When choosing a smartphone for each user, there are important aspects that must be present in it. However, sometimes the choice is made in favor of more expensive flagship models, although subsequently most of their functionality is still not used.
But do not forget that for some budget gadgets the functionality can be no worse, and the performance is quite enough for trouble-free use, and they cope with all everyday tasks. This model is the Grand Duos GT-I9082, whose characteristics are far from the flagship ones, but the device deserves attention.
Design and ergonomics
The smartphone is made in a proprietary Samsung design and has a physical Home button at the bottom of the screen. In general, the appearance is attractive, but not very convenient for using the gadget with one hand. The fact is that back cover glossy, and the phone can easily slip out of your hands. In addition, it collects fingerprints well and scratches easily. Therefore, immediately after buying a smartphone, you should think about purchasing a cover that covers the back cover, such as a bumper.
Whole smartphone samsung galaxy Grand Duos GT-I9082 is made in two color variations - white and blue. The blue looks more attractive because it has a slight metallic tint with a sheen, while the white one is no different from devices from other manufacturers. The build quality is high, there are no backlashes and squeaks, and the back cover closes tightly.
besides big home buttons, other controls are located on the smartphone in the usual Samsung style. The power / unlock button is located on the right side, the volume rocker is on the left. The top end is occupied only by the headphone jack, while the bottom has a USB connector and a microphone hole. Flash, camera and speaker are lined up at the top of the gadget. The camera protrudes a little, and there is a slight bulge on the speaker grill, which ensures high volume when the smartphone is resting on the table on the back cover.
Display
There are no complaints about the diagonal of the display - these are honest and have become the standard for modern state employees of 5 inches. However, the quality of the picture has greatly let us down, and there are two main reasons for this. The first one is quite low resolution for such a diagonal, which is only 800 x 480 pixels. Given value too low, and pixelation is clearly visible even without looking at the image in detail. The second reason is the use of a simple TFT matrix. If there were at least IPS here, the low resolution could be forgiven, but with the low viewing angles inherent in this particular technology, the picture quality becomes quite sad. Therefore, the display can be clearly attributed to the minuses of this device.
The sensor of the device is classic for budget models. The reaction is fast and accurate, multi-touch up to five touches is supported. The display is protected by glass, but not tempered, so you should think about protecting it from scratches with protective film or glass. Use a Samsung sensor Galaxy Grand The Duos GT-I9082, whose characteristics are nevertheless pleasant, is quite convenient, and it does not cause any particular complaints.
Main camera
The smartphone Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 Duos GT-I9082 has two cameras with pretty good performance. The main one received a resolution of 8 megapixels and high-quality optics, which allows you to take clear pictures without noise in clear weather and quite acceptable quality photos in artificial or low light. In addition, there is the ability to shoot video in 1920 x 1080 resolution at up to 30 frames per second. The LED flash doesn't really help with photography, but it can serve as a great flashlight.
Front-camera
The front camera received a resolution of 2 megapixels, which is quite enough for a pleasant video chat. Selfies can also be taken, but only if there is good lighting, otherwise the photos are noisy and fuzzy. But in general, regarding the cameras, the smartphone received pretty good performance for a state employee.
autonomy
The smartphone has a battery with an ordinary capacity indicator for this price segment, which is 2100 mAh. According to the manufacturer, this capacity should be enough for 10 hours of talks in the 2G network. And it is here that the presence of an undemanding display matrix makes itself felt and becomes a plus, increasing the operating time from a single charge. As a result, the smartphone effortlessly survives a day of active use with the always-on or mobile internet, or WiFi. If you use it mainly for calls and short correspondence, then the battery will last for 2-3 days of work.
It is worth noting that the Samsung GT-I9082 Galaxy Grand Duos battery is quite durable, and its capacity does not begin to noticeably decrease after the first 100 cycles, as is observed with other manufacturers.
Hardware specifications
Often, Samsung and similar manufacturers cannot find any MTK or similar budget crystal. So in this model, the Broadcom BCM28155 chip is installed, which has 2 cores with frequencies of 1.2 GHz each. Graphics are handled by the VideoCore IV accelerator. It can be seen that the characteristics of the Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos GT-I9082 are far from being flagship, and there could be problems in operation if it were not for the low resolution of the display. Thanks to him, the interface remains smooth, and using the smartphone is quite comfortable, although there are slight lags. However, you can safely forget about heavy gaming applications with high requirements for the graphics subsystem - they simply either will not start or will not work correctly.
