Samsung Galaxy Mini S5570 Sim Free Mobile Phone - Grey

I live in a city centre block which has poor mobile reception. I have had to return both a Orange San Francisco and a Samsung Genio Slide GT-B5310 phone as I was unable to make reliable voice calls on either. I have had no problems making voice calls with the Samsung Galaxy Mini S5570.

I'm really happy with the functionality of this phone. Getting access to Gmail, Facebook, Twitter and general internet browsing is really easy. Most Android apps are available and work really well, including GPS apps such as Google Maps. There are a few issues.....

The on screen keyboard is a little too small for my liking, so I have installed a free Android keyboard app which I find much better.

The camera in this phone is fixed focus. This means that bar code (or QR tag) reader apps can't use the camera, so bar code scanning is not possible. The Google Goggles application (which uses a phones camera to do a Google search of the image) is also unavailable for this phone due to the restrictions of the camera.

Battery life isn't great (I charge mine every evening), but I understand that Android 2.3 has much improved battery management. An Android 2.3 upgrade for this phone has been promised by Samsung. Spare batteries are also available, which are easy to change over when required.

The BBC iPlayer application is not available for this phone as the processor in this phone is not powerful enough to support Adobe Flash.

I would recommend this phone as a basic, good value Android smartphone.

I bought this after my HTC Desire was stolen. This is a third of the price, and yet the majority of the functions are still there. The main thing I feel I am missing is flash, which is apparently unavailable on this device, so you can't watch many video sites other than youtube unfortunately. Also a camera flash/ flashlight would have been really useful.

Otherwise, the screen is quite lo-res so reading text can be hard, but this doesn't feel horrible to me. I use this phone as an ebook reader with over 200 books constantly in my pocket, and it's great never to get bored when waiting etc. The screen looks very good at a direct angle, but if you tilt your head slightly it goes dark and becomes harder to see - a shame, but this in my opinion is worth the reduction in price.

The camera quality isn't great, but is still useful. It has lots of functions my Desire didn't have - panorama mode and multi shots. The photos can come out dark and grainy even when there is quite a bit of light, and the dynamic range of the sensor is not great, so if you take a photo of the land and the sky, which are greatly different brightnesses, it can only keep one of them visible. However, this obviously isn't a camera review; I'm still going to find the camera useful despite these flaws.

I have flashed the Gingerbread ROM onto this device, which makes everything seem speedier, and seems to improve battery life as well, which is actually better than the Desire (just remember to turn off all the functions you aren't using). The slow processor doesn't feel sluggish when navigating menus or looking around google street view. You can run GBA games well on this - I haven't tried PSX games like I used to on the Desire, but my hopes aren't too high for that. One issue for me is there are only 3 usable buttons - volume up/ down and back (menu and home aren't usable). I wish they could have added extra buttons and the 4 way scroll wheel like the Desire, because I miss that not only in emulated games, but in general browsing as well. It's a much easier device to root than the Desire, which gives you access to lots of geeky functions!

All my favourite 3rd party android apps: Pulse, Gameboid, Aldiko, Listen and Poweramp all work brilliantly on this device, and for the price I am very happy with this phone. The contacts application is really well made, and the FM Radio is surprisingly good software. RAM management feels easier than on the desire despite there being less RAM. It also seems that there is more memory available for apps on the phone, although that can't be true. I think there are more useful functions out of the box as well. I love that the MicroSD slot is always available, rather than tucked behind the battery. The speaker in the phone sounds really good. The phone is easy to hold and use for long periods of time and you can navigate the whole thing with just one hand.

Overall, I can't believe the amount of functions they crammed into this device for the price(GPS!). If you want a useful phone that doesn't waste battery on a 3d screen or something, this would be a very good choice in my opinion.

Samsung Galaxy Mini GT-S5570

If you are surgically attached to your smartphone, and have lots of experience with them then this is not the review for you, this is review is aimed at `newbies' like me!!!!

Overall this is a very competent smartphone for light usage, or the first time buyer of this type of phone. I have had this phone for about 3 months now, so I thought a review would useful, having had some time to get used to it.

First off - reception, signal quality and clarity as a mobile phone have proved to be excellent so far (linked to the TescoMobile network), if anything, it has proved superior to my last two Nokia phones (linked to Vodafone) and I have been a fan of Nokia for many years, so that took a bit of thought to admit that. Do search around for deals and contracts with this phone, there are some cracking deals available, if you are prepared to look!!

The camera built into the phone is a basic 3 megapixel affair. I have used it a couple of times and it is OK, but nothing startling, but useful if nothing else is available - I have to say that I am not too bothered about this, as I would use a dedicated camera to capture anything important.

If a smartphone is an integral part of your life, then battery life might be a bit of an issue, but for the `light usage' owner, it is not going to be a problem. I get 2.5 to 4.5 days battery life in everyday usage, which equates to a couple of calls and texts each day, checking my emails, the news / weather and the occasional download. If you have constant feeds from Facebook and Twitter, or have forgotten to switch off WI-FI, Bluetooth and GPS when you are not using them, or you are constantly downloading stuff, then you are going to run into battery life problems, as noted in other reviews. This really should not come as a surprise to people who have a laptop. How long would your laptop last on battery power alone if you were doing all of these things??, 2-4 hours is the best you could probably expect from a portable device (yes, I know i-Pads are a bit better than this, before anyone feels the need to comment), yet we seem to expect our phones to do all of these things for a week on one charge.
If you need some help in extending the battery life on your phone then try searching on line for "10 ways to boost your smartphones battery-life", this should take you to some useful sites for setting up and managing your phone.

