Samsung Galaxy Grand i9080

Overview

Live the Grand Life

Overview of Samsung Galaxy Grand

The Samsung Galaxy Grand i9080 debuted at the 2013 Mobile World Congress with Samsung seeking to fill the need for higher end dual SIM phones.

Samsung Galaxy Grand Design and Build Quality

The large, 5-inch screen has a home button located directly below it, and buttons for menu and back on either side. The phone has silver trim and a front-facing camera and sensors above the screen.

User Interface and Comfort to Use Samsung Galaxy Grand

The phone has dimensions of 143.5 x 76.9 x 9.6 mm but, at 162 grams, the device is considerably heavier than comparable phones. It comes installed with Android Jelly Bean 4.1.2 running on a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor.

Telephony and Phonebook

Call reception on the phone is clear, with average sound quality and no dropping of calls. The loudspeaker is also loud and comfortably handles hands free operation.

Messaging and Emails

The phone has threaded SMS view and the composer features predictive input or T9. There is also RSS feed support, enabling subscription to real-time news feeds.

Gallery, Photo Viewer and Video Player

The player supports the most popular formats, including AVI and MKV with full HD playback on the large screen. The screen, however, has a low resolution with noticeable pixilation.

Samsung Galaxy Grand Music Player and FM radio

With excellent handling of most of the popular audio formats, the Galaxy Grand delivers a satisfying media experience, with loud and clear audio performance from both the supplied earphones and the loudspeaker.

Samsung Galaxy Grand Camera and Image Quality

The 8-megapixel camera on the phone has an LED flash for low light conditions and virtually zero shutter lag. The phone can take photos up to 3264 x 2448 pixels resolution.

Video Camera and Video Quality

The camera records videos in High Definition up to 1080p at a frame rate of 30fps. The videos are detailed and the color reproduction is decent, but with poor dynamic range.

Samsung Galaxy Grand Connectivity Options

The phone has Wi-Fi Direct with hotspot capabilities and comes equipped with Bluetooth 4.0 and a microUSB port at the bottom of the phone supporting USB version 3.0.

Organizer and Other Utility Tools

Organization of user information is via the supplied Nature UX UI, with a host of productivity apps such as calendar, file manager, task list, alarm, converter, and dictionary available on the phone.

Samsung Galaxy Grand Web Browser and Applications

Samsung’s Web Kit is the default web browser on the Galaxy Grand, but Google Chrome is also pre-installed. Browsing is fast, thanks to the phone’s 3G capability.

Google Maps and GPS

The Galaxy Grand features GPS with A-GPS support in addition to the option to connect to GLONASS, resulting in impressive geo location accuracy.

Distinctive Features of Samsung Galaxy Grand

The phone has a unique multitasking feature known as “Multi Window”, where a user can rapidly switch between common apps such as the browser, photo gallery, and Gmail by tapping a little arrow at the side of the screen.

Value for Money

The Samsung Galaxy Grand is available in India at a price of INR 21,500 (approx., may vary) and comes with most of the features standard with mobiles available at this price point but some users might expect 4G capability from the phone for this cost.

Verdict

Overall, the Galaxy Grand offers users most of the features expected of a higher-end touch screen phone. The only real downside to an otherwise great phone is Samsung’s choice of a resolution of 480x800 on a rather large screen.