• What Stops Some Phones From Being the Best

    What Stops Some Phones From Being the Best

    Rohan Naravane, Aug 18, 2010 1343 hrs IST

    One missing feature that would've made these phones great

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There are times when a device is just perfect for your need but lacks that one important feature that would make you say one of the two things: I'll wait for something better, or I'll just ignore that shortcoming and buy it anyway. At the labs we encounter many such almost-perfect products that lack something or the other that keeps us from giving it full marks. Here are a few such phones that though are quite good, but yet have something missing in them.


LED Flash on the Samsung Galaxy S

Samsung released this phone well in advance of the iPhone 4 (at least in India), which made the new additions to Apple's handset look passe. The Galaxy S has a lot to offer; a vibrant and responsive 'Super AMOLED' display measuring a big 4 inches yet maintaining a thin, pocketable profile. The ability to playback 720p MKV and DivX files without the need to convert. The 5 megapixel sensor at the back also took good day shots. But that one missing link was the LED flash.



Granted that LED based camera flashes are not going to be as great as proper Xenon tubes mounted on digital cameras, but they do help brightening subjects in close range in a dark environment. It's a good aid when you're out without your digital camera and want to take that impromptu snap. LED flash helps a great deal when shooting video at night since it can continuously stay on unlike a nearly blinding Xenon strobe. The LED Flash on the Galaxy S' younger sibling, the Wave S8500, was tiny but pretty powerful. It might be possible that Samsung had to let go of the flash to maintain the Galaxy S' 9.9mm thinness, but this is one subtraction that didn't go down our throats that easy.

For a phone that we otherwise adore, that bulb would have made this phone truly complete for us.

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mobile phone features Sony Ericsson Hazel Elm LG GW300 Nokia E72 Samsung Spica Samsung Galaxy S



Discussion Board
(12) Comments
Sreenivas
,Bangalore, on Aug 25, 2010 10:39 AM
I agree. The LED would have helped a lot. On my Nokia E72, even though I am not too keen a photographer, the LED comes in very handy when there is a sudden power outage, or I want to read something when the lighting is poor.
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still looking f
,delhi, on Aug 24, 2010 11:03 PM
coudnt agree more with most of ur points, esp spica and a ridiculous resolution of samsung i5800 (240x400). If they up the processor on i5800 then the HVGA resolution will work flawlessly on it. I would gladly buy it for 15k if only it supports HVGA. But dont know what samsung was thinking with this resolution.
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Fed up
,city, on Aug 19, 2010 07:08 PM
poor software and e-mail implementation in the E72. A phone which hangs and reboots thrice daily (thats after the firmware upgrade..which hit india months after the world) A business phone with broken e-mail client is a bust. Also has poor loudspeakers, and lots of other flaws. Read the nokia-asia discussion forums abt this model
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Shitij Yadav
,Jaipur, on Aug 19, 2010 05:41 PM
The BlackBerry 8520 is a near perfect phone but the only thing it misses is a Flash for its camera. The results of the pics clicked in the daylight is pretty good but the dark settings stills are found wanting.
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saty
,pune, on Aug 19, 2010 12:38 PM
nokia 5235 comes with music missing from firmware updates
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Natasha
,Mumbai, on Aug 18, 2010 10:21 PM
Guyz i finally found a spica in my city ... its goin 4 the same price as galaxy 3 But i guess it wont get a fryo update ...... so plzzzzz tell me Is 2.2 worth it to neglect the low resolution or is spica the better deal ???? Do you think most apps will be available 4 240x400 resolution ??? I dont think i'll be running too many apps in the background .... Plzzz Plzzz Plzzz reply asap
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Rohan
,TechTree, on Aug 18, 2010 10:38 PM
For now, the Galaxy 3 is the ONLY Android phone with that resolution. Having said that, we can only hope that the app support will get better as more phones with this resolution flood the market. Personally I'd rather put my money on a recent model than one that's about to be phased out. But your situation seems unique....if you're not going install too many apps...then a Spica makes sense since Android 2.1 is good enough a version of the OS, and plus you'll even get the better HVGA screen.
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pranav
,thane, on Aug 18, 2010 10:19 PM
seriously u guyz r bang on in d case of Galaxy s ....i was swooning ovr dis beauty till i realised it has no flash!!!wot a dampener....wonder y dey wud do such a thing 2 der flagship smartfone...beats me i do feel a gud cam is an essential reqrment of every smartfone....d lack of a flash has deterred me frm buying dis fone...am heading 2wards d ifone 4 it seems
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dude
,kochi, on Aug 18, 2010 07:52 PM
In recent times, I think this applies to the SE Zylo. Zylo has FLAC support, but no 3.5 mm jack. What, I'm supposed to plug in my audiophile grade HD-650-s into a lossy adapter?
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Raunak Mehta
,Indore, on Aug 18, 2010 07:47 PM
Great article! Btw, I own a Samsung Spica running official Android 2.1 with no problems at all :)
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Gautam
,Jalgaon, on Aug 18, 2010 07:16 PM
No fm radio on x10. No Xdiv video playing on x10. No android 1.6 upgradation on x10. No dpad on x10 mini pro physical keyboard. only 3.2 and FIXED focus camera on x8. This is like SE itself wants to keep some flaw on its handsets. Otherwise they will become great!
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Syed S
,Hyd, on Aug 18, 2010 03:44 PM
"We believe the fault could lie in the Java sub-system not being able to take in QWERTY input directly" But the BOLT browser, which is a Java app, accepts the URLs directly!
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