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Retro: Samsung Galaxy and Galaxy S.
Launched 2009 and 2010.
With all the buzz about the forthcoming Samsung Galaxy S IV this week, it's easy to forget
where this all started. We take a look at some of Samsung's first forays into the Android
market.
Samsung Galaxy I7500. These days there seem to be dozens of Samsung
Galaxy devices with a variety of names like the Note, S, Mini, Tab, Xcover and so on.
But in the beginning was the plain old Samsung Galaxy (model number SGH-I7500) which came
before any of them.
Viewed from 2013, the 2009 era Samsung Galaxy is a bit of a shock to look at. Modelled after
traditional Samsung designs the Galaxy featured a 3.2" display on the front and a very large
set of physical buttons. The display is a pretty basic 320 x 480 pixel panel, inside
is a 528MHz CPU with just 128MB of RAM. On the back is a 5 megapixel camera, and as with
almost all Android devices the Galaxy had 3.5G support, WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity
plus GPS.
The specifications may seem primitive, but they were roughly comparable with the Apple
iPhone 3G that it was competing with. The operating system was Android 1.5 with an update
in some regions to Android 1.6 (unofficial updates to 2.3 exist), but the Galaxy become
obsolete pretty quickly and it was replaced by the Samsung Galaxy Spica later in the year.
Samsung Galaxy S I9000. Samsung's first generation of Android devices
were a bit quirky and not hugely successful. But all of that changed in March 2010 with
the announcement of the Samsung Galaxy S (model SGH-I9000) which introduced the high-end Galaxy
S line.. and also kicked off a massive legal row with Apple.
A black slabby phone with an overall design that certainly wasn't a million miles away
from the iPhone 3GS, the Galaxy S sported a 4" 480 x 800 pixel display, a 1GHz CPU with
512MB of RAM, a 5 megapixel camera plus many other features that were relatively groundbreaking
such as Gorilla Glass and a dedicated GPU. There exist many different variants of the
Galaxy S including a slider version and one supporting the now-obsolete 4G WiMAX system.
The operating system out of the box was Android 2.1 with the Samsung TouchWiz interface on
top, with an official upgrade to Android 2.3 available plus some unofficial upgrades to
Android 4.2. The Galaxy S was a sales success with a reported 24 million units shipping
worldwide, and it establish a successful series of devices including the Galaxy S II, Galaxy
S III and also the Nexus S.
The difference between the two devices (released just one year apart) is significant - the
original Galaxy would be unusable by today's standards, but there are still many handsets
on the market with a specification similar to the Galaxy S. The latest version - the
Galaxy S IV - promises to be another major step forward and has already generated significant
(and free) media coverage for Samsung before its official announcement. Over 100 million
Galaxy S handsets have been sold since launch - and with the latest generation we suspect
that 200 million sales will not be far off!