Samsung Galaxy S Relay 4G review: Thumbs wanted

5MP camera from 2010

The Samsung Galaxy S Relay 4G offers a rather old 5MP camera, which captures stills with 2592x1944 pixels resolution. It offers geotagging, touch focus, face and smile detection and digital image stabilization.

The camera interface is quite similar to what the Galaxy S III has. You get two shortcut bars on each side of the viewfinder - on the right you get the still camera / camcorder switch, a virtual shutter key and the gallery shortcut (which is a thumbnail of the last photo taken).

On the left you get several controls and the good news is that you can pick any four shortcuts to put there - you can easily have all frequently used features just a tap away. The fifth shortcut always points to Settings.

Samsung Galaxy S Relay 4G camera UI

The Samsung Galaxy S Relay 4G is capable of taking some surprisingly good photos. The produced shots show remarkably low levels of digital noise, high edge-to-edge sharpness and some good contrast and colors.

Samsung Galaxy S Relay 4G camera samples

Video recording tops out at 720p

The Samsung Galaxy S Relay 4G is able to record 720p videos, which is rather paltry, considering the price range it is in.

The camcorder interface is almost the same as the still camera's - you get the same customizable panel on the left for up to five shortcuts.

Samsung Galaxy S Relay 4G camcorder UI

The 720p video footage has a high bitrate of 12Mbps and some high-quality 128kbps stereo audio. The framerate is smooth and the sharpness is high. Unfortunately, the handset made a rather poor judgment about exposure and the end result is a series of overexposed videos as you'll see by yourselves.

Here is a video sample we uploaded to YouTube.

We've prepared an untouched 720p video clip from the Galaxy S Relay 4G for you to download.

The front-facing camera can take 720p videos too.

Connectivity ticks all the boxes

The Samsung Galaxy S Relay 4G has quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support and quad-band 3G with HSPA+ (42Mbps downlink and 5.76Mbps uplink). T-Mobile's network is quite possibly the best way to experience mobile data in a non-LTE fashion. The coverage in the New York City area is superb and so were the speeds we experienced.

T-Mobile data speeds are quite impressive

Moving on, there's Bluetooth 3.0 for fast and energy-efficient local file transfers. Then there's Wi-Fi b/g/n support and a Wi-Fi hotspot option, carrier permitting.

The AllShare app allows you to stream content to and from various devices (TV or computer) over DLNA.

NFC connectivity is present as well. S Beam will help you make the most of it.

There's NFC at your service