Galaxy tab 10.1 launch

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Mobilers 2011 - Mission 1 - Samsung Galaxy Pro

Mobilers 2011 kicked off with a bang with a gathering of Mobilers old and new at Samsung HQ. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend, and so waited patiently for updates from the others as to the form this year’s program would take.

The first item on the Mobiler list this year is the Samsung Galaxy Pro, and how this compares to a Blackberry. The Blackberry 9780 Bold seems to allow the fairest comparisons.

   

Upon opening the box, first impressions of this handset were not particularly high. I thought it looked fat and stubby (66.7mm wide compared to 9780’s 60mm), however, after using it for a few days, I’ve discovered that this is due to the keyboard, which has keys larger than those of a Blackberry. With a Blackberry, the keys are often very small and tightly packed, and this case rings true with the Bold, however, on the Galaxy Pro, the large keys are well sized and placed for typing. However, one thing that was noticed by the Mobiler group is the absence of a = sign on the physical keyboard. For this symbol, the onscreen keyboard must be used, which is slightly odd.

Unlike the Blackberry’s optical trackpad for navigation, the Galaxy Pro features a touch screen. This makes everything easier to use, as I have found the Blackberry trackpad to be very temperamental when trying to navigate. However, the QVGA screen is rather small, and makes the use of apps difficult, as smaller items can be difficult to read. I have noticed this especially with facebook - the text is very small with no way to enlarge. Also, when using the internet, pinch-to-zoom multi-touch has been sacrificed for tap-to-zoom. I find this annoying, as the text when zoomed out is too small, yet when zoomed in is too large for the screen, creating unnecessary scrolling about web pages. Also, an auto rotate feature has been added to the Galaxy Pro – which seems a fairly pointless feature on a handset with a physical keypad – however, this is easy to turn off with just a touch of a button.

While the Blackberry 9780 boasts a 5mp camera, the Galaxy Pro features a 3.15mp. In my opinion, the pictures could be a lot clearer, but this is due to the fact that I’m used to the8mp camera with pictures viewed on the large screen of a Samsung Galaxy S 2. The QVGA video is also quite poor, however, with handsets like the Blackberry 9780 and Galaxy Pro being used mainly for browsing and email, it is likely that the camera specifications will not be as important as others for many potential purchasers.

The Galaxy Pro runs on Android 2.2 (Froyo), and seems to work well with this. The usual TouchWiz interface is present, ensuring the layout is familiar and simple to use. The 800MHz processor allows the Galaxy Pro to process commands and applications quickly and with ease.  With the Android software comes the usual vast selection of apps, in comparison to the slightly poorer offerings of Blackberry AppWorld. However, the main feature that Blackberry users will report to be missing on the Galaxy Pro is BBM. However, the popularity of WhatsApp (available free from the Android Market) has grown vastly in recent months, allowing free messaging between Android and IPhone users, in a similar manner to BBM.

Compared to other Android powered devices, many of which include a large touch screen, the Galaxy Pro’s battery life is phenomenal. My device has remained on since unboxing three days ago, and still has plenty of battery life left to go. I suspect that with heavier usage, the battery life will remain higher than average for Android handsets. This is a definite bonus for those who need to keep in touch.

In all, the Samsung Galaxy Pro is comparable to the Blackberry 9780 Bold, and would suit social users, interested in the SNS and email capabilities of the handset. The camera quality and low quality screen let the Pro down in terms of app display, but the physical keyboard is perfect for those who enjoy social networking and email. This handset should fare well against Blackberry as a social handset, thanks mainly to the familiar Android software allowing easy transition from any other Android device, as well as WhatsApp messenger, Google integration and a massive apps market.