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.
posted Nov 15th 2009 10:56PM
Available on O2 Ireland.
http://forums.o2online.ie/forums/showthread.php?t=6821
another redudant crap android phone. it does nothing new, but zomg google sticker!!!
Yes Samsung is really diluting the android brand by sticking it on all their dumbphones
samsung has like wow 3 os's...why?
Well actually wouldn't Samsung have more three? They have Android, Winmo, Symbian(licensee), Bada(newly announced), and BREW(licensed from Qualcomm) which was used on the Instinct line. I know BREW isn't a smartphone OS but I was just throwing out all the OS' I could think of Samsung pedaling.
They do put a crap load of phones out though...I guess if you consider the fact that there are nearly 100 phones per year by Samsung, 10 OS' isn't that much XP
They also did two LiMO phones for Vodafone recently, the H1 & M1.
And on top of everything, they have their own proprietary dumbphone software as well. A little bit of streamlining wouldn't hurt...
Don't forget about the H1 N1
What is the cpu specs? Will we see it in the states? Sprint?
Uhh, well it said it is "an 800MHz core (presumably the same as the Moment's)"...Do you usually read articles by just looking at the pictures?
Oh wait...nevermind. I guess that was an update after the original post...Sorry
I guess I deserve to be flamed now XP
It is powered by the Samsung S3C6410 same as the one powering iPhone 3G (not 3GS). clocked at 800MHz.
The said chip does advertise OpenGL-ES 2.0, but I wonder if Android will ever start taking advantage of that.
Does anyone know of any 3D games coming to the android market?
inuendo!
i really like the divx support i hope this rom can be ported to the beholdI. i dont understand why phones dont support all codecs instead of picking and choosing.
Mostly because of licensing issues. OEMs have to pay huge amount to codec companies, so they pick and choose the best codec that is supported by their chip.
The most popular codecs supported by current hardware being h.264, mpeg4(divx) in that order.
The freely available applications which we download form the web are generally based on software codecs, i.e. not utilizing the special hardware built into the phone. The software codecs consume more battery power and do not scale to very high resolutions.
My guess is that some companies just don't want you to be able to play whatever you want. Maybe because they have their own media stores and/or because they have deals with the labels to make "pirate" formats more difficult to use.
That's why Apple and Microsoft devices support the least amount of formats, less than any other PMPs out there.
More importantly, why is Divx still so popular on the net? Especially when MP4 is more standardized and almost every device these days support it. Mp4 should be everywhere, not divx/xvid files.
Damn...send that DIVX rom over to the Droid or the upcoming HTC Passion (or dragon or whatever it will be called)
You kinda forgot the most important part where it says it has an 800MHz processor....
Touche! Updated!
Touche! Updated!
[there, now you can rank Chris' response - not there was anything wrong with it]
Touche! Updated!
[there, now you can rank Chris' response - not there was anything wrong with it]
[there, now you can rank pgk's response - not there was anything wrong with it]
Chris, why can't we rank your comment?
chris, I believe you might be the chosen one.
@paul:
Because he still got butthurt from the "Look I made an article about a spelling error"-article?
Sammy? What's up with all the nicknames, Chrissy?
You've never heard Samsung called "Sammy"? Thought it was pretty common, actually.
When you're Engadget and you're writing about many of the same companies repeatedly, eventually you need to change it up with a nickname. That said, I've seen "Sammy" on here before.
I've seen "sammy" over at GSMArena, PocketNow. It's a common nickname around the phone blogs.
sammy is a totally common nickname for Samsung, not just here on engadget, but on other sites and forums as well
the only sammy i think of is sega, naturally..............
Chris, why cant we rank your comment?
They took away the ability of ranking editors comments the other day. I'm pretty sure it had something to do with the whole "spelling post" incident. I don't think Topolsky liked having all of his comments 'lowest ranked'. But I could be wrong.
How long ago was this "incident"? I would think that plans for improving the site are a bit more long term.
Really? I didn't know. I'm not that really an active blog reader.
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
Panning over that article, I have to say that hypocrisy aside and the fact that everyone makes mistakes, Chris was trying to stress the fact that there shouldn't have been any spelling errors in the first place considering the fact that they put so much work into every part of Android. Compiling source code and undergoing extensive beta tests/reviews, how could they have missed that error? Meanwhile all Engadget has to do is type some stuff up and hope that their browser catches them on a flaw. The comparisons are unleveled. For them to be THAT angry was beyond me; It was like their dog got ran over. In the end, Google made a mistake and there's no way you can go, "Well it's justifiable because you typed were instead of we're 6 weeks ago". People should have seen through the fact that it was more than just being a grammar nazi..
To be clear, I didn't link to the article to start up another debate, I was just try to answer Smartmouth's question.
No no, of course. I know. I'm not debating anything here. Just expressing my view on that article.
I think you pretty much summed it up perfectly, just given how blown out of proportion everything got in what should have been a quickly forgotten article, I didn't want to be perceived as trolling or anything.
I went to Hong Kong in mid october, and this was advertised on billboards as "Sammy i5700"
Looks nice, I like it
I really like the looks (and specs) of this handset.
Divx for Hero PLZ
Get this thing to Canada, and I've found my next phone. Divx is a major plus.
Sammy? What's up with all the nicknames, Chrissy?
Engadget, every time your comment system fails, a resistive touchscreen is born.
Any idea if this phone will be running Android 1.5 or 2.0? It talks about Europe and Asia, but no word on the US too, oh well.
probably 1.5 ( Sammy likes to keep their OS's outdated, says it gives them "class")
ew. looks like a crappy featurephone
Congratulations for finding the point. This is supposed to be a low cost featurephone.
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.
Here in Argentina can be pre-sale since this saturday.
http://216.147.47.222/android/index.html
Sammy? What's up with all the nicknames, Chrissy?
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.
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...
yeah it's arm11- same as the moment. It is slower than the droid!
US bound? US bands? Price?
This looks like a fine lower end Android device, I just want details please!
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.
GPS? I'm sure if it had GPS , it would have been listed in the press release.
It has gps... says so in the irish link in the first post.
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.
And the black one looks like it was designed by the PS3 team...
Coincidence? I think not.
And the one covered in dust, vying for attention looks like it was designed by the Wii team.
I really like the model and i am waiting eagerly to launch in asia as soon as possible.
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.
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.
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.
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
^ vote down the double post! i wish i could just delete it...
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 :)
Good for you meanwhile the rest of the world uses 3.5mm jacks.
Im glad they did slap TouchShit on this one, and i like the better processor, but i would have preferred a trackball
me too galaxy here we come!
new
this is a start of a new beginning
inuendo that's for sure.. http://ow.ly/CVzB
that looks just like the behold II coming out for tmobile, is it not??