Samsung Galaxy Y (GT-S5360) Review

Keyboard feels a bit cramped if you have chubby fingers

We also felt the on screen keyboard was a little cramped and if you have chubby fingers like mine, typing can be nightmare. The problem was a little less in landscape mode, but I still found myself hitting the wrong key time and again. Thankfully, there’s Swype built-in, which comes to the rescue.

Misc. Apps

Some productivity apps

There aren’t too many miscellaneous apps other than the stock ones that come with Gingerbread. You get QuickOffice, a voice recorder and a task manager. Samsung have also bundled their SocialHub app for Facebook and Twitter access. 

Camera
The 2MP fixed-focus camera is not very good, I’m afraid and doesn’t do well at all in indoor shots. It’s a tiny bit better under natural light, but just that. The colours still appear a bit muted and it’s not able to capture a great amount of detail.

Good camera interface but the sensor it self is quite poor

Having said that, you do get a ton of options through Samsung’s custom interface, including panorama mode, which works well.

Sweep panorama

Video recording is quite bad as well, since you can only go up to QVGA resolution at 15fps. Overall, the camera is below average, so if this is an important factor to you, then look elsewhere.

Battery Life
Since we had the phone for a short time, we could only run some of our battery tests. Armed with a 1200mAh battery, the phone lasted close to 10hrs in our video drain test. This is with the brightness set to medium and the phone set to 2G mode. This is a very good number and we’re not too surprised considering what the battery has to power.

Verdict
The Galaxy Y goes for a street price of Rs.7,350, which puts it on the same lines as the Micromax A70 and the Spice Mi-350n. You might find it for a little lower in places like Delhi, however. If you want switchable back covers, then it'll cost you an additional Rs. 400. The A70 is a good phone, which we liked very much, but it’s still stuck on Froyo and there’s no Wi-Fi ‘n’, so that’s out of the running. We are actually testing the Spice Mi-350n, right now and so far it feels like a much better buy compared to the Galaxy Y. My main gripe with this phone is the lack lustre screen, which just ruins the whole experience, if you’re into watching videos or surfing the net. Overall, we feel it’s a decent buy, if you have small hands and desperately want a touchscreen phone on the cheap side. I would strongly recommend you try it out at a store, before taking the plunge.