Samsung GALAXY W Pro Reviews

We've had enough time to form impressions of these inexpensive smartphones. They're classic midrange packages with solid feature sets but the goal is clearly to stay within budget rather than impress anyone with specs. For a few bills more, users are getting better performance (especially in games) and a better camera (both stills and video) out of the Samsung Galaxy W I8150. But they'll have to install a custom ROM if they want Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (Cyanogen Group is working on one). Of course, the Samsung Galaxy W is not for geeks only, but they're usually the ones who care about benchmark scores and are keen on zooming into photos to look for artifacts. Buying the Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo V will save you some cash and you'll be getting a hassle-free upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich and a simple way to view photos and videos on an HDTV. It has the better screen and a faster web browser too. The average user will be fine either way, knowing they got a good enough phone for a reasonable price. The Xperia Neo V is better than the Galaxy W on a couple of counts. It seems to be the one with more bang for your buck. Alternatively, the Samsung Galaxy W is the power player and also has the looks to go with it. We just don't think squeezing every drop of performance is make or break in this price range.

Strong in some areas, weak in others, the Samsung Galaxy W is a mash-up of the best and slightly below par offerings on the mid-range smartphone market for those users not yet ready to make the jump to the high-end and costly Samsung Galaxy S2. A very impressive battery life far exceeds those of its higher-end, higher-priced rivals, while the intuitive interface and speedy processor offer a strong introduction to the smartphone scene for those who are adopting the well-priced Samsung Galaxy W as their first trip away from feature phones. With the numerous benefits outweighing the negatives, the Samsung Galaxy W is an impressive offering for its price point, with premium components creating a strong all-round user experience.

The Samsung Galaxy W I8150 stops a few paces from the top in Samsung's Android lineup, but you can tell that the R&D for the top dogs has trickled down the ranks. TouchWiz 4.0 is one of the most flexible Android modifications and the standard set of apps is quite complete - from the SNS-enabled phonebook, through the excellent video player and smooth 720p Flash video support to third party goodies like the very capable Polaris Office. It’s the hardware that takes some criticism. The display has good viewing angles but poor contrast. We would’ve liked the 8GB built-in memory of the Galaxy S and S Plus. Still, the chipset did very well in both CPU and GPU benchmarks, so one of those fancy chipsets with dual-core processors wasn’t badly missed.

The Samsung Galaxy W isn’t perhaps the prettiest Android phone out there, but it turns out to be a pretty nifty handset to use. It's comfortable to hold, has a good screen and camera, and its 1.4Ghz processor keeps things moving at a spritely pace. Add in the fact that it's available at very modest price either on PAYG or contract and you've got a very appealing package.

Overall, the Samsung GALAXY W lives up to the expectations for its category with its comfortable design, decent pictures and video, rich codec support, strong loudspeaker and plenty of preinstalled goodies like Polaris Office and AllShare. The 3.7-inch LCD display should be commended as well since it delivers some eye-pleasing graphics thanks to its high pixel count. On top of all that, the internet browsing experience is complemented by Adobe Flash support meaning that you can enjoy the web to its fullest, powered by the 1.4GHz processor. The things that we didn't like about the GALAXY W were the below average call quality in the earpiece, and the sometimes slow to focus camera. The first flaw especially might be a hindrance, since the handset will fight for attention in an overcrowded Android category.