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GSMArena team, 5 March 2013

GrandisSIMo


Samsung Galaxy Grand I9082 review: GrandisSIMo

  • Comments (285)
  • Galaxy Grand I9082
  • Galaxy Grand I9080

4. User interface
  1. 1. Introduction
  2. 2. Unboxing, 360-degree view, design, build quality, handling, controls
  3. 3. Display, battery performance
  4. 4. User interface
  5. 5. Synthetic benchmarks
  6. 6. Phonebook, telephony, messaging and text input
  7. 7. Gallery, multimedia, audio quality
  8. 8. Still image and video camera quality
  9. 9. Connectivity, web browser
  10. 10. Organizer, Google Maps, Play Store
  11. 11. Conclusion
  12.  
  13. Samsung Galaxy Grand I9082 specification
  14. Samsung Galaxy Grand I9080 specification
  15. Review comments (285)

Samsung Android Dual SIM

Nature UX ready to impress

The Samsung Galaxy Grand runs Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean out of the box, skinned with the latest TouchWiz launcher, dubbed Nature UX. The user interface is basically identical to that of the Galaxy S III mini and the S II Plus: they have the same Android version and screen resolution.

Beyond the obvious benefits to the user experience compared to stock Android, a clearly midrange handset takes advantage of the same premium combination that powers the Galaxy S III and the Galaxy Note II.

We've shot a brief video showing off the user interface here.

The lockscreen is a standard "tap and drag in any direction to unlock" affair and there're ripples accompanied by water-drop sound as you drag your finger. There are a number unlock routines to choose from: motion, face and voice among others.

There're three customizable lockscreen shortcuts (down from five on the big S III and Note II), and you can drag one to activate the corresponding app.

Samsung Galaxy Grand Samsung Galaxy Grand Samsung Galaxy Grand
The lockscreen

The dock at the bottom of the homescreen fits five custom shortcuts or folders. The rightmost one always opens the app drawer, but the other four can be set to any shortcut or even a folder.

As usual, you can pinch to zoom out and manage homescreen panes - add, delete or just reorder them. You can have 7 panes at most, which are enough to fit plenty of content even if you use widgets that cover an entire pane.

Samsung Galaxy Grand Samsung Galaxy Grand Samsung Galaxy Grand
The Galaxy Grand homescreen

The notification area is quite feature-rich and offers quick toggles for Wi-Fi, GPS, Silent mode, Screen rotation, Bluetooth. You can swipe to the side to get even more: Mobile data, Blocking mode, Power saving and Sync.

Below the toggles is the brightness slider and the automatic brightness toggle. There are also a couple of other useful things like the Settings shortcut in the upper right corner, the time/date to its left and the carrier name at the bottom.

Samsung Galaxy Grand Samsung Galaxy Grand
Notification area

In Jelly Bean, you get expandable notifications to get more info about them. They can be expanded and collapsed with a two-finger swipe and the top one is expanded by default (if the app that put up the notification supports it, of course).

The app drawer accommodates both app shortcuts and widgets. Unlike stock Android, you cannot move between tabs by swipes - you have to explicitly hit the widget tab. Some will find this more logical (scrolling past the available apps to find yourself in the widgets takes some getting used to).

Using pinch-to-zoom reveals an overview of the pages and lets you rearrange them, but you can't create new ones. Hitting the menu key reveals some more options, including hiding apps or enabling tap-to-uninstall mode.

Samsung Galaxy Grand Samsung Galaxy Grand Samsung Galaxy Grand Samsung Galaxy Grand
The app drawer

The app drawer has three view modes: a Customizable grid (where you can freely rearrange icons), Alphabetical grid and Alphabetical list (this one makes shortcuts easy to hit, but isn't very space efficient). You can also view just the downloaded apps by hitting the Downloaded apps icon.

Samsung Galaxy Grand
The widget list

Jelly Bean comes with a selection of widgets, with some custom additions by Samsung. Some widgets are resizable too - a feature we've seen in some custom UIs is available natively in Jelly Bean. Widgets automatically move out of the way when you're reorganizing the homescreen.

Once you get several apps running, you can use the task switcher to go back and forth between them. It's a Jelly Bean-style vertical list with a screenshot and a name for each app. A sideways swipe removes the app from the list.

There are three buttons at the bottom of the list - one to bring out Samsung's home-brewed task manager, one to launch Google Now and a 'Kill all apps' button.

Samsung Galaxy Grand Samsung Galaxy Grand Samsung Galaxy Grand
App switcher • Task manager

Overall, the Nature UX on top of Android 4.1 looks great and the Galaxy Grand does pack most of the cool software tricks of the flagship.

And despite the lack of a quad-core chipset, the Galaxy Grand handles the heavy Samsung skin equally well. It wouldn't choke on heavy live wallpaper either.

Next Page » 5. Synthetic benchmarks
4. User interface
  1. 1. Introduction
  2. 2. Unboxing, 360-degree view, design, build quality, handling, controls
  3. 3. Display, battery performance
  4. 4. User interface
  5. 5. Synthetic benchmarks
  6. 6. Phonebook, telephony, messaging and text input
  7. 7. Gallery, multimedia, audio quality
  8. 8. Still image and video camera quality
  9. 9. Connectivity, web browser
  10. 10. Organizer, Google Maps, Play Store
  11. 11. Conclusion
  12.  
  13. Samsung Galaxy Grand I9082 specification
  14. Samsung Galaxy Grand I9080 specification
  15. Review comments (285)

Reviews Samsung Galaxy Grand I9082 reviewPage 4
  • Comments (285)
  • Galaxy Grand I9082
  • Galaxy Grand I9080

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