I have downloaded the recommended Juice Defender App (free version) to my phone to see if it improves things any more, but have not run it long enough to give a definitive answer. I have to say that if you check what is running on your Galaxy Mini via the Task Manager, this basically does what Juice Defender will achieve for you.
If you do have a lot of downloads to do, make sure you have fully charged the phone (i.e. wait until it tells you that it is fully charged, this is important) then leave it on charge and do your downloads. Another tip is to do these downloads at home where you can log the phone on to your own WI-FI (if you have it) which is generally quicker and does not use your data allowance.

Please make the effort to download the user manual for the Galaxy Mini from the Samsung UK website - the start up guide that comes with the phone is less than useless, so go to the UK web site for Samsung and search for the Galaxy Mini (it does take a while to find it, due to the way the site works).
Make sure that when you buy the phone it has Android 2.3.4 loaded (or later), **double check with the vendor before buying!! ** As of January 2012 Samsung have not issued an official upgrade to this version of Android and my wife's Galaxy Mini is still stuck on Android 2.2.1, as I cannot upgrade it without a lot of messing about with downloading files off the internet (none of which is guaranteed to work without any problems!!). Android 2.3.4 definitely seems to have improved performance of this phone and I hope Samsung are ashamed of themselves for being so slow in issuing an update for the Galaxy Mini.

If you have not owned a smartphone before, be prepared to play around with the phone to find out where everything is and what it can do for you. I took the easy way out and asked my nephew and his girlfriend how to use the damn thing properly.
Remember to download a free antivirus software (and anything else that takes your fancy) from Android Market.
If you are going to be a `light user' then you should find the standard 500MB / month data limit enough for most usage. When you are at home or close to a trustworthy and accessible WI-FI network remember to switch to WI-FI to save on your data allowance. This also helps when you are initially downloading the Apps that you require to get the most from your phone. This will use up the battery life a bit quicker, but is a useful trade-off.

A useful thing to know is that the USB/Charger connection on the Galaxy Mini is the same as the HTC range of smartphones, which is useful to be aware of if you get caught out away from your own charger. I did worry that this tiny USB connection would be a bit fragile in use, but so far, with reasonable handling, it has not given any problems.

The back up software issued by Samsung (Samsung Kies 2.0) which is available to back up contacts, update the phone software etc. is functional and basic, but I have to say it is not the best software I have come across. Be prepared for minor glitches on your PC after you load it. There is nothing dramatic about the software or the problems it causes and it does update your phone and backs up phone info for you, it just is not brilliant.

This is just my initial impression of the Galaxy Mini, I hope it helps and I will be aiming to update this review as I use more of the functions etc.

Additional 28/01/2012 - 04/02/12: As the Galaxy Mini is at the smaller end of the size range for smartphones, the screen size is obviously a bit more limited, but quite usable. Leave the screen auto rotation function switched on, to give better readability when turned through 90 degrees. This does not seem to affect battery life significantly. Screen rotation also helps with the size of the on-screen keypad for texting etc. The keypad is a little small for those of us with larger fingers (or long fingernails) and can take a little getting used to. This generation of phone relies on actual skin contact, rather than a stylus or fingernail and can result in hitting the wrong key until you get used to it. When using the phone outside in colder weather (or just if you have cold hands) this can result in a lack of sensitivity from the touch screen. I guess that most modern screens struggle with this at times.

The phone is supplied with a 2GB micro SD card for extra storage, but if you want to store music etc. on your phone, you are going to fill this pretty damn quickly. I bought Sandisk 32GB SDHC cards for our phones (the maximum the phone will accept)and they have worked fine so far (see my other reviews for info. on these cards).

One small niggle is that the phone IS NOT supplied with headphones, but as my MP3 player headphones work fine with it I am not too bothered. If you do buy any, try the earbud type headphones with the interchangeable soft earcaps. These seem to be very comfortable and decent ones are available for ~£10. Playback of music files has been pretty good so far, the built in MP3 player on the phone seems to work well, across a range of music types. Obviously, extended use of the MP3 function will hit battery life, but for the odd hour or so, it is not a major issue.

If you switch off the phone completely, using the POWER OFF option, then expect the phone to take nearly a minute to power back up fully and be ready to make a call. The phone seems to run through a large number of self checks (including scanning any SD cards installed).

I have only had a brief 'play' with the GPS Navigation and Maps functions, and they do seem to work reasonably (if rather slowly, probably a function of the phone capabilities). The GPS locations that I have tried do seem to be about 200 metres out though. I have yet to try this out in the car, to see if it provides a usable SATNAV capability.

I have recently added the Yahoo email app. to pick up my emails, which works OK, but by default it runs all the time, with no easy way of switching it off (which is stupid in my opinion - you should be able to easily switch it on and off, as and when you need it) this seems to be the case with a lot of apps, so it is no wonder that people complain about poor battery life. I have found a way to do it, but you have to go into the apps management screen, which is too long winded for my liking.

My wife bought the following phone accessories from Amazon, all of which have performed OK. These are all fairly inexpensive but useful items. The screen protectors are a little fiddly to get correctly positioned, just make sure the screen is cleaned properly and follow the fitting instructions and with a bit of patience you should get the protector in place without any bubbling.

Samsung S5570 Galaxy Mini Clear Screen Protector Shield - 5-in-1 Pack - By iTechCover

iGadgitz Black Silicone Skin Case Cover for Samsung Galaxy Mini S5570 Android Smartphone Mobile Phone + Screen Protector

UK MAINS CHARGER & CAR CHARGER BUNDLE for Samsung Galaxy Mini S5570 / GT-S5570 - Hi-TEC ESSENTIALS