Samsung Galaxy i5700 'Portal'

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What does everything think of this phone - has anyone owned it?

I'm thinking of selling my Nokia X6 (music features aren't really needed for me) and getting this phone.

Android seems to be lot better than Symbian from what I've read and the Portal is also a cheaper phone with better hardware (800mhz CPU). Whilst not up to the HTC Hero standards, I've read it's pretty much a better version of the HTC Magic (albeit a little uglier).

What I'm basically after is a sub-£300 touchscreen phone (though the cheaper the better) with minimal lag. It has to feel snappy and responsive to use (and a half decent app store wouldn't go amsis either) - something the Symbian-driven X6 on the 400mhz processor does not quite reach.
 
I have an i5700 and it's not bad at all. It's no laggier or slower than any of the current T-mobile offered range [G1/G2] and it has a capacitive screen, which is nice.

It also has the full range of accessories you'd expect - accelerometers, AGPS, magnetic compass, Bluetooth [with the usual android bluetooth restrictions - google 'em], and it's the first Android phone to support XVid/DIvX out the box - up to 720x480 IIRC, so less tedious re-encoding to do. Although Handbrake used to convert stuff to 400x2xx works nicely if you don't mind ripping stuff.

I did have an S60 3rd edition 6650 fold, an the i5700 makes it look positively archaic - really, really crap - in comparison.

Also, £20/month-18moths for 300/unlimited/unlimited calls/texts/web [fair usage applies, as ever - 1gb, but wifi gets around this] is not a bad deal for such a good phone.

The only problem I have with it is that I wanted to flash it from Android 1.5 to Android 2.1 [Samsung 'accidentally' released a Beta ROM - see here and the rest of that forum for details] but it only works reliably on Win32 platforms as it requires drivers to pick up the hardware in firmware dump mode - I have Win7 64bit and it just doesn't want to install the drivers for it at all. I'm just going to wait for Samsung to release an official patch, or for T-Mobile to put an over-the-air upgrade on it - rumours abound that it's only a couple of months away at most.

I've never used an X6, but if it's based on Symbian, I can't see it being much better than the N95/97 et al which I was never particularly impressed with.

if you can hold your horses, the HTC Bravo [AKA Nexus One spec phone without the Google branding] will be out on T-Mob in a couple of months - it might be worth waiting for that.

If you are just bored with your Nokia though, and want to try something different, an i5700 can be picked up online for about £200, which I reckon is not bad at all for what it does.

It might be worth noting that you can't do multitouch on teh i5700 - allegedly the touchscreen controller needs flashing to enable that, but I haven't heard of anyone doing it successfuly - pretty sure th G1/G2 support it with the right minor tweeks however. If that sort of thing is important to you....

Also, if you have a Google mail account, you can import/sync your contacts from that, which wors really nicely once you get it set up - export your existing contacts as a CSV, upload to Google, put them in My Contacts and do it. If not, a company called Sprite do a reasonable contacts transfer app that works [with a bit of fiddling] for that too.

Overall I'm really chuffed with the i5700 - it's not as ultra-doublebuffered smooth as an iPhone, but then you can have third party apps running in the background on Android, something an iPhone won't do, so you expect a bit of slowdown when its working, but nothing major.

I'd strongly suggest going to a large T-mob store and asking to have a look at one.

It's a perfectly usable, highly functional phone - last night, i SSH'd into my Linux box and downloaded some iPlayer content with it. From my bed. I then move it to a network share, copied it to th SD card, and watched it. I could have VNCd to the linux box from the phone if I wanted to...very versatile wee thing.
 
Just looking at maybe getting this on t-mobile.

Is it easy to upgrade to 2.1 :confused: really can't afford to get the more expensive handsets (nexus/desire) and this phone looks really promising as it has all the functions and android 2.1 but works out pretty cheap as you can get it free on the £15/m tarrif :) (and get free internet included)

The only thing I think that sort of lets it down is the camera :( does anyone have any pictures they've taken with this phone??
 
If the community is behind it then it shouldn't take long to get a 2.1 upgrade ready because Three released this phone with 2.1 as standard about two weeks ago.

Or, if you're going for Three, then there's no need for you to worry about it.
 
mortals said:
Just looking at maybe getting this on t-mobile.

Is it easy to upgrade to 2.1 :confused: really can't afford to get the more expensive handsets (nexus/desire) and this phone looks really promising as it has all the functions and android 2.1 but works out pretty cheap as you can get it free on the £15/m tarrif :) (and get free internet included)

The only thing I think that sort of lets it down is the camera :( does anyone have any pictures they've taken with this phone??
Click to expand...

Camera's fine, if you use it properly. Just takes a while to start... and to focus... and then to take a picture. Just bear in mind that it doesn't do macro very well. Hopefully they'll fix this with the 2.1 update, which will be done via Samsung PC Studio by the way. This is at 50% (size):

gardenh.jpg


Videos aren't too shabby either. By the way, just so you know it actually does come with a screen protector on, but it's so well disguised that i didn't notice it until last night.
 
cool :)
the picture looks pretty good.

I'm not sure whether to go t-mobile or three as I don't know anyone on either network :(
The coverage on three looks better but someone was telling me orange were buying t-mobile or something :confused: (am on orange PAYG atm and have had no problems) so this might change?
 
mortals said:
cool :)
the picture looks pretty good.

I'm not sure whether to go t-mobile or three as I don't know anyone on either network :(
The coverage on three looks better but someone was telling me orange were buying t-mobile or something :confused: (am on orange PAYG atm and have had no problems) so this might change?
Click to expand...

There's a merger between T-Mobile and Orange to make the 'biggest' network in the UK. It took place at the start of April but i have no idea when the networks will be merged. I haven't noticed any bad reception on T-Mobile and have been able to get a 3G signal pretty much everywhere.
 
The two brands will operate separately and exist for at least the next 18 months. There is no information either way on when the cell networks will be connected so you can access either/both.

If the companies intend not to make any changes for 18 months then that is most, or all, of a phone contract. Big 'if' though.
 
I'm really thinking of getting one of these now as the desire seems so expensive unless you go for redemption.

If I get it on t-mobile would it be possible to put a custom 2.1 firmware onto the phone?
Have t-mobile got the 2.1 update yet?

I'm just thinking that £15/m for 300min unlt text & unlt inet seems like a good deal but would like to have 2.1 :)
 
As far as I'm aware the only operator shipping it with 2.1 is Three. I need to look into custom firmware myself as 1.5 is grinding on me.
 
which is bad news for Mac users seeing as Samsung has overlooked Mac compatibility for years, which is pathetic for a company who are releasing such high spec phones. Their customer support is a farce
 
I just ordered it :)

Had a phonecall from phones4u who told me they had a desire in but it would be £30/m on 24month contract.
I told the guy I was now looking at getting a Samsung i5700 and he replied "you don't want a smartphone now then" so I said "it is a smartphone, samsung i5700" just silence at other end of phone where he obv didn't know what a samsung i5700 was :rolleyes: I said the desire was expensive for the minutes etc and his reply was "the phone is worth £500"

lol :rolleyes:

I'm amazed at people who work in phone shops :( most are rude and know nothing about the phones they sell :(

Anyway, was reading some forums and found some posts of a guy who said he bought a i5700 on t-mobile uk and successfully flashed it to 2.1 without any problems so will probably do that when the phone comes :)
 
Wow came this morning :)

Have put the Samsung EU 2.1 Firmware on it and it seems a lot better.
The animations look a lot nicer and the front screen looks better.
Also the camera screen has more options.

Not noiticed anything else yet but all seems to be working ok on eclair
 
mortals said:
Wow came this morning :)

Have put the Samsung EU 2.1 Firmware on it and it seems a lot better.
The animations look a lot nicer and the front screen looks better.
Also the camera screen has more options.

Not noiticed anything else yet but all seems to be working ok on eclair
Click to expand...

How did you do that, my bro has a galaxy and reli wants a update.
 
I gather you used Odin to flash it? Where did you find the firmware? I'm considering doing it in the next few days because the wait for getting it officially is getting on my nerves.
 
Skyfall said:
I gather you used Odin to flash it? Where did you find the firmware? I'm considering doing it in the next few days because the wait for getting it officially is getting on my nerves.
Click to expand...
Yer used Odin to do it and also just put on LKMod so I have root, apps2sd, busybox etc
 
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