1 GB of RAM is provided for the simultaneous operation of several applications. It is enough to use a couple of instant messengers and a browser without constantly closing each application. To store user and system files The device received 8 GB of non-volatile memory. The system occupies about 4 GB out of the box, the rest of the volume is available to the user. It is worth noting right away that applications are not transferred to a memory card, so it would be best to leave this volume for them, and to download music, videos, movies and other content, you need to install a MicroSD memory card with a capacity of up to 64 GB. To connect your smartphone to a computer and reset the files, you should download the driver for the Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos GT-I9082, which can be found on the official website of the manufacturer.
When buying a memory card with the maximum capacity for the device, it is best to immediately check it for compatibility right in the store, as it was noticed that some cards, despite the fact that they were correctly formatted, were not seen by the smartphone.
Software
Out of the box, the device comes with firmware based on Android 4.1.2. Subsequently, if desired, it can be updated over the air to version 4.2.2. Unfortunately, the manufacturer stopped supporting the smartphone on this version, the appearance of custom firmware with more new version systems are also unlikely, at least they are not yet in a special Samsung theme Galaxy Grand Duos GT-I9082 w3bsit3-dns.com
The software is well optimized, which reduces battery consumption and improves the smoothness of the interface, this is often emphasized by users when they write reviews about the Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos GT-I9082. As in other devices from Samsung, the smartphone received a proprietary design TouchWiz Nature UX. However, along with this interface, a large number of branded applications are present on the smartphone, which, however, may be useless for some. Unfortunately, they are systemic and cannot be removed without rooting the system.
Following the fashion for smartphones with support for two SIM cards, manufacturers continue to bring more and more new models to the market. Here is one of the last representatives of this class, Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos, no less, boasts a 5-inch screen, a dual-core processor, giga random access memory, 8 megapixel camera, etc.
In standby mode, the user has access to up to seven desktops. To remove or add them, you need to click context button and select "Change". After that, you can work with desktops. In addition, there are "live" wallpapers.
In turn, the user can add additional program shortcuts, bookmarks or widgets to any of the desktops. To do this, just click the context button and select the "Add" item. Further individual programs you can group by meaning, for example, photos, videos and YouTube in one screen, and a calendar and notes in another. At the same time, the speed of access to these services increases several times.
Long continuous press on upper part screen activates the notification panel. It displays The current date, operator name and other supporting information. Here you can quickly turn on such functions as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS, sound, auto-rotate.
The menu can be accessed by tapping Applications at the bottom right of the screen. The menu of the tested phone is presented by default with three screens that can be scrolled through. All these are various applications. A long press on an app shortcut will move it to the desktop. To remove the shortcut from the desktop, you need to perform the reverse steps.
The smartphone has a number of pre-installed Samsung branded services - such as S Voice ( voice search, duplicating Google search), S Memo (notes, pretty cute), convenient and pleasant to use S Planner calendar, Chat On, Game Hub, Samsung Apps, My Files file manager, Dropbox preinstalled with own service Cloud, which simplifies synchronization with Dropbox (although much easier), GroupPlay for sharing files and multimedia over Wi-Fi. In addition, the smartphone supports most of the gestures and movements available for and .
Phone features
id="sub5">First of all, these include "Phone", "Contacts", "Messages". The first two points are nothing more than one application. It also has "Call Log" and "Favorites".
Stored in Contacts detailed information O phone numbers and subscribers. Specific entry can have two dozen fields, whether it is a last name, first name, patronymic, mobile number, home phone, the address Email, date of birth or personal ID, Skype, etc. The search in contacts occurs immediately in all fields of the client, that is, you can dial a number, first name, last name, etc.
During an incoming call, the screen displays the photo and number of the caller from phone book, or, if the subscriber is not known - a picture of a green man.
Text and multimedia messages are grouped by subscribers. By clicking on a specific contact, you can view the history of correspondence with this person.
Working with two SIM cards
id="sub6">Switching between SIM-cards is organized simply. V top line notifications, next to the battery icons, clock, Wi-Fi indicator and others, you can see the icon of a specific SIM card. They are marked with one or two. Active - this is the one with which you make calls, send SMS and access the Internet.
You can select an active SIM card in the notification panel. To do this, you need to call it, and click on one of the two images of the sim card.
