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Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Samsung Galaxy Premier review: A droid of stature

Spreading the Galaxy S III magic to as many market segments as possible is what Samsung is actively trying to achieve these days. After the power users were treated to the Note II and those looking for a premium experience in a compact shell got the mini, it's now time for the mid-range market to get some attention.
Samsung Galaxy Premier I9260
Samsung Galaxy Premier official photo
The Samsung Galaxy Premier specs sheet is familiar with the 4.65-inch Super AMOLED touchscreen and the dual-core TI OMAP chipset immediately bringing the Galaxy Nexus to mind. However, calling the Premier a Nexus refresh is wildly inaccurate - the Nature UX adds so much character that you'll hardly be able to tell there's so much in common between the two smartphones.
Let's take a look at what the Galaxy Premier is all about.

Key features

  • Quad-band GSM and quad-band 3G support
  • 21 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA support
  • 4.65" 16M-color Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen of HD (720 x 1280 pixels) resolution; Corning Gorilla Glass 2
  • Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean with TouchWiz launcher
  • 1.5 GHz dual-core Cortex-A9 CPU, PowerVR SGX544 GPU, TI OMAP 4470 chipset, 1GB of RAM
  • 8 MP wide-angle lens autofocus camera with LED flash, face, smile and blink detection
  • 1080p HD video recording at 30fps
  • Dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 b, g, n
  • GPS with A-GPS connectivity; GLONASS support, Digital compass
  • 16/32 internal storage, microSD slot
  • Accelerometer, gyroscope and proximity sensor
  • Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
  • microUSB port with USB host and TV-out (1080p) support, MHL, charging
  • Stereo Bluetooth v4.0
  • FM radio with RDS
  • 1.9MP secondary video-call camera
  • NFC support
  • Document editor
  • File manager comes preinstalled
  • Extremely rich video and audio codec support
  • Relatively large 2100 mAh battery

Main disadvantages

  • No dedicated camera key
  • Dual-core Cortex-A9 CPU usually belongs to a lower market segment
  • All plastic body
  • PenTile matrix screen of relatively low brightness
Sure, the Samsung Galaxy Premier doesn't have the most exciting specs sheet around, but it takes a formula that was already proven to work and improves on it in a number of key areas. Building on the most popular Nexus smartphone so far, the Premier addresses just about every complaints users had about it.
The mediocre camera is replaced by a more capable 8MP shooter, the chipset got a speed update and a more powerful GPU, while the uninspiring styling got spiced up with a dash of Galaxy S III. There is also an ampler battery to take care of the relatively short endurance and a microSD card slot for cheap memory expansion.
And yes, the stock Android looks are gone, but they are replaced by the Nature UX, which is not only way more functional, but also the best looking TouchWiz version so far.
Let's see if all those tweaks actually look as promised - the hardware inspection starts right after the break.


Display

The display on the Galaxy Premier is a 4.65" Super AMOLED unit with a resolution of 720 x 1280 pixels, resulting in a density of approximately 316 pixels per inch. The specs might be identical to what we had a year ago, but this still remains the most pixel dense AMOLED screen out there.
Samsung Galaxy Premier I9260
The Samsung Galaxy Premier display
As usual for AMOLED display, colors are vibrant and contrast is impressively high. Unlike the Galaxy Nexus, the Galaxy Premier offers three display modes, which lets you tune down the colors if you don't like the default oversaturated look.
The brightness of the screen isn't particularly impressive, but the Galaxy Premier is still brighter than the Galaxy Nexus, so it's definitely a step in the right direction. And given that Super AMOLED displays are pretty resistant to reflections, the sunlight legibility of the Galaxy Nexus is pretty good.
Here go the Samsung Galaxy Premier results from our display tests.
Display test50% brightness100% brightness
Black, cd/m2White, cd/m2Contrast ratioBlack, cd/m2White, cd/m2Contrast ratio
Samsung Galaxy Premier01380328
Samsung I9300 Galaxy S III01740330
HTC One X+0.2323210160.284211521
LG Optimus G0.1419714450.334711438
LG Optimus 4X HD0.3436910770.687501102
Apple iPhone 50.1320014900.486401320



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