Samsung I9001 Galaxy S
Introduction
Someone has just finished off a six-pack of energy drinks. The Samsung Galaxy S plus is nearly identical to the original Galaxy S, save for the different chipset, which packs a faster 1.4GHz processor.
Samsung I9001 Galaxy S Plus official photos
Samsung's bespoke Hummingbird chipset has been swapped out for Qualcomm MSM8255T Snapdragon. The "T" means it's a faster version of the vanilla MSM8255 chipset found in a good deal of Android phones. With a clock speed of 1.4GHz, it could be up to 40% faster. We'll see how they measure up though, as they have slightly different architectures.
Qualcomm's chipset comes with Adreno 205 graphics instead of the custom PowerVR SGX540 in the original Galaxy S. We expect a slight difference in graphics performance too. Also, the new battery can hold up to 10% of extra juice, for a total of 1650 mAh.
Other than that however, you can't tell the Samsung Galaxy S and Galaxy S Plus apart - not even with a caliper and scales. Here's a summary of what the S Plus has to offer, complete with a feeling of deja vu.
Key features
- Quad-band GSM and tri-band 3G support
- 14.4 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA support
- 4" 16M-color Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen of WVGA (480 x 800 pixel) resolution, PenTile matrix
- Super slim at 9.9mm
- Android OS v2.3.3 with TouchWiz 3.0 UI customization
- 1.4GHz Scorpion processor, Adreno 205 GPU, Qualcomm MSM8255T chipset
- 512 MB of RAM
- 8GB internal storage, microSD slot (up to 32GB cards)
- 5 MP autofocus camera with face, smile and blink detection
- 720p HD video recording at 30fps
- Wi-Fi 802.11 b, g and n support
- GPS with A-GPS connectivity; Digital compass
- microUSB port (charging) and stereo Bluetooth v3.0
- Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
- Great audio quality
- FM radio with RDS
- 1650 mAh Li-Ion battery
- Accelerometer and proximity sensor
- Document editor and file manager come preinstalled
- Secondary video-call camera
- Swype predictive text input
- Full Flash support for the web browser
Main disadvantages
- No flash for the camera
- No dedicated camera key
- Fingerprint prone plastics
- Virtually unchanged year-old design
- Adreno 205 GPU is weaker than PowerVR SGX540 in the original
We were quite pleased with the original Galaxy S, but the bar has been raised beyond reach by the new super flagship, the Galaxy S II. The Galaxy S Plus is a new and improved edition but one that will hardly make a big splash.
It's still a phone that can make a solid impression though. The 4" SuperAMOLED screen with WVGA resolution is a great performer to this day and at 9.9mm of thickness, the S Plus is a proud member of the sub-centimeter club.
We've already seen the Samsung Galaxy S Plus in action. An early premarket sample, running at just 1.2GHz, showed promising results as an alternative to dual-cores this year. If you're curious, you can check out the article here, but we'll be running the benchmarks and other tests anew anyway, so you may just read on as well.
Samsung I9001 Galaxy S Plus in our office • Galaxy S and Galaxy S Plus side by side
Flip to the next page where we'll look at the Galaxy S plus from all sides. If that doesn't make your heads spin, maybe trying to tell the difference between the new guy and the original Galaxy S will. After that, it's TouchWiz-glazed Gingerbread and a round of benchmarks.
Samsung I9001 Galaxy S Plus 360-degree spin
The Galaxy S Plus has the exact same friendly measurements of the original, in both size and weight. At 9.9mm thick and 119g of weight, the S Plus can still be considered compact even by today's standards.
Opening the standard box
The Plus suffix hasn’t brought anything extra to the bundle. There's the mini-sized charger, a microUSB cable and a nice looking, one-piece headset with a single button remote.
The Samsung I9001 Galaxy S Plus box contents
It should be noted that the Galaxy S Plus comes with 8GB of built-in memory, so not having a microSD card in the box is not a problem.
Design and construction
We imagine someone at Samsung took the blueprints for the I9000 Galaxy S, scratched out "Hummingbird chipset", wrote "Qualcomm MSM8255T" over it and handed it in as the I9001 Galaxy S Plus draft.
It takes a trained eye to tell the two apart. The silver strip around the phone's face has a lighter color in the Samsung Galaxy S Plus than in the original version and the pattern on the back is slightly different (less conspicuous, and perhaps more mature). Oh, and the "with Google" label is now gone.
Not that the Galaxy S and S Plus are not attractive gadgets, they are, but the design is already a year old. Also, there's no obvious way for others to tell that you have the newer, better model and not the old one.
Spot the differences: Samsung I9001 Galaxy S Plus and the original Galaxy S
The phone uses the same SuperAMOLED WVGA (800 x 480) display as the original. You get to enjoy excellent image quality and viewing angles on a 4” diagonal. The downside is it’s based on the old PenTile matrix with fewer subpixels than the updated SuperAMOLED Plus screens. But guess what, it’s still good enough by our books.
The same SuperAMOLED display as the original Galaxy S
It’s still a SAMOLED unit we’re talking about here, so the contrast ratio is theoretically infinite. This achievable in practice only in dark rooms, otherwise reflections from external light sources get in the way.
Anyway, the brightness is above average though not as bright as some LCDs or the AMOLED screen on the Nokia X7. The results were almost identical to the original Galaxy S readings, with a difference of just a few nits. This is probably due to slight software differences in adjusting screen brightness and on top of a reasonable margin of error. If you put down the sciency measuring tools though, the two screens are virtually indistinguishable in all aspects.
Here's a table of the brightness levels of several mobile phone screens we've tested.
| Display test | 50% brightness | 100% brightness | ||||
| Black, cd/m2 | White, cd/m2 | Black, cd/m2 | White, cd/m2 | |||
| LG Optimus Black P970 | 0.27 | 332 | 1228 | 0.65 | 749 | 1161 |
| Nokia X7 | 0 | 365 | ∞ | 0 | 630 | ∞ |
| Motorola Atrix 4G | 0.48 | 314 | 652 | 0.60 | 598 | 991 |
| Apple iPhone 4 | 0.14 | 189 | 1341 | 0.39 | 483 | 1242 |
| HTC Sensation | 0.21 | 173 | 809 | 0.61 | 438 | 720 |
| Samsung I9000 Galaxy S | 0 | 263 | ∞ | 0 | 395 | ∞ |
| Samsung I9001 Galaxy S Plus | 0 | 251 | ∞ | 0 | 408 | ∞ |
| Sony Ericsson XPERIA Arc | 0.03 | 34 | 1078 | 0.33 | 394 | 1207 |
| Samsung I9100 Galaxy S II | 0 | 231 | ∞ | 0 | 362 | ∞ |
| LG Optimus 2X | 0.23 | 228 | 982 | 0.35 | 347 | 1001 |
| HTC Incredible S | 0.18 | 162 | 908 | 0.31 | 275 | 880 |
Above the display is the obligatory earpiece and a front-facing VGA camera. There're proximity and ambient light sensors here too.
Below the screen are three Android keys - the hardware Home key, flanked by the touch-sensitive Menu and Back keys, which are backlit in white.
Earpiece, secondary camera and sensors above the display • Home, menu and back keys below it
The layout of controls is the same as in the original too. The Power/Lock button is on the right-hand side. It's small but protrudes, so it's easier to press, and its position makes it comfortable to reach in both right and left hand use. Accidental presses are unlikely.
The volume rocker, which is easy to reach though a bit stiff, is on the left and just above it is the lanyard eyelet.
Power/lock key on the right • Volume rocker on the left
The top features the 3.5 mm headset jack (left uncovered) and the microUSB port, which is protected by a sliding cover. The bottom only features the mouthpiece.
microUSB port and 3.5mm audio jack on top • Lonely mouthpiece at the bottom
At the back you’ll find the 5 MP camera lens and the loudspeaker grill. There’s no camera flash, nor any camera lens protection just like on the original. The characteristic hump at the bottom of the back keeps most of the phones back (including the camera) slightly away from the surface that the phone is lying on.
You shouldn’t rely too much on this to prevent scratches and it certainly doesn’t prevent fingerprint smudges on the camera lens.
There's a small bump next to the loudspeaker, which somewhat prevents it from being muffled when the phone is placed on a level surface.
Popping the back cover open (careful, those tend to crack near the volume rocker), you'll see the battery and the SIM and microSD card slots. The microSD card slot is easily hot-swappable but the SIM card is obstructed by the battery. You might still manage to pry it out, but it's best to just shut the phone off and take the battery out before handling the SIM card.
The back panel and 1650 mAh Li-Ion battery
The battery is a 1650 mAh Li-Ion unit – that’s 10% higher capacity than in the original Galaxy S. A higher-clocked CPU uses more power and a bigger battery makes sense. Official numbers put the talk time at nearly 13 hours (in 2G, half that in 3G) and and also promise almost a month of standby. Those numbers are quite like those quoted for the original Galaxy S and are as far away from the truth as they were with the Galaxy S.
In our browser battery test, the Samsung I9001 Galaxy S Plus lasted 4:30 hours. That puts it around the middle of the Android pack, on par with the LG Optimus Black (another single-core droid). Surprisingly (or not), the Galaxy S Plus outlasted the original Galaxy S by nearly half an hour.
The design may be a bit old, but it allows comfortable handling and the styling is clean and uncluttered. The all-plastic build is nothing to be excited about though on the upside, fingerprints are less of an issue in the new edition.
The Galaxy S Plus held in hand
The Samsung Galaxy S Plus is a fairly compact device for a 4-incher. However, if you look at other recent devices, the Galaxy S II shows that a 4.3" screen is possible at roughly the same dimensions too.
source-gsmarena