Both cards receive calls and SMS, but with certain features. The fact is that the Galaxy Grand Duos is equipped with only one radio module. But despite this, during a conversation with one SIM card, you will not lose calls from the second one. With the "Active mode" option, which indicates the ability to receive calls during a conversation on a "free" SIM card, you can forward calls from an inactive card to an active one. This is quite convenient, although it is not always clear which SIM card you are talking on.
Perhaps it would be more convenient for some of the users if the lists of received / sent calls and messages were divided by cards. But here, as, indeed, in many other devices, everything is shown in one list sorted by time. However, each message and call is marked with a one or two, depending on which of the cards the call was made to or the SMS was sent to.
Multimedia features
id="sub7">Item "Music" - music audio player. You can view and listen to audio tracks. The following file formats are supported: MP3, AMR, AAC, AAC+, e-AAC+. There is support for OMA DRM. There is sorting by artists, albums, genres, composers.
The package includes a regular headset. Thanks to the 3.5 mm jack, you can pick up any headphones.
The "Video" item displays videos made both by the device's camera and downloaded from the Internet.
A kind of thematic browser for photo and video files is the "Gallery" item. All files are divided into folders: photos and video clips, music.
In "Settings" each user can personalize the interface of the mobile phone. This menu item contains almost all the settings: GPRS, 3G, GPS, Wi-Fi, as well as data synchronization. In addition, settings for graphic themes, ringtones, display design, installed applications and many others.
Speaking of Samsung add-ons, you can't help but mention the store Samsung apps Apps. But there is insurance in the form Google Play, from which you can download and install thousands of applications.
In conclusion, we will mention our own task manager (a useful thing, thanks - anyway, you have to install similar programs on any Android smartphone so that it does not suffocate from a lack of hardware resources) and Polaris Office. The latter represents office suite, which is no worse and no better than the rest: it steadily opens doc files and docx, xls and xlsx, ppt and pptx. In general, it does everything you need from a mobile office.
Camera. Photo and video capabilities
id="sub8">The Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos has an 8 megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom. Has autofocus and led flash. The following image resolutions are supported: 3264x2448, 3264x1836, 2048x1536, 2048x1232, 1600x1200, 1600x960, 800x480, 640x480 pixels. The volume buttons are responsible for zooming in / out of the image. Automatic contrast allows you to achieve a relatively bright day on a bright sunny day. good quality pictures.
In manual ISO setting, the available ISO settings are 50, 100, 200, 400, 800. The following shooting modes are available: Single Shot, Smile Detection, Continuous, Panorama, Vintage, Portrait, Landscape, night mode, sports, indoors, beach/snow, sunset, dawn, autumn colors, fireworks, text, dusk, against light.
Photos are of good quality. Particularly successful shots are obtained outdoors and in well-lit rooms.
The phone supports recording video in mpeg4 format for maximum resolution, and in the settings you can specify whether the video will be recorded with sound or without it. All settings are comparable to those for photos, but the video resolutions are different, plus effects are supported. The camera can shoot videos with Full HD resolution, 640x480 pixels. Two additional resolutions - 320x240 and 176x144 pixels. The recorded video is also quite high quality.
Memory and speed
id="sub9">Galaxy Grand Duos performance is at high level. This can be seen from the very beginning of using the device. The smartphone runs on a Broadcom platform with a dual-core 1.2 GHz processor, VideoCore IV graphics and a gigabyte of RAM. The filling is rare and was not seen in top models. Nevertheless, it performs well in applications, including when playing FullHD.
In addition, there is a built-in memory of 4 GB. Naturally, there is a slot for a card microSD memory, the maximum size of which can be 32 GB.
Communication options
id="sub10">Smartphone can work in cellular networks 2G (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) and 3G (900/2100 MHz). At the same time, the speed of HSDPA is up to 21 Mbps, HSUPA - up to 5.76 Mbps. Bluetooth version 4.0 HS (A2DP, LE, EDR) is also available.
