Samsung unveils Android-equipped Galaxy Spica i5700

The long-rumored little brother to the Galaxy, the i5700, has finally been made official by Samsung -- and sure enough, it'll go by the trade name "Galaxy Spica." Sammy's latest Android-powered set clocks in at 13.2mm thick and comes equipped with a 3.5mm jack (which, frankly, every smartphone in the world should be including at this point), an 800MHz core (presumably the same as the Moment's), and an Android first: built-in DivX support. This one appears to be a no-frills Google Experience device considering the number of times that "Google" is mentioned in Samsung's press release, but for some Android connoisseurs, the purest, unskinned look and feel is preferred. Sammy says it's already out in Europe and the CIS and will be coming to the Middle East and Asia shortly.

[Doax Posted Nov 16th 2009 12:44AM]

Well the fact that it has a smartphone os means its no longer a featurephone. Also to me it doesn't sound too much like a low end phone I mean its got an 800mhz proc which is higher than most android phones that us carriers currently sell.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 15th 2009 11:30PM]

Here in Argentina can be pre-sale since this saturday.
http://216.147.47.222/android/index.html

[smartmouth Posted Nov 15th 2009 11:29PM]

Sammy? What's up with all the nicknames, Chrissy?

[Gregorian Posted Nov 15th 2009 11:36PM]

My first thought was that I can't buy a phone with that name.
I'll feel vaguely racist every time I look at it.

[GuniGuGu Posted Nov 15th 2009 11:34PM]

What chip is this based off of? Is it the same as the g1 (a11) is it? but clocked higher? Cuz if so, i bet it's still tooo slow...

[iLuvvGoogleAndroidz Posted Nov 16th 2009 5:55PM]

yeah it's arm11- same as the moment. It is slower than the droid!

[zap2 Posted Nov 15th 2009 11:41PM]

US bound? US bands? Price?

This looks like a fine lower end Android device, I just want details please!

[JONNNathannn Posted Nov 15th 2009 11:47PM]

Wow. This is the one.

I love my Hero of course, but this is the best Android Sammy's pushed out yet.

Very nice, I'm impressed.

[alexz Posted Nov 15th 2009 11:52PM]

GPS? I'm sure if it had GPS , it would have been listed in the press release.

[kashve Posted Nov 16th 2009 3:30AM]

It has gps... says so in the irish link in the first post.

[va jj Posted Nov 16th 2009 12:13AM]

the white one looks like it was designed by the xbox360 team.


the behold 2 has 256MB ram but this one has 128MB and then also the behold two has the same cpu as the galaxy but this one is faster but with 128MB should be the other way around.


again, probably heading to tmobile.

[kevlar Posted Nov 16th 2009 1:12AM]

And the black one looks like it was designed by the PS3 team...

Coincidence? I think not.

[ChazClout Posted Nov 16th 2009 7:37AM]

And the one covered in dust, vying for attention looks like it was designed by the Wii team.

[ap09links Posted Nov 16th 2009 12:27AM]

I really like the model and i am waiting eagerly to launch in asia as soon as possible.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 16th 2009 12:39AM]

I don't even know why companies release non-andriod touchscreen feature phones consider the OS is free... This is how the Galaxy should have been from the start. I saw the original in AT&T earlier today (before reading this article) and the build quality was really good. It surprised me enough that I booted it up just to make sure it wasn't a smartphone running Android or WinMo.

[Doax Posted Nov 16th 2009 12:59AM]

Booted up a Galaxy at AT&T? You mean an Eternity or an Impression both running some Java OS with Touchwiz on top? Your thoughts are exactly what I was saying a couple days back. I just returned my Instinct HD, awesome hardware. Very awesome. But the buggy ass BREW os it has on it is holding it back. I could have possibly justified keeping it if it was Android even if it was $250 before tax. But it was $250 for a phone with an OS that would crash and restart when I had either the music player open or the email client open when a text message came in. I mean I could even keep it if it was $100 before tax, maybe even $150 plus tax but even that would be pushing it with phones like the Pixi at $100 and the BB Curve 8530 coming out next week. Either was touchscreen dumbphone os' need to go the way of the dinosaur.

[Doax Posted Nov 16th 2009 3:04AM]

Actually thinking of it I remembered odd phones like the samsung highlight on tmobile probably don't have procs powerful enough to run android. But I know the Instinct HD have a proc as powerful as the average android ones. They were discussing it on a instinct forum recently. Either way I can see why the lower os' exist with slow procs out there. But I don't understand why they would launch a high end phone like the instinct hd with its higher end hardware set with a crappy os. They were going to name the samsung moment the InstinctQ but they changed it. Too bad the instinct line didn't just jump to android from now on.

[rigg419 Posted Nov 16th 2009 1:01AM]

A few days ago in this post :
http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/10/hey-google-failing-to-spellcheck-android-2-0-can-have-undesir/#comments

engadget (actually chris IIRC) was having a little fun with google
for a couple of typos in an android error message. Some internet
drama ensued after commenters pointed out engadget's less than
perfect spelling record. Topolsky got involved and all of his
comments got 'lowest ranked'. At some point in that same post, the
karma system disappeared from Topolsky's comments and they couldn't
be ranked anymore. AFAIK ever since then editor's comments aren't
subject to karma.

If I'm wrong I'm sure I'll be corrected, but that's the last time I
remember being able to vote up or down on an editor's comments

[rigg419 Posted Nov 16th 2009 1:06AM]

^ vote down the double post! i wish i could just delete it...

[fdisk Posted Nov 16th 2009 9:40AM]

3.5 mm jacks? Please, it's all about Stereo Bluetooth now! I haven't used a wired headphone set since Haykuro released the first Android 1.5 (Cupcake) ROM almost a year ago! I honestly can't imagine listening to music at the gym or the train on anything other than my Bluetooth A2DP headphones :)

[iLuvvGoogleAndroidz Posted Nov 16th 2009 5:54PM]

Good for you meanwhile the rest of the world uses 3.5mm jacks.

[INNUENDO 64 Posted Nov 16th 2009 10:26AM]

Im glad they did slap TouchShit on this one, and i like the better processor, but i would have preferred a trackball

[p dot t Posted Nov 16th 2009 9:39PM]

me too galaxy here we come!

[p dot t Posted Nov 16th 2009 9:42PM]

new

[rhonavi Posted Nov 16th 2009 9:56PM]

this is a start of a new beginning

[rhonavi Posted Nov 16th 2009 10:01PM]

inuendo that's for sure.. http://ow.ly/CVzB

[amalveaux Posted Nov 17th 2009 1:04PM]

that looks just like the behold II coming out for tmobile, is it not??