Samsung I9103 Galaxy R Review

Samsung Galaxy R i9103 is the first reasonably priced dual-core smartphone that runs on Android v2.3 Gingerbread operating system and boasts several smart features packed in a premium design. The Galaxy R is powered by a 1 GHz dual core ARM Cortex A9 processor that helps you with multitasking and competent web browsing. Samsung Galaxy R i9103 comes as the best alternative to Samsung Galaxy SII, and would be a huge incentive for the techies. On the whole, the smartphone assures great entertainment as well.

You will get all the desired features along with a very stylish and decent look. However, the phone works on the Gingerbread version 2.3, so if you want the latest version i.e. version 3.2 then you will have to wait.

The Galaxy R stands reasonably well on its own. It makes use of the NVIDIA Tegra 2 platform which is at the core of numerous popular dual-core droids as well as some tablets too. With a 4.2" WVGA bright SC-LCD screen and brushed metal back, the phone looks good and stylish.

Below are the accessories that you will get with the Samsung Galaxy R i9103 while unboxing the handset:

• Samsung Galaxy R i9103
• Compact MicroUSB Charger
• MicroUSB Cable
• One-Piece Headset (in-ear design)
• Few Manuals

The smartphone has the finest metallic finish that would become a source of envy at the time when you carry this classy and stylish smartphone. Samsung Galaxy R i9103 is a lightweight and slim mobile phone with a super clear LCD display. Furthermore, it is quite light and extremely portable. The phone looks so sleek and shiny from both the side and can easily fit in your shirt’s pocket though it is somewhat wider.

Advantages

• Samsung Galaxy R i9103 is a lightweight and slim mobile phone with a super clear LCD display.
• The Samsung Galaxy R i9103 has got a 4.2” SC-LCD with 480 x 800 pixels resolution.
• On the positive aspect, the back has a brushed metal plate improving the looks of the otherwise all-plastic design.
• The battery has a large 1650mAh capacity and is quoted at up to 9 hours of talk time and up to 25 days of standby.
• The build quality feels solid and there is nothing that can be counted as a weak point.
• The screen behaves very well when viewed at an angle but there is some contrast loss, but colors remain unchanged.

Disadvantages

• The camera lens that is unprotected and there is no dedicated camera key.
• Although the screen is quite bright but the black levels are a letdown.
• The SC LCD screen of the Galaxy R does not offer colors that pop like AMOLED screens do. However, colors still look pretty good.

The Samsung Galaxy R i9103 works on the Gingerbread version 2.3.4 along with the latest TouchWiz 4.0 launcher. However, the interface looks more or less similar to the Samsung Galaxy S II.

Advantages

• The Samsung Galaxy R i9103 is fairly state-of-the-art with Gingerbread 2.3.4. The topping of selection is Samsung's home-baked TouchWiz launcher and the result is pretty excellent.
• The lock screen is the same i.e., you can swipe in any direction to access the phone. While, the home screen accommodates tons of widgets with lots of functionality. Furthermore the missed events get their own unlock pattern.
• The app launcher is very analogous to the home screen - you can create folders to harmonize with your shortcuts and you can add, remove and rearrange pages just like you would home screens.
• Generally, Android does truly well when it comes to managing apps by itself, thus you would only require the task manager to sporadically kill a buggy app.
• The custom task manager offers loads of functionality. It also goes together with a versatile widget which shows you the number of active applications right on your home screen.
• The phonebook has a wide range of features and practically unlimited storage capacity.
• The TouchWiz-specific swiping gesture allows you to call a contact by swipe it right and send a message to that contact by simply swiping it to left.
• Certainly, the true flexibility of the phonebook turns out to be evident as soon as you sign into your Facebook or LinkedIn account. The phonebook automatically merges your contacts right after syncing or you can do it manually as well.
• The Samsung Galaxy R experienced just about no issues with reception even in areas with poor coverage. Sound in the earpiece is crisp and comparatively loud. Smart Dial is available and works like a magic – it searches names and numbers at the same time.
• When you add multimedia content to the message, it automatically turns into an MMS. You can either quickly add a photo or an audio file to go with the text, or compose an MMS using all the available features (like multiple slides, slide timing, layout, etc.). The multiple slides are all shown inside the compose box.
• Moving on to email, the Gmail app supports batch operations, which allows multiple emails to be archived, labeled or deleted. Multiple Gmail accounts are also supported.

Disadvantages

• Strangely, only Facebook and LinkedIn contacts can be synced with the phonebook.
• Tegra 2 falls somewhat behind Exynos in CPU and GPU performance.
• The phone does not offer a non-hot-swappable microSD card.

When we talk about camera, Samsung obviously is an apparent favorite among people, and the Samsung Galaxy R i9103 is no exception. The handset comes with a 5 Mega pixels camera and an LED flash that can take photos of 2560 x 1920 pixels resolution. Furthermore, the music player is also well established with a powerful video player.

The Samsung Galaxy R i9103 promises you a very good connectivity and for that it offers quad-band 3G and GSM/GPRS/EDGE support, with HSPA+ (21 Mbps downlink and 5.76 Mbps uplink). Surfing the web is easy with the Android browser and for file transferring you can make use of USB and Bluetooth connectivity. In addition, the Wi-Fi hotspot feature lets you share your Internet connectivity with others.

Advantages

• With a 5 mega pixel auto focus camera, you will for sure never miss any detail no matter you are shooting a scene or an action.
• The built-in LED flash lets you take beautiful photographs even in low light. While other features such as smile detection, face detection, white balance, auto-focus, image editor, video calling and geo tagging are also available making this smartphone even more popular.
• You can also enjoy a streamlined interaction with your friends and loved ones with all new Social Hub as the Samsung Galaxy R i9103 unifies all your social contacts in one place.
• The Samsung Galaxy R i9103 really impresses with its image quality as it captures some great image sharpness while keeping colors at a satisfactory level of saturation.
• The video camera interface is similar with the still camera interface. Front camera can also be used to record video.
• The phone comes with the standard TouchWiz music player that features equalizer presets along with sound-enhancing DNSe technology and 5.1 channel virtualization.
• The video player also is simple but quite powerful. It displays all the video files stored on the phone as well as you can search for a song on YouTube.
• The overall audio output is reasonably pleasing. Although, the Tegra 2-packing smartphones are not predominantly loud but the Samsung Galaxy R i9103 definitely is.
• With an active external amplifier, the audio quality of the Galaxy R is truly great. And, every aspect of its performance is flawless.
• The Samsung Galaxy R i9103 comes with a streamlined and feature rich connectivity offering you quad-band 3G and GSM/GPRS/EDGE support, with HSPA+ (21 Mbps downlink and 5.76 Mbps uplink).
• Bluetooth 3.0 is also there for fast local file transfers, while Wi-Fi b/g/n support and a Wi-Fi hotspot option are also available.
• The web browser for net surfing is of good quality and it supports both double tap and pinch zooming along with the new two-finger tilt zoom. Along with that a complete social hub is also there for you to take advantage of.
• The Samsung Galaxy R i9103 is associated with Polaris Office preinstalled – one of the most feature-rich mobile editors to lets you create, view or modify your Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents (Office 2003 and Office 2007 are supported). A PDF viewer is also there along with the option to search for your office files like in a file explorer.

Disadvantages

• The secondary front camera record videos at a lower resolution.
• The front camera shoots 720p video at 30fps in .MP4 format, with at a bitrate of 10.1Mbps.
• The video quality although is good in terms of color saturation and white balance but lacking in the sharpness department. Furthermore, the video camera is not able to focus the image neither automatically nor manually. The sound quality is a bit low mono @ 96Kbps bitrate and only a 16.0kHz sampling rate.

This was all about the Samsung Galaxy R i9103. The handset is a mixed bag of loads of smart features. The Samsung Galaxy R i9103 comes with a 5 mega pixel camera producing sharp and nice images. On the whole, the phone successfully holds its own place and stands tall among its customers. It is the smartphone that sets itself apart from the rest with the huge advantages and feature rich options that you would dream of. The phone is the ideal choice for those mobile users who want to go for a smartphone with all the possible features but at a very affordable price.