the entire second half of last year clearly demonstrated the high interest of the public in this class of devices. Therefore, it is not surprising that, having barely appeared on sale in our country, HTC Desire SV got straight into the top 10 best-selling smartphones in the Mobilochka network for December (the smartphone received a dual-core processor, a larger screen size and an improved camera compared to its predecessor, and you can read more about its capabilities in this review ). And it is clear that the novelty Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos , announced already under the Christmas tree of 2013, which will be discussed in this review, will also successfully settle in a significant number of pockets in the country. At least because it is literally the largest (of branded smartphones, I don’t take into account the Chinese, because it’s a completely different song) and productive dualsim on the Ukrainian market. The Galaxy Grand Duos gets a 5-inch display, (finally) a dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, and Android 4.1.2 out of the box. By birthright, he also got a design in the spirit Galaxy Note II , the TouchWiz interface with all the goodies of the older version and the tutelage of Samsung's marketing power. At the same time, from the predecessor Galaxy S Duos, he got a screen resolution (480x800 pixels). However, do not go to a fortuneteller, even with him the smartphone has a great chance of excellent sales. As big as he is.Good sales (at least in our country) of older branded dual-sim smartphones of the summer 2012 sample HTC Desire V and Samsung Galaxy S Duos throughout the second half of last year clearly demonstrated the high public interest in this class of devices. Therefore, it is not surprising that, having barely appeared on sale in our country, HTC Desire SV got straight into the top 10 best-selling smartphones in the Mobilochka network in December (the smartphone received a dual-core processor, a larger screen size and an improved camera compared to its predecessor, and more You can read about its capabilities in this review). And it is quite obvious that the new Samsung Galaxy Grand, announced already under the Christmas tree of 2013, which will be discussed in this review, will also successfully settle in a significant number of pockets in the country. At least because it is literally the largest (of branded smartphones, I don’t take into account the Chinese, because it’s a completely different song) and productive dualsim on the Ukrainian market. The Galaxy Grand gets a 5-inch display, (finally) a dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, and Android 4.1.2 out of the box. By birthright, he also got a design in the spirit of the Galaxy Note II, the TouchWiz interface with all the goodies of the version for older models, and the tutelage of Samsung's marketing power. At the same time, from the predecessor Galaxy S Duos, he got a screen resolution (480x800 pixels). However, do not go to a fortuneteller, even with him the smartphone has a great chance of excellent sales. As big as he is.
Specifications
Samsung Galaxy Grand received a processor manufactured by Broadcom. The processors of this manufacturer could be found in Samsung smartphones before, but by no means the older ones, but, on the contrary, the smallest models (in particular, in the Galaxy Pocket Duos). The dual-core Broadcom BCM2763 with a clock speed of 1.2 GHz and VideoCore IV HW graphics (you can read more about it on the manufacturer's website) showed quite good results both in performance tests and in life, coping well with both large video files and toys, and pretty active use smartphone.
The five-inch screen of the smartphone is made using TFT technology, and not Super AMOLED, as one might expect, and has a resolution of 480x800 pixels, which probably immediately upset those who were already aiming for a purchase, and delighted fans of pragmatic Chinese smartphones who are ready to immediately list several devices with a price three times lower and at the same time an IPS screen with the same resolution. Of course, the pixel density is less than 200 ppi (in this model it is 187 ppi) - to put it mildly, not sugar. And in a device with a price tag of more than 3500 UAH at the beginning of 2013, it is all the more frustrating. But at the same time, TFT is in no way inferior to Chinese IPS, which we will return to a little later, and looks softer than the proprietary Super AMOLED.
| Technical samsung specifications Galaxy Grand | |
|---|---|
| Operating system and interface | Android 4.1.2, TouchWiz UI |
| SIM card | SIM, two |
| Dimensions | 144x77x10mm |
| Weight | 162 g |
| Display | TFT, 5 inches, 800x480 dots (pixel density 187 ppi) |
| CPU | dual-core, Broadcom BCM2763 (1.2 GHz), VideoCore IV HW graphics, ARM Cortex-A9 architecture |
| Memory | 1 GB RAM, 8 GB internal memory, microSD support up to 64 GB |
| Camera | 8 MP (3264x2448 pixels), autofocus, flash, video recording 1920x1080 pixels, front - 2 MP |
| Communications | Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, GPS, Bluetooth, NFC |
| Battery | 2100 mAh |
Appearance
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Samsung Galaxy Grand is similar to Galaxy Note II in the way that bone marrow donors are similar to its recipients - that is, they are almost the same, adjusted for age, size and a couple of moles. Location of the camera, indicators, control buttons, design front panel and the body as a whole is the same in both models. On the back, you can spot differences in speaker and flash positions, and the fact that the Grand doesn't have a stylus hole. Photos of the Galaxy Grand can be seen below, while the Galaxy Note II can be seen in its review.
