Samsung I5700 Galaxy Spica

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Samsung Galaxy i7500 was the first Android powered smartphone that was launched at June. But in just few months the company has come out another Android device from the same lineup – The Samsung I5700 Galaxy Spica. Maybe the i7500didn’t appear in many markets throughout Asia, thus the company decide to come out i5700 to gain back the market. The new comer actually is the close relative to Galaxy i7500 but have improved like offers a better 800MHz processor and multemedia capabilities, making it become a more powerful device. So let’s have a look at what new features it has.

Design

The Galaxy Spica i5700′s design is similar to it  predecessor. It is a fully touchscreen that have not equipped with physical keypad. The screen is same  3.2-inches AMOLED display that have  320 x 480 pixels of resolutions. We do love this display because of it clarity and good images display. But it still have the sunlight legibility problem a bit. The buttons below the screen is now have been redesign in a new layout and also got an additional key. The D-pad is still at the center and surrounded by call, ends, back and menu keys. The additional key is on the left side which is a dedicated search pane that can be use in various applications like contacts, calendar, messaging, Google etc.  The i5700 measures 115 x 57 x 13.2 mm of dimension and 124 g of weight. It is a little bigger than it predecessor, and heavier as well. However, it is not a much worrying factor. The  Galaxy Spica i5700 is actually look more youthful than i7500, and it come with two different version of colors combination:  black-red and  white-green.

User Interface and New Features

Unfortunately the Samsung Galaxy Spica i5700 runs Android 1.5 OS, not the newer 1.6 version, not to mention Android 2.0 that we see in Motorola Milestone. Like it predecessor, there are no different from the past. The drawback of this OS is, Samsung didn’t add any personalization on it. So It has a typical UI that we seen on  HTC G1 and HTC Magic. The homescreen still consist there different panel which host application shortcuts, widgets etc. As there are no keypad included, the phone offer a Qwerty virtual keypad that can be access in both landscape and portrait mode. It is quite good to use actually, and would be appreciated since the phone support various of texting options such as SMS, MMS, email, several IM and a built-in Gmail client.  Also like other Android device, the phone contacts and calendar can be synchronized to Google accounts.

Here came the new features, firstly Samsung Galaxy Spica i5700 is now supports  DivX and Xvid video files. This is the first Android phone that can actually do this. Formerly, if you want to play these files, you may required a third party software from to do so. But now Samsung has give the codec built in the phone, so it make you life easier now.  Another new comer is a application that called Switchers. It actually is for quick access to GPS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth activation/deactivation options as well as the automated synchronization function. It seem useless since you can at the shortcuts at the screen, but if your home panel is occupied with your favorite apps than it become very useful.

Camera

The camera in i5700 is a 3MP camera that has autofocus, geotagging and LED flash. However it doesn’t offer any extra features like color effects, white balance or image contrast which is not surprising for us because his predecessor also lack of these features. The picture quality actually is quite good, though it has no advance setting available. The phone also can capture videos, but the  maximum video resolution is 352×288 pixels which is considered low for today’s standard. And as we expected the quality is rather bad at this really.

Music and Video

The media player in Samsung I5700 is still the standard Android one. Nothing more have to mention as we have seen it many time before, except the DivX and Xvid video playback capability. The phone can handle DivX and Xvid in a maximum resolution of 720×480. And pairing with the AMOLED screen, watching video on the phone is joyful. Audio quality from the speaker phone also performs very well, and with the aids of 3.5 mm audio jack, you can even paired up with a more advance headset.

Final Words

Samsung I5700 Galaxy Spica has offers a very attractive feature that no other Android handset does, the DivX and Xvid supports. However, this breakthrough is not appear too much because not everyone are like to watch video on a phone. Unfortunately, aside of that feature, Samsung i5700 seem have no other eye-candy point. It is a good smartphone, but in competitive market,  without more strong selling point, Samsung i5700 is easy take over by other device.