Budget Android phones have become very popular lately and Samsung Galaxy Y is the cheapest one in the market if you ignore the IDEOS handsets being offered by a couple of telecom providers.
ProPakistani got its hands on a test unit and here’s what we make of it.
Appearance:
Samsung Galaxy Y is a small phone and fits into the hand snugly. It has a 3.0 inch screen and as with most touch phones of this size, it’s not for you if you have big hands. The back is plastic but certainly doesn’t look so and with the chrome rim, it gives the phone an expensive look.
Samsung Galaxy Y has a candy bar design and has three buttons on the front. One is the physical home button and two are capacitive. There’s no ambient light sensor or front facing camera but a proximity sensor is provided.
Check product: A7 2017
Check product: Samsung Galaxy Note 9
The left side of the Samsung Galaxy Y has the volume rocker and the right side of the phone has the power/sleep button. The top has the 3.5mm jack and the microUSB port.
Interface:
The interface of the Samsung Galaxy Y is similar to the ones on other Samsung Android handsets. It comes with TouchWiz UI on top of Android 2.3.5 (Gingerbread), which is a pleasant surprise.
You can have up to 7 home screens populated with apps etc. The bottom of the screen has four shortcuts for contacts, dialer, messages and menu.
Swipe down from the top and you get the notifications bar. Here you can quickly toggle Bluetooth, GPS among other options and it shows other information about active connections, downloads and missed events amongst other things as well.
Apps in the menu can be accessed by swiping horizontally. A prolonged press of the physical button brings up recent apps and the task manager where you can kill applications and see usage of the 290MB of the available RAM.
We want to add that the text looks a bit fuzzy and its not as pretty as one would want it to be but all Android functionality is present and at this price, we can’t really complain.
Performance:
The 832 MHz processor is good enough for general usage, apps and web browsing. We didn’t experience any glitches in the graphics but the resolution, 320×240, is a bit low and there were quite a few apps and games that didn’t perform well and some even refused to work at all.
Contacts and Messaging:
The phonebook leaves nothing to be desired. It has every functionality one could think of and its loaded with TouchWiz which provides some really handy shortcuts.
Texting on a 3.0 screen was always going to be a chore. It has the usual portrait virtual keyboard and it switches it to its landscape version when tilted to the side. Things get a little cramped but with a little practice one could get used to it.
The window in which you see what you have typed is too small for our comfort. What I love about texting in the Galaxy Y however, is Swype. When activated, you don’t have to lift your finger and you can just drag your finger over the keyboard to form a word.
Accuracy is high and we were very pleased with it. There is an option for voice input too but while it’s accurate enough it takes too much time. Other input options include handwriting recognition. Texts are shown in the popular threaded view which is good. Adding multimedia content will automatically turn the text into a MMS.
Camera:
Samsung Galaxy Y has a 2.0 megapixel camera and quality is adequate. Flash is absent and the maximum resolution it can capture is 1600×1200. The provided features and user interface are both good. Some features include smile detection and panorama mode among others. The camcorder mode can capture video in QVGA format at 15 frames per second.
Multimedia:
The video player is basic and doesn’t run DivX or Xvid videos. MP4, WMV and H.264 formats are supported and run pretty well. The gallery provides some nice transition effects and 3D views.
The music player on Samsung Galaxy Y is feature rich and Samsung has thrown in TouchWiz UI in it too. Navigation is easy and plenty of features are provided to organize music as you want. An equalizer is provided as well and the audio quality is good. The loudspeaker volume is little bit on the low side but only slightly. FM is also present for those fond of radio.
Connectivity:
In the connectivity department, Galaxy Y has Wi-fi, Bluetooth and a microUSB port. You can also use the phone as a mobile Wi-fi hotspot.
Apps:
It has the usual set of apps like Youtube, Gmail and Google maps. QuickOffice is included for viewing documents. The Android market works well. We would like to point out that in some games and apps which were overcrowded with buttons, the touch on the phone lagged and even became unresponsive in some cases.
Price & Conclusion:
The Galaxy Y is available for Rs. 14,000 from most mobile retailers. We were impressed with the feature set of the phone but we were disappointed with the low resolution of 320×240 as well as the 2MP camera. But it runs Android and tradeoffs are always there so we can’t really complain.
Verdict:
There isn’t a lot of choice if you want to look for an Android phone in the sub 15k range so that tips the scale in Galaxy Y’s favor. For someone with a feature phone and thinking of going for a smartphone it would be quite ideal and is strongly recommended.
nice review dear thanks
HTC explorer is much much better than Samsung Galaxy Y. I am using it and I have seen Galaxy Y as well. I recommend HTC Explorer, costs 16,000 Rs/-
The specs. for Samsung is better then HTC if we compared the CPU.
Not true :)
HTC Explorer comes with ARMv7 class CPU, which even at 600MHz outclasses 800Mhz ARMv7 class CPU. Read GSMArena review.
HTC Explorer with its 600MHz ARMv7 can play 480p youtube video in browser, where as ARMv6 CPUs can’t play anything above 360p.
Flash is also out-of-the box supported for ARMv7 CPUs.
In my opinion, HTC Explorer is much better buy. Not to mention it comes with HVGA screen resolution. Much sharper text than Galaxy Y.
typo: Galaxy Y has ARMv6 CPU.
No HTC Exlporer has the ARMv7 CPU which is required by some application to run for example ADOBE FLASH PLAYER which is not supported by Galaxy Y.
and has Good amount of Ram 512MB and Nice Resolution 320×480. So approx all the application run smoothly.
yup i agree as well, m in love with my HTC Explorer! Plus HTC Sense is much better than this boring Samsung TouchWiz
I love my htc
It’s screen resolution is far much better than galaxy y.
It’s screen size is larger than galaxy y
It doesn’t look like a toy, galaxy’s hardware and s/w look like toy seriosuly…
Samsung Galaxy are good sets but the issue is only Resell value.
kya ye ad0be flash sup0rt krta ha. Ya hum use d0wl0ad kr skte ha. .
i thnk we can download flash for samsung y bcoz samsung y is android cell that supprt adobe flash
can you tell us how ? even galaxy gio can’t do that hahahaha
so wat is th e diff b/w Y and Galaxy S and others
any body tell me samsung galaxy-y support skype or not……???????
it supports, but it does not have front camera, so you won’t make videos calls.
PAID REVIEW !!!!!
Note: We don’t do paid write-ups
then why do you visit here and b*tch about it? go somewhere else smartass
zond ideos is also best, it is cheapest android phone in the market, and you can also install flash player in it, some one gifted me this phone and i am using it. and there is no major difference b/t android 2.2 & 2.3.
dear kia apny unlock karvia zong android or just zong ki sim he use kar rahy han?
I got it unlocked – worked like a charm on other operator SIM. it is little slow (compared to my primary phone iphone 4). but a worth but for 7K.
hi, From where you unlocked it..? how much cost for unlock and cell need physically for unlocking or need just IMI number for unlocking?
I am using HTC Explorer. it is far better than Galaxy Y.
I recemmond that Buyer should go for HTC Explorer
I felt a major difference of performance between Android and iOS on identical specs. Where the android feels sluggish, iOS performs well. Zong Ideos which comes with 536Mhz processor and 256MB ram have very poor performance if compared to an iPhone 3G which has lower 412Mhz processor and 128Mb Ram. iPhone 3G’s runs apps flawlessly. If you really want to go for an android smart phone then you should buy a phone having at-least 1GHz processor otherwise you’ll be sick from that crap.
That is correct – any one experienced installing a more efficient ROM on ideos, any recommendations?
Dear!
This is so sad that there is nothing about Urdu Support. Does it support Urdu? Please include Urdu support in every smartphone reviews. Because it is Pakistan.
Android doesn’t support Urdu
He is talking about urdu in samrtphone review. Not about urdu in smartphone.
False. It does support urdu if you are using MENA ROM (Depending on your OEM). My SGS2 supports urdu. ICS will have by default support of RTL languages.
soo what should I do to supports Urdu in my htc explorer
It would be great if it have flash and at least 3MP camera. price for its features is much high. I would recommend any Nokia phone in this price. And if these features are sufficient for someone then he should go for Ideos.
Aamir bhai android main urdu supported hai but browser main rtl ka problem hota hai aur cyanogenmod main to rtl ka problem bhi nahien but urdu is available
Will have to check, i am not good with gadgets though but my this android phone doesn’t display Urdu :-/
lekin mera htc explorer sms main b Urdu supports nahi karta hai
a review on a perfect time… i was going to buy it today :) so thanx propakistani…you’ve answered my questions…
I recently got this Galaxy Y. Here are a few things I like/dislike in it:
1. I am satisfied with 2MP camera. Reason is that camera has never been my preference in phone. So, it depends on the user and for me, I would have bought this phone even if didn’t have camera :)
2. The touch is very smooth and works great. By the ways, it’s capacitive touchscreen phone. It’s similar to other high-end sets of Samsung.
3. I was unable to use Swype keyboard for typing in it. My fingers were too big for them and I was having frequent mistakes. I think the small screen size of Galaxy Y is a factor and the keys would have been bigger if the screen size was larger. So, I replaced it with Big Buttons Keyboard (https://market.android.com/details?id=com.bigbuttons&hl=en). Now, my accuracy is 100% while typing.
4. The internal memory is only 200 MB. While you can install most of the apps in SD card, there are apps that can’t be installed on SD and must be installed on internal memory. Hence, you may run out of space and there is no solution for that apart from changing your phone or uninstall unnecessary apps :( By the way, following are some of the large apps in my phone that can’t be installed on memory card and I don’t want to uninstall them either. Facebook (7.92 MB), Quickoffice Pro (6.09 MB), Adroid Market (6.09 MB), Skype (5.5 MB), Google+ (5.18 MB), Shazam (4.6 MB). You can see that only 6 apps have taken 35 MB out of 200 MB!
5. Firefox and Chrome (two of my most favorite desktop browsers) are not compatible on this phone :( It’s internal browser is fine btw.
AWsum dude…
Thanks alot bro :)
Dear Tipu!
JazakaLLAH for your helpful comments.
If you could send me the process of Installing the ROM on Samsung Smartphone. Because I want to purchase the budget friedly Samsung Gio, but I was shocked that it has Android 2.3 that does not support Urdu, but by knowing that It can be “prepared” for Urdu support, So I am going to buy Gio, but after your help. I shall be very thankful to you.
Wassalaam.
yes I agreed with you htc explorer have better display with 180 ppi more than galaxy y 133 ppi explorer have double speed 3G hmmm I m waiting for 3G lets see what happens on 28 or 29 march I hope Amir bhai will keep updating
I bought this phone couple of weeks back , its got all you want but for the app freaks like me it may get slower , and the battery timing is pathetic u ll hv to carry ur charger up on ur ass . otherwise its a good phone.
I don’t think battery timing is bad. It is much better. For instance, today I charged it after 2 days. Make sure than you use GPS only when needed and it’s not turned on always. Secondly, try reducing the brightness of your screen.
hey thnx for the advice although my wifi is constantly online since use lot of online apps , gps is used only wen needed brightness is already low , it still sucks all the battery in one day if u use apps above moderate level
not good
I am using it, and I love this phone. The problem i feel it has it lack of internal memory and battery other than that its a perfect phone in this range
Asalam-O-Alikum,
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battery timing is very good as compared other
mobile in this range 13k,
every thing is best but resolution and (PPI) is very low , so graphics and webpages Pixelation, and limitation of Applications APP,
camera is average 2mp and i very missed flash and camra key as well
thanks owner of Samsung GT-S5360 Galaxy Y
nice sharing
I would go for HTC explorer
can I find a brand new or just used htc explorers are available
Hi,
why the galaxy prize is such high in Pak 13000 Rs.
the prize in india is 7000 Rs
1 Indian Rupee is equal to 1.8 Pakistani rupees. So, 7000 Indian Rupees means 13000 Pakistani Rupees. See http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert/?Amount=7000&From=INR&To=PKR
Nice phone, Now the android phones are becoming very much common, Some days back i saw an android tablet PC with GSm only in Rs 10,000 PKR, i bought that and guys truly speaking its awsome, its featurs its apps i am liking every thing of it, and the best thing is i bought it from my home online from symbios.pk, the product is very awsome, altough service was not that up to mark but if product is good what else we need ?? i recomend u guys just visit symbios.pk, you’ll surely get excited.
It’s a wonderful phone by processing, I have tried it. But I have only problem with it’s Small screen size.
for all HTC explorer users
No one is giving warranty for Htc Explorer, so is it good to buy without warranty?if it has warranty then user reviews tells me that it takes lot of time to check,,,,
& secondly does it have resale value??? if i buy of RS 12000. then i m sure it will be sale in Rs 5000 – 6000.
As HTC wildfire almost new but used price is 13000rs. & its sale value is 7000 where as its new price is around 21000?
pls suggest me to buy galaxy y or Htc EXPLORER without warranty????
Assalam o Alikum,
yar mere pass galaxy y hai. os ka gmail account contact nahi hota. or na google store open hota hai. ye keya waja ho sakti hai??? ye YouTube block ke waja se tho ye masala nahi…?
plzzz help me.