At the top of the front panel of the smartphone there is the logo of the manufacturer and its dual-sim line, a speaker, a peephole of a two-megapixel camera, light and proximity sensors. At the bottom there are three device control keys: the hardware “Home” in the middle and two touch keys that are illuminated directly at the moment of contact with them. Plastic - glossy, in our case - white.
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The rear surface is also covered with glossy plastic. To be honest, plastic in smartphones with similar characteristics - I liked Fly IQ450 Horizon and Sharp SH530U more. But this is a matter of taste.
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Traditionally, the ends of the smartphone are covered with a silver trim. The arrangement of elements is not more typical. On the right is the screen power button, on the left is the volume control, on the bottom is the microUSB connector, on the top is the audio output. The buttons work fine and soft.
I am sure that the assembly will be excellent in commercial samples, but the sample that we had on our hands bears traces of sophisticated torture. So, on the left side it has a dent, apparently formed as a result of contact with something hot or caustic, the lid does not close the case perfectly, and there is a gaping scratch on the top of the screen. Apparently, the screen is scratched, but with great difficulty, because during the operation of the device it did not receive new damage.
SIM cards of the usual format are located on opposite sides of the battery, under the lid. The location is completely unusual, but the main thing here is that there is no need to get the battery to install cards. This is good. But to install a memory card, if the built-in 8 GB seems not enough, the battery will have to be removed.
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To the traditional question - is it convenient to use such a hefty smartphone, I can confidently answer - yes, it is very convenient for me personally. The device lies perfectly in the palm of your hand. I like that it is very convenient to type text with two hands on it, but at the same time making calls, viewing incoming messages and performing other tasks that do not require two hands are also quite comfortable on other phones.
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And compared to a six-inch book, Galaxy Grand looks very tiny.
Screen
Our most attentive readers will surely remember that the Galaxy S Duos also uses a TFT display. The photos in the gallery below - Galaxy screen Grand and LG Optimus L7 II Dual. The latter uses an IPS-matrix, and quite good, although not the best on the market. It's not very visible in the pictures, but the screen of the Samsung smartphone actually has a warmer tone, and the colors look less saturated, but only a little, it's only noticeable when the devices are nearby. But back to the IPS matrices that are used in Chinese smartphones, in particular, under the Fly brand or in some Huawei devices (specifically, I noticed this with the Ascend G600 Pro model). All of them are characterized by a slight yellowness. Thus, it cannot be said that Grand Screen yields to them.
The screen has a large margin of maximum brightness and a low minimum value, which means that there should be no particular problems with readability on very sunny days. Conversely, the smartphone screen will not gouge your eyes if you decide to check your mail in a dark room, for example, for the coming dream. However, I did not really like the work of auto-adjusting the backlight. In my experience, it made the screen darker than it should be for comfortable work in low light (although it may be a matter of habit). Another oddity was that the multi-touch test showed recognition of up to 7 simultaneous touches. I have not seen this - usually it is 10 or 5.
The last thing I would like to mention in the context of smartphone screen impressions is resolution. And no, I'm not going to complain about pixels now, because I imagined approximately the image quality after I encountered Fly and Sharp models with the same diagonal and display resolution. It's about volume will go, what the proprietary TouchWiz interface looks like on a large screen with a low resolution. Unusual. Huge icons, incredibly large font, haunted by the feeling that the screen space is being used irrationally. There was no such impression from 480x800 pixels on bare Android. Therefore, the first thing I did was change the font in the phone settings from normal to small. True, and with him the image seemed to me quite large. But some of my colleagues suggested to me that people with vision problems would probably appreciate it. Actually, the difference in font size can be seen in one of the pictures in the gallery above, and below are examples of TouchWiz, which is unusually “large” for me.
Performance and autonomy
The Broadcom BCM2763 processor paired with the VideoCore IV HW graphics turned out to be a complete curiosity for me. Apparently, this is the latest and most powerful development of Broadcom. The processor is made on 40-nm tech. process. In the test AnTuTu Benchmark Galaxy Grand scored 6424 points, in Vellamo - as much as 1518. The results of these tests are comparable to Acer CloudMobile and Samsung Galaxy S III mini. Nenamark2 results are comparable to last year's top Samsung smartphones - Galaxy Note II, Galaxy S III and Galaxy Premier. In Epic Citadel, the smartphone showed 52.6 fps. And besides - amazing image artifacts. Like these ones.
