[hugh]

The Samsung Galaxy S smartphone will be coming to Canada this summer through Bell Mobility, Samsung announced today.

First announced at the CTIA Wireless show in March, the smartphone boasts a 4-inch Super AMOLED display with 800 x 480 resolution, an ARM Cortex A8 1GHz processor, a 5-megapixel camera with HD video capture, MP3 player and a touch screen QWERTY keyboard.

The phone is also the first to use Samsung's new Smart Life user interface. Powered by Android 2.1, the Galaxy S will have the full support of the Google Mobile Services including Google Search, Google Maps, Gmail, YouTube, Google Talk and Android Market with its 60,000 plus applications.

 

[tony rose]

Bell Samsung Galaxy S price??

Can anyone speculate based on other Bell hardware, US carrier pricing etc, what will the Galaxy S/Vibrant be selling for-no contract price? I just got a great retention deal from Rogers and I was wondering if taking and selling an iphone on a 3-year plan would get me near the cost of a no-term galaxy S through Bell? I'm not sure if I'm patient enough to wait for a 4G though...

 

[CrazyCDN]

Can anyone throw any rumours out there about the Bell Samsung Vibrant? Release date, prices, data plan requirements, etc? I'm pretty sure this will be my next phone but I haven't been able to find out squat about this phone except that there is a tentative "end of July" release date.

 

[CrazyCDN]

Looks like Aug 6th will be the launch date. Bell just updated their page with a contest and you can figure a few details out on the contest details page.

http://galaxys.bell.ca/?INT=MOB_shop_home_BAN_GalaxyS_20100629_lm_all

 

[TorontoColin]

Rumour is $599 no contract.

 

[BGY11]

I am torn between this and an iPhone 4. On one hand, I want to try out Android, on the other, I'm not sure if there are good music players available for the platform (especially gapless playback). Honestly, why everyone hasn't offered gapless playback by now is a mystery to me.

I know I could get an iPod Touch, but then I'd have more devices to keep track of (and charge).

 

[TorontoColin]

I just use the stock Android music player, but to be honest it's not very good. There are a lot of alternate options on the market though, and if none of them offer gapless playback yet I'm sure one soon will if it's possible. Given Android's growing popularity, filling niches like that is a potentially very profitable business.

 

[mark]

I actually prefer having my iPod Touch alongside my phone. I'd rather conserve the battery on the phone which I consider "essential" and use the iPod for gaming and music/podcast playback.

 

[BGY11]

The phone officially launches tomorrow (August 6). $199 on a 3-year contract, $499 no contract.

I had a brief chance to try one today, and initial impressions were positive. The phone seemed quite responsive, the display looked fairly good indoors, and I really liked the onscreen keyboard (Swype).

I still need to play around with it a bit more (and see how audio quality and web browsing is), but it definitely has my interest.

 

[TorontoColin]

Does it have the same skin as the American flavours? The one that makes it look more like an iPhone.

 

[BGY11]

It does use the Touchwiz 3.0 overlay like the US versions do. The homescreen does allow you to put widgets on the screen like any Android phone, but once you press the Applications icon on the lower right, the menu of apps is very iPhone-like. It definitely isn't stock Android (so I'm not sure when we'll see the Froyo update for this).

It is the thinnest version of the Galaxy S, and it doesn't have a camera flash (boy I'll miss that, since I use O2Flash on my Omnia II to use it as a flashlight a lot).

 

[TorontoColin]

Supposedly there is a 2.2 update for the Galaxy S series coming soon but I don't know if it will vary by flavour and whether it will be carrier delayed.

There are some decently effective flashlight apps that use the screen but they murder battery life.

 

[wbarbour]

BGY11 said "$199 on a 3-year contract"

Bell's website shows it as $149 on a 3 year not $199

BGY11 said
"It is the thinnest version of the Galaxy S, and it doesn't have a camera flash"

It does have camera flash. This is from the website (specifications tab)

Multimedia
* Camera: 5 MP with flash, zoom and multi-shot
* HD video recording (720p)
* FM radio
* Media player

 

[BGY11]

I will admit to mistyping the price on a 3-year contract (it is $149), but Bell's site is incorrect in stating it has a flash.

edit: found an Unboxing video (audio quality isn't the best, but at 1:20 in, you can see the back of the phone).

 

[wbarbour]

@BGY11 - Sorry for doubting you. Silly me, thinking that Bell could not make a mistake.

I'm currently a Telus customer looking to get my first smart phone, trying to decide between the HTC Desire or the Samsung Vibrant.

Makes me wonder what else Bell is getting wrong. Maybe I should stick with the devil I do know.

 

[BGY11]

No need to apologize. In all fairness, you had me scrambling to find the answer. I didn't actually look at the back of the phone during my brief hands-on yesterday, so I started wondering if the reports of no flash were untrue.

Found someone who bought the device today that confirmed the no flash thing. That's the first time I can recall that the Bell website had incorrect specs for a phone.

 

[CenterIce]

Speaking of no Flash...

No Flash player available either ergo no Farmville.

 

[Acecare]

There are many viewers at that time when they launched this phone. It has an eye-catching interface. And at the same time, there are many interesting features to be viewed.

 

[Jam]

I picked up this phone on the weekend after trying a few android phones in the stores.

Very impressed by the large screen and light weight, and now I have a lot of customizing to do.

 

[BGY11]

I ended up getting this phone a couple of days ago and my initial impressions are quite positive. I don't see any big issues with the build quality other than the back panel scuffs easily (the front uses Gorilla Glass and is fairly scratch-resistant as a result). I do plan to get an InvisibleShield or maybe just a gel case just in case though.

The screen is definitely readable outdoors; definitely easier than traditional AMOLED displays. The phone itself is fairly responsive even with Live Wallpaper enabled. One of the main things I don't like is the lock screen requires you to slide all the way across the screen to unlock (this makes it difficult to do so one-handed). I do realize that probably has more to do with the size of the screen, but it's still worth mentioning.

As for typing on the keyboard, let me just say that Swype ROCKS! Within a day of texting and e-mailing, I've become quite proficient with it. The tutorial does help for learning how to insert symbols and numbers, so anyone new to this keyboard may want to run through it.

All that said, there are a few flaws I've noticed. For starters, the Samsung Kies software is absolutely dreadful. I can't get my phone to connect to it at all, and looking around I see that others have the same issue. Makes it a little hard to do firmware updates, since the GPS-improving JH2 firmware is out now. Furthermore, my unit also suffers from the "can't enter recovery mode" bug, so I certainly hope I don't download an errant app that puts my phone in a loop.

Overall though, I like the phone and am really liking the Android platform so far as well.