Samsung GALAXY Pro Pro Reviews

A budget QWERTY handset may appeal to cash-strapped business users, but the poor keyboard and cramped screen resolution make the Pro unfit for office tasks.

Despite some plus points, such as its relatively low price tag, we couldn't help feeling that the Samsung Galaxy Pro is a bit of a disappointment. The screen and keyboard are the two areas you need to get right on a messaging device and Samsung just hasn’t managed to do that here. Also, Android just feels awkward to use on a landscape device such as this. Still, if you're determined to get a messaging phone that runs Android, we'd advise you to check out the HTC ChaCha instead.

The Samsung Galaxy Pro is a slippery little fish. We want to praise it for its keyboard, but berate it for its screen. Samsung could have helped matters by offering a higher resolution on the screen.

Overall, though, the Samsung Galaxy Pro is a disappointment. Android just doesn't function well when squished into a screen wider than it is tall, and the low resolution means there's a lot of scrolling needed. If you really want this style of smartphone, we suggest you do some comparison shopping.

The competition is more or less irrelevant if you factor in all the existing customers using a Corby, Omnia or even older Windows-powered Samsung messengers. But whether the Galaxy Pro will become a bestseller, is not so important. It’s a good enough phone to give Android a try. That should probably be enough for most of its target users. If we look at the bigger picture though – it’s the evolution of the messenger form factor that’s a lot more interesting. Like it or not – even the once revered Eseries find it hard to keep up. An E6 will never have the clout of an E71. With BlackBerries in a league of their own as usual, the QWERTY messengers of today are inching towards touchscreen. Like it or not. The versatility of Android may as well be a game changer yet again.

So, if you're after a messaging phone, you want it to do cool stuff like tether, play music well and offer a greater selection of apps than a BlackBerry, all at a low price point, then the Samsung Galaxy Pro may be for you. Sadly, there is a compromise in the form of the screen. Its low resolution and lack of multi-touch puts it below other Android handsets specifically for tasks like web browsing and picture viewing. For everything else though, we are pretty impressed with Samsung's mid-range offering. A decent alternative to the device is the BlackBerry Curve, which is a more business-centric, albeit pricey handset. If you are after a cheaper QWERTY device and don’t need smartphone functionality, consider the Nokia C3.