Samsung Galaxy W I8150 review: S Plus Lite

Introduction

The Galaxy S line gets all the attention, but troopers like the Samsung Galaxy W I8150 will see plenty of action too. With a 3.7" screen, it's more compact than the original Galaxy S, but it uses the same souped-up chipset that ticks inside the S Plus.

Samsung Galaxy W official photos

If you’re after SuperAMOLED, the Galaxy S and S Plus are the phones to go to. The LCD screen of the Samsung Galaxy W I8150 has the same WVGA resolution as the S-line, which means higher pixel density (252ppi vs. 233ppi). And, we're talking proper RGB pixels here, rather than PenTile.

The Galaxy W uses the Qualcomm MSM8255T chipset (1.4GHz CPU, Adreno 205 GPU), which has been used in several upgrades of popular phones - the Galaxy S Plus, obviously, but the Sony Ericsson Xperia arc S too.

The Galaxy W is pretty high up Samsung's ladder, but unlike the S and R premium lines, the emphasis here is on value for money. And you do get quite a bit of features - here's the summary.

Key Features

• Quad-band GSM and dual-band 3G support
• 14.4 Mbps HSDPA; 5.76 Mbps HSUPA
• 1.4GHz Snapdragon CPU; Adreno 205 GPU; Qualcomm MSM 8255Т chipset; 512MB RAM; 1GB ROM
• 2GB storage (1.7GB user accessible), microSD card support (up to 32GB)
• 3.7” LCD display of WVGA (800 x 480) resolution; 252ppi pixel density
• 5 megapixel auto-focus camera with face detection, touch focus and image stabilization; HD (720p) video recording at 30fps, LED flash
• Front-facing VGA camera for video calls
• Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread with TouchWiz 4.0 launcher
• Rich video format support out of the box
• Wi-Fi b/g/n; Hot-spot and DLNA connectivity
• Bluetooth 3.0 with A2DP
• GPS with A-GPS; Digital compass
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• Accelerometer and proximity sensor
• Stereo FM radio
• DivX/XviD/X264 video support
• Office document viewer/editor
• Web browser with Adobe Flash 11 support

Main disadvantages

• All plastic construction
• Display image quality worse than Galaxy S Plus
• No memory card enclosed and only 2GB of built-in storage
• No shutter key

We know what you're thinking - isn't this the Samsung Exhibit II 4G that was just recently reviewed? Close, but not quite. The Galaxy W is a worldwide phone and beats the US T-Mo’s Exhibit in terms of chipset and imaging. The two phones have the same data speeds: what T-Mobile USA misguidedly calls 4G is actually HSPA+.

Samsung Galaxy W live pictures

So, shake off that deja vu feeling and proceed to the next page to see what's in the box and what the phone's hardware is like.