At the same time, neither in high-resolution video files, nor in a number of toys, I have seen anything like it.
With a 2100mAh battery, the Galaxy Grand scored 502 on the AnTuTu battery test. This is an average but acceptable figure. At the same time, at maximum load during the test, it was discharged from 100% to 19% in 2 hours and 50 minutes. I actively used the smartphone for several days, primarily for Skype, Internet surfing, mail, about an hour and a half of music a day, from half an hour to a couple of hours of games, but at the same time with a minimum of calls. Charged it with such success once a day.
Interface and work with two SIM cards
If you are a fan of Samsung smartphones and are looking for a dual-sim device from this manufacturer with maximum capabilities, then the Galaxy Grand will be for you. good choice. If, on the contrary, you are looking for a dual-sim smartphone with excellent functionality, but preferably bare Android, you are clearly not here. The smartphone has a number of pre-installed Samsung branded services - such as S Voice (voice search, duplicating Google search), S Memo (notes, pretty nice), convenient and pleasant to use S Planner calendar, Chat On, Game Hub, Samsung Apps, Manager My Files, pre-installed by Dropbox with its own Cloud service, which makes it easy to sync with Dropbox (though much easier), GroupPlay for sharing files and media over Wi-Fi. In addition, the smartphone supports most of the gestures and movements that we told you about in 10 tutorials with the Samsung Galaxy Note II, except for those that require a pen. Also, the smartphone supports the function of two windows. We have already told you about all these features in the reviews of top Samsung devices 2012.
Working with two SIM cards is also implemented quite conveniently. In the call and message menu, the user has two SIM card icons available. Thus, regardless of the priority SIM card, he can choose at the time of the action, from which SIM card it is preferable to do this. The SIM card manager has a favorite feature of the company's marketers - a convenient setting for forwarding incoming calls from one card to another when one of them is busy. This feature has added the ability to receive incoming calls using another SIM card, if data is being transferred from one of them. That is, everyone will be able to get through to you when you use GPRS Internet access. Or they can't. It all depends on the checkbox next to this item.
Camera
Smartphone Samsung Galaxy Grand is equipped with an eight-megapixel camera with flash, autofocus, the ability to record video in FullHD. For a dual-sim smartphone (if it is not a purebred Chinese), this is still a record. The camera is probably installed simpler than in the flagship models, however, the photos are worthy in almost any conditions.
You can also view photos in original resolution in the gallery on Torba.
An example of a video taken with a Samsung Galaxy Grand camera
Competitors
Ideologically, the closest competitor to the Samsung Galaxy Grand is HTC Desire S.V. Both are top in their segment from their manufacturers. Smartphones can boast of high speed, decent design and body, branded origin. But HTC has a slightly weaker camera, in particular, it can shoot video only at a resolution of 480x800 pixels. In addition, the Taiwanese has a screen diagonal of only 4.3 inches, against the background of a competitor, it is just a crumb. At the same time, both have the same resolution of 480x800 pixels, which, of course, looks more advantageous on the Desire SV screen. However, whatever the differences between the competitors, Samsung fans will certainly prefer the smartphone of their favorite, and HTC fans will do the same. Both brands have enough charisma to keep their fans loyal as they change smartphone after smartphone. Unfortunately, there is no one else to write down as competitors from other branded devices.
At the same time, on the eve of the New Year, we visited two more devices with a dual-core processor that provides good performance, a 5-inch screen with a resolution of 480x800 pixels and support for two SIM cards. This is Sharp SH530U, officially available in Russia, but not in Ukraine. And Fly IQ450 Horizon, which has already been mentioned many times in this review. Smartphones are about a third cheaper than the Galaxy Grand, which is easy to guess. But Sharp has such a weak screen (it uses a TN-matrix) that I would not recommend considering it as a serious candidate for purchase. Despite the fact that he has a nice body and design. Fly, especially in Ukraine, is developing rapidly and is gaining great popularity. And if you are inclined towards choosing inexpensive devices with maximum capabilities, then you can certainly pay attention to it. I confess that this is the first and only device under this brand, the appearance and ergonomics of which I liked. Despite the low resolution, it has a decent screen. Also, very responsive. However, bare Android on a Fly smartphone turns frankly slower than the “file-processed” one on Samsung. Indeed, heaven and earth. True, on Samsung side also 1 GB of RAM. In general, in this case, the choice lies between a well-known brand with high quality control and a significantly less expensive, but functional device, with traditional "Chinese" quality control. By the way, Fly has a few more interesting models coming out, so if you are leaning towards this brand, then it might be worth waiting a little longer for them to appear.
