Just over a year I had done to me with the Samsung Galaxy one of the first Android phones that did not come from HTC. After initial enthusiasm quickly turned, however, quite a disappointment. The Galaxy had / has some diseases that were not resolved even today by Samsung. So I was glad that the O2 mobile phone – albeit after some wrangling – due to defects and lack of assured properties has taken back for a full refund of the purchase price.Well, now what? Now I've bought a Galaxy again …

View

So why again a Samsung i7500 Galaxy? The main argument is primarily the price. When a new price of 500 € I would have soon been annoyed beyond measure about the device, but the Galaxy has a bad reputation, that there is to buy the equipment in good to excellent condition on eBay often for 100 to 120 €.

Current Auctions for Samsung i7500 GalaxyClosed Auctions

Only the HTC Dream is still trading cheaper, but this device is much older, has a worse display and little memory. What makes the Galaxy but now a useful device?

8GB internal memory

The Samsung Galaxy has an internal memory of 8GB. So many times not even have current top devices like the HTC or the Nexus One. Upgraded the memory, even with a matching micro SD card, then you get some money for a device with a huge storage space.

Enough memory then loose out for numerous applications, music and videos. Hacks, applications for an additional memory card swap, are thus not the Galaxy needed. The built-in memory can then even the toughest challenge as MapDroid loose with a map of Europe.

Android 1.6 and the outlook on current Android versions

Samsung has updated the Galaxy in Germany is still not on a newer version of Android. The Galaxy was shipped with Android 1.5 and it will officially remain probably for ever and ever. Android 1.5 means that many popular applications for the Galaxy are not available, since many apps will have a minimum of Android 1.6. You really have to let time melt on the tongue: The Galaxy initially cost 500 €, it was the top device from Samsung at this time and it was from the beginning of Samsung/O2 just tired and loveless updates. Good customer service is different.

But luckily there is a community around the Galaxy i7500. Especially the French hacker Drakaz makes the Galaxy is very deserving. He has Android 1.6 ported to the Galaxy and incorporated many improvements, so that Galaxo – then called his ROM – runs noticeably faster than the Samsung delivered by “original” firmware.

I can personally recommend

Galaxo really for the i7500. A change of the firmware is not soooooo expensive. You only need a USB cable and a Windows machine. Since there are many excellent on android-hilfe.de instructions I linked to these alone. When questions in the forum by android-hilfe.de fast and uncomplicated assistance.

Baseband update on I7500XEJC6 … Optionally, when I removed the upgrade of the baseband spontaneous reboots.Galaxo 1.6.3.3 install … The procedure sounds at first glance to complicated and costly, but you should see the update in 30 minutes may be making.JIT hack … apply option to provide an additional improvement in performance.

And the future of Android in the Galaxy seems assured. Drakaz working on porting Android 2.2 to the Galaxy. The firmware is called gaosp and sticks currently in the alpha phase. The project still has to solve a few problems, especially the porting of the driver for the built-in camera seem to be problematic, but the project is making great progress from version to version. Drakaz has created the first alpha of Android 2.2 on the Galaxy a video …

What is bad?

A few things have unfortunately not solved by software updates. Sun caught those on the right side of the phone camera attached key like to have a little bit in the housing so that they can “pull” with the finger nail needs. And the battery life can not really improve. Usually I'm not more than 1.5 days of operation. But with this disease suffer virtually all smartphones. Furthermore, there is virtually no matching accessories for the device. Charger, car mount, … None.

Conclusion

.