subject: The Samsung Galaxy Europa i5500 - An Affordable Android Handset [print this page] The Samsung Galaxy Europa i5500 - An Affordable Android Handset
With the trend towards full touchscreen handset now deeply embedded, phone manufacturers are rushing to bring out every-cheaper devices that can meet consumer expectations of what a modern handset should be. Key to meeting these demands is the presence of a modern operating system, capable of running the latest must-have games and applications.
Android, with its flexible open architecture, has become the default preference for these more affordable handsets, with several manufacturers now offering inexpensive full touchscreen devices running some variant of the Android OS. There is a lot of variation however, between these devices, with some of the lower priced models painfully restricted by underpowered hardware, or older less fully featured OS versions.
The Samsung Galaxy Europa i5500 is amongst the first of these new cheaper handsets to run the full Android operating system. It uses a bright and clear 2.8 inch capacitive touchscreen that offers a solid 240x320 resolution and smooth, rounded design that is both comfortable to hold and light weight.
The Galaxy Europa i5500 comes with both 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity, as well as GPS functionality for location-aware services such as Google Maps. The phone uses a basic 2 Megapixel camera that can also record video and standard 3.5mm audio jack. The Galaxy Europa i5500's 1GB of internal memory can be expanded by fitting a bigger microSD card, and there are physical volume controls plus several menu keys and a physical D-Pad.
Because the Samsung Galaxy Europa i5500 uses the full version of the Android OS, it naturally can connect to the Android Store, with its large range of games and applications. Apps and widgets are available for pretty much every social networking site, plus services like Spotify and Google Mail. Web surfing is fast thanks to 3G and Wi-Fi, and the Galaxy Europa i5500 has sufficient processing power to stream YouTube video's smoothly.
Compared to many cheap Android handsets, the Europa i5500 can realistically use the Smartphone tag. The capacitive touchcreen makes a significant difference in how the phone handles, and the version of Android is pretty up-to-date so owners won't feel like they are missing out on all the cool new bells and whistles.
True, the Galaxy Europa does lack some functionality that would be nice to have, such as flash support and multi-touch control, but web video fans would probably do better to buy a more powerful handset in any event, and the screen resolution is too low to make the Samsung Galaxy Europa a truly comfortable mobile web browsing solution. Overall, the i5500 is great value for money, and a solid alternative to more costly phones.