In the dry matter
So, we have a senior dual-sim smartphone from Samsung, which, although it does not have the coveted letter S in its name, is much more in line with the level of a flagship device with support for two SIM cards than its predecessor. The strength of the device is, first of all, its performance - it corresponds, though not to top-end gadgets, but to devices above the middle class - that's for sure. And it is the best for today among branded smartphones with support for two SIM cards (of those that are officially available in Ukraine). In addition, some users will definitely like the large screen size and excessive similarity appearance with Galaxy Note II, as well as features of the proprietary interface. If you are a fan of the brand and a customer of two mobile operators you can pay close attention to this device. Of course, if the price does not scare away. At the start of sales, it is about 4000 UAH. HTC Desire SV cost the same three months ago. Now the price of it has dropped to 3000 hryvnia. By the way, it is an excellent alternative if a large diagonal is not as important as the saved 1000 UAH. If you're willing to sacrifice some performance and branding for the sake of budget, you can also consider the Fly IQ450 Horizon as a candidate.
3 reasons to buy Samsung Galaxy Grand:
- you need the largest and most productive dual-sim smartphone;
- Do you like Samsung TouchWiz?
- excellent camera by the standards of the category;
2 reasons not to buy Samsung Galaxy Grand:
- low screen resolution;
- high price.
Samsung has long been a leader in all price segments among Android smartphones. Now the next step is the task of repeating the success among dual-symbol Android-smartphones. So far, Samsung has succeeded. And now the manufacturer announces a huge DualSIM - Galaxy Grand Duos - a smartphone with a 5-inch TFT display with a resolution of 800x480 pixels. This could be expected from little-known manufacturers who are trying with all their might to tear off a piece of the pie from the huge market, but you expect something more impressive from the leader, with a screen with a resolution of 960x540 pixels, or better, 1280x720 pixels. When the smartphone came to us for a test, we could not even think how it would all turn out. It turned out that Samsung once again managed to create a device that other manufacturers will be equal to.
We reviewed a test sample of the Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos with a couple of defects on the case, so we will not evaluate the build quality.
Design and ergonomics
The design of the novelty has become closer to, while the younger model is more like. Smartphone dimensions 143.5 × 76.9 × 9.6 mm, weight 162 g. For comparison, Galaxy dimensions S III 136.6 x 70.6 x 8.6 mm, weight 133 g, Galaxy Note II - 151.1 x 80.5 x 9.4 mm, weight 180 g. it with the Galaxy S III with a 4.8-inch screen, but the numbers indicate that we have a slightly reduced copy of the Note II rather than a grown Galaxy S III. The smartphone does not look compact - it is a large device with big screen and glossy body, however, the Grand Duos is comfortable in the hand.
On the front side of the case there is a set of sensors, speaker, camera and keys. Only the event indicator is missing. The hardware home key rises above the glass, and its edges are cut off so that the user has the impression that it is made of metal. Looks unusual and attractive.
Silver plastic around the perimeter of the case is designed to look like metal as much as possible. On it are the power button, volume, headphone jack, charger and a small microphone hole.
On the back side, on the same line, there is a recess for removing the cover, a flash LED, a camera eye and two speaker slots. Under the cover are hidden slots for SIM 1 and SIM 2, as well as memory cards. Access to SIM slot 1 and the memory card is covered by the battery, while the SIM from the second slot is hot-swappable. It doesn’t matter for a smartphone which SIM is which, in the menu you can set the 3G mode for any of them
The removable cover is not as flexible as in older models, but unlike them, it has a pattern in the form of triangles, so you can’t call it completely featureless, although we would prefer rough plastic, like in the Galaxy S Duos.
Operating system and shell
Smartphone running on operating room Android system 4.1.2. A proprietary TouchWiz shell - Nature UX - is installed on top of the standard interface. With the exception of the S-Pen settings, the Grand Duos interface is no different from the Galaxy Note II. You can read about the possibilities of the latter in the material.
