that Galaxy Glide receive low rate pings, under 100 ms.

Call quality is fine. You can also utilize the included earbud to get better sound quality. We have no problem hearing the caller sound in a quiet room. The built-in microphone also give us little bit of noise cancellation. We are also not pleased with the mono speakers that placed near the primary camera. It provide us with emitted shrill and formless sound. Good for receive calls, but certainly not the best for hearing music.

Battery

Packed with 1650 mAh battery unit, Galaxy Glide is able to provide you with long battery lifetime. All of those components won’t consume lot of your battery power. We are able to get the amazing full 2 days of standby time. When we try to do some daily task like web browsing, stream YouTube video, and send some email, it still able to give us with longer battery lifetime than any other android device. If you want to save more power, you can turn on the Samsung’s default power saving mode. This mode will instantly turn off the WiFi, GPS, and Bluetooth function.

Overall, there’s no new feature that is offered by Samsung Galaxy S Glide. But the current specs is perform really well. It is currently priced at $549.99. One of the android device with great quality of keyboard that we’ve ever tried. If you’re looking for an effective and full package smartphone, then you should grab Samsung Galaxy S Glide.

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