Samsung Galaxy Fit Review – Specification, Features, Price

Samsung’s plan to ship out an Android powered entry level smartphone with all the bells and whistles that come with the Corby and Star phone has come in the same of the Galaxy Fit. It is designed and priced as a mass market phone. The thought here seems to be to defeat the competition by sheer numbers instead of better specifications or improved smartness. By comparison it might be considered a mild upgrade to the Galaxy Mini.

Samsung Galaxy Fit

Specifications

There is not a whole lot different from the Galaxy Mini besides the display and camera, and here are some of the key features of the phone.

• Screen: 3.3” QVGA TFT capacitive touch 65K Colors
• Operating System: Froyo Android v2.2.1 (near future upgrade to Gingerbread)
• Interface Enhancements: TouchWiz v3.0
• Processor: 600MHz ARM v6
• RAM: 280 MB
• Storage Internal: 160MB
• Storage Extended: 3 GB MicroSD Hot Swappable
• Camera: 5 Megapixel Autofocus
• Navigation: GPS with A-GPS
• Radio: Stereo FM with RDS
• Audio Out: 3.5mm audio jack
• 2G (GSM): Quad Band
• 3G: Dual Band
• 3G Download: 7.2 Mbps HSDPA
• Connectivity Wired: MicroUSB port Charging Enabled
• Connectivity Other: Stereo Bluetooth 2.1

Samsung Galaxy Fit

Features

The great thing about the boxing is that the phone comes with a charger head, a MicroUSB cable and a 2GB MicroSD card and the slot on the phone will accept up to 32 GB in it. Like all the Samsung Androids, this one also comes with the TouchWiz enhancements which make the overall experience much more enjoyable with improved icons and usability. The TouchWiz mainly comes with improvements in two areas, the Notification Panel and Task management utility. The Notification Panel pulls down from the top true to the Android heritage and includes toggles for WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, Silent Mode and Auto Rotation. The Task management utility shows the Active Applications, Loaded Packages, RAM usage and a Summary under separate tabs; it also comes with a Task Manager Widget that can be placed on any home screen. There are up to 7 home screens supported, however, you can remove them if you are not going to use them. The Quadrant benchmarking showed that the Galaxy Fit is a shade ahead of the Nexus One though falls by a margin behind the Galaxy S.

Verdict

There are a few things going against the Galaxy Fit starting with the QVGA resolution which is a bit on the low side; there are no touch haptic; the second camera for video calls is not there also are missing a flash and a dedicated key for the respectable 5 Megapixel autofocus. The video QVGA recording is at a disappointing 15 frames per second. This phone has been designed with subtle features and look, though it will not attract the business or older audience. The Samsung Galaxy Fit is an entry level phone and surprisingly delivers a pretty reasonable package in hardware and software for those transitioning to smartphones on the cheap. There are however other smartphones to consider as well; starting with the Galaxy Mini S5570, Galaxy Ace S5830 and Galaxy Gio S5660 from Samsung. Other viable options for a starter Android smartphone include the HTC Wildfire S and the Nokia C6-01.

Price

At just short of the $260 mark, is definitely a smartphone that will east those who are considering the move to smartphones. The Samsung Galaxy Fit is a good choice while you have your Android training wheels still on.