Of the new things that we are facing for the first time, we note the presence of a new switch in the notification panel responsible for activating the multi-window mode (when the function is inactive, calling the multi-window mode by holding the "Back" key does not work). There is also a switch for the active SIM card.
In the SIM card manager, a new item has been added that allows you to receive calls on the second SIM, if the first one is currently used to access the Internet, while the data transfer will be interrupted. Otherwise, the second SIM will not be available. To be able to receive calls on two SIMs at the same time, you need to set up call forwarding in the Active Mode menu. In it, you can specify where calls will be redirected if any of the SIMs is "busy". If you set up forwarding between cards installed in your smartphone, then when incoming call, if you are already on a call, an alert will appear and a pop-up window will prompt you to choose between putting the current call on hold and accepting the incoming call, or ending the current call and answering the incoming one.
You cannot assign a default SIM for making calls and sending messages, only for data transfer. When dialing a number and in messages, there are always two icons - SIM 1, SIM 2. That is, in order to make a call from a SIM card installed in the first slot, you need to click on the SIM 1 icon.
Of the other features of the Grand Duos interface, we note the presence of many types of vibro operation with the ability to create your own and a wide range of background screensavers for messages.
Hardware platform
The smartphone uses a system-on-a-chip Broadcom BCM28155. The chipset is made using 40nm technology and includes two Cortex-A9 processor cores capable of operating at a maximum clock frequency of 1.2 GHz, supporting NEON, graphics core VideoCore IV and 1 GB LPDDR2 RAM(400 MHz).
According to the benchmark results, the system performance is at the level of Nvidia Tegra2, MTK6577T.
In the Epic Citadel app, the image was displayed with artifacts, although there were no image problems in the games we tested.
The smartphone allows you to play videos up to Full HD resolution, and you do not need installation to view third party applications, the built-in player copes well with this task, besides, it is one of the most advanced among the “standard” ones. Test videos AVI, MP4, MKV launched and played without problems.
Conversational and multimedia speakers proved to be on the good side, both in conversation and in a call. The sound did not disappoint in the headphones either, it is loud and will appeal to the vast majority of users.
The operating time of a smartphone is one of its strengths. The use of such a large display did not negatively affect the survivability of the battery. The Antutu Tester application showed 4 hours or more than 700 points, which is equivalent to two days of work with an average load or 6-7 hours with constant use of GPS. In reading mode, the smartphone will last 13 hours and 22 minutes, in the player mode - 33 hours and 22 minutes.
Display
The display of a smartphone is clearly not the leader in the number of dots per inch, so those who are looking for a device with a Retina display will be disappointed. For me, a lover of high-quality screens, including high-resolution and sharp pictures, the Grand Duos display did not cause rejection. This does not mean that the pixels are invisible, on the contrary, they are visible even at a relatively large distance from the eyes, provided that you have good eyesight, but these same pixels do not spoil the impression of the device at all.
When looking at the screen diagonally from the lower right corner to the upper left, the colors lose some of their saturation, but there is no inversion typical of inexpensive TN matrices. Minimum brightness - 11.7 cd / m², maximum - 347 cd / m², 50% on the scale corresponds to 202 cd / m², and with automatic tuning in office lighting conditions, the display shows 190 cd/m².
Camera
The quality of the main camera is traditionally good for Samsung, the photos are sharp, with natural colors. A lot of settings, including image stabilization, macro mode and many others, will allow you to choose the optimal settings for getting the best shot. The lack of HDR mode can be called the most serious drawback of the camera, but this fact is unlikely to keep you from buying a smartphone. The quality of the video is also on top, while recording, you can specify the focus point by touching the screen.
Examples of 8 MP photos taken Samsung smartphone Galaxy Grand Duos
An example of recording Full HD video with a Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos smartphone
The front 2 MP camera copes with the tasks assigned to the top five, I was surprised that the maximum video resolution is limited to a resolution of 720x480 pixels.
Results
Smartphone Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos is far from the first device with support for two SIM-cards and a 5-inch screen, you can’t call it affordable either. Why did he impress us so much? First, one of the most functional shells. Working with it, you understand that the manufacturer cares not only about how to sell the device, but also about how to make it as convenient as possible in everyday work. Secondly, multimedia abilities - the capabilities of music and video players. Thirdly, cameras, both main and front. Fourth, work time. For a smartphone with such a large display and two SIM cards, this is especially true. All this together makes the Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos the best smartphone with support for two SIM-cards with a 5-inch screen.