Samsung Galaxy Pro B7510 review, Price, pictures, Details, model specifications
Samsung’s QWERTