Samsung Galaxy S GT-I9000 review

MORE: click here to watch our video review of the Samsung Galaxy S

It’s impossible to avoid: most ‘smartphones’ are fighting a battle to imitate the undoubted market leader, the Apple iPhone series.

The Samsung Galaxy S is a case in point, mimicking some of the iPhone’s design features to the point where people who saw us using the phone thought it was an iPhone.

There’s the large touch-sensitive screen (a 4in one here), the large button at the bottom that always takes you back to the home screen, and the black, rounded case design, which is more plasticky than the iPhone’s.

However, it’s not fair to say that the Galaxy S is in any way a knock-off of the iPhone. While there are some similarities, it does other things better than its rival. It uses the Android operating system but Samsung has added its own Touchwiz interface, so you get the best of the add-on apps available through the Android marketplace as well as having some neat features unique to this phone.

The screen uses a technology called AMOLED which is a variant on the older types of LCD screens used on most other phones. That makes it both very bright and very clear but without draining the battery too much. Like most phones it can play music (there’s a standard 3.5mm headphone socket on the top) but the 16GB internal storage can be expanded by slotting a Micro SD memory card in for up to 32GB more.

The camera is a five-megapixel model and it can record video clips in the high-definition resolution of 720p. It’s much more flexible than the iPhone when it comes to music and video, being able to play back a huge range of formats that can simply be copied on to the phone (so there’s no need to use the equivalent of Apple’s unpleasant iTunes software).

The interface is well designed so that a quick tap on any icon brings up the associated feature (the fast processor in the phone helps speed things along). There are several predefined home screens between which the user changes by swiping a finger to the left or right. A clever panel on one of the screens offers quick updates to weather, stocks, news and calendar appointments. This can be customised a little but it’s a shame you can’t add your own information feeds.

The very clever Swype technology is a new way to enter text – rather than tapping at the on-screen keyboard you can stroke a finger over the letters of the word you want to type, without stopping, and the phone will figure out the correct word. It took quite a lot of getting used to but it’s a very useful way to enter text. The Write and Go app is a good hub for sending email, text messages and status updates to social networks.

The Samsung Galaxy S is a very impressive smartphone that’s considerably cheaper than the iPhone and, in most respects, is as good.

MORE: click here to watch our video review of the Samsung Galaxy S