Samsung Galaxy 3 Review

Introduction:

The nice guys at Samsung are always thinking about the poor and deprived of this world who cannot afford a Galaxy S, and still need to satisfy their Android obsession. Thus they came out with two more handsets in the Galaxy series - the lowly Galaxy 5, and the middle ground Galaxy 3. There is nothing AMOLED-y or Hummingbird-y about our Samsung Galaxy 3 here, but on paper it has all the prerequisites for a compelling mid-range Android phone. Seeing is believing in our case, so let's charge ahead and examine the TouchWiz-ed Samsung Galaxy 3...

Design:

There have been some design changes since we made our preview of the prototype unit. Samsung has rightfully concluded that two of the usual four Android buttons are a waste of space, and has disposed of the home and search keys we saw in the prototype. Instead, universal search is now called by long-pressing the context menu button, and clicking the trapezoid center key takes you to the homescreen.

All are regular physical buttons now, we don't see the four capacitive touch keys that were in the early iteration of the Samsung Galaxy 3. If the omission of capacitive touch technology for the navigation keys, and the D-pad being replaced by a single home button (after all, you have a touch screen) brings with them lowering the production cost, we can't say we will miss those much.



You can compare the Samsung Galaxy 3 with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

The 3.2“ screen itself is capacitive, but TFT LCD, not AMOLED, which should have helped to bring the cost further down as well. The resolution is WQVGA 240x400 pixels – not great at all, so the font and icons look quite pixelized. The display is actually decent in direct sunlight, if the brightness is pumped up to the max.

The rest of the black glossy plastic design is curvaceous, and the plastic feels durable, and it is not slippery, thus making the phone comfortable to hold. Most of the action is going on at the top of the phone where the lock/power button, the microUSB port, and the 3.5mm audio jack are. The only other element is the volume rocker on the left.