Samsung Galaxy Ace review

Product Samsung Galaxy Ace
Website http://www.samsung.com
Specifications 800Hz processor, 278MB RAM, 158MB storage, 3.5-inch 320x480 HVGA display, 5MP rear camera, Android 2.2 Froyo OS, 59.9x112.4x11.5mm, 113g.
Price £199 SIM free

LIMELIGHT isn't something that the Samsung Galaxy Ace has had much of, being overshadowed by its bigger brother, the Galaxy S II. So we took a look at the Ace to see if it deserves any recognition.

Design wise our first impression of the Ace were good. It's a stylish phone that got a nice and simple look. It doesn't stand out in the crowd like, for example, the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc does. We do, however, like the neatness and the little things like the sliding cover over the USB port and the fact the SD card slot is on the side, under a cover.

The look does remind us of Apple's Iphone with its central physical button, black front and chrome sides. Either side of the home button is a touch sensitive button that is hidden unless lit up. On the left is the menu button and the back button is found on the right hand side.

The back is textured plastic like the other handsets in the Galaxy family. This doesn't look as attractive as some other phones but it does repel fingerprint marks. The phone is nice and light too at just 113g. It's not one of these ultrathin handsets though, but 11.5mm isn't bad either.

The one design flaw we did find was that the sharp edge at the top of the phone digs in to your ear when making calls. Something to bear in mind if you spend a lot of time chatting.

For what is a budget phone, the Galaxy Ace has a respectable set of specifications. To start of with the processor is 800MHz. This might not seem great when you consider that the Galaxy S II has a dual-core 1.2GHz processor but the processor copes fairly well with running the phone and only lagged a occasionally when pushed.

Internal storage is an area where there is a bit of a problem. There is only 158MB of it which really isn't much so if you like adding lots of apps then you'll soon run out of space.

The screen size is something that the Ace has going in its favour. At 3.5in it's bigger than rival budget phones such as the HTC Wildfire S which only has a 3.2in display. The resolution on both phones is the same at 320x480 though so the Ace's display doesn't look as sharp as the Wildfire's.

The screen on the Ace is reasonably bright and colours look vibrant. Touch responsiveness is good and we didn't find ourselves tapping multiple times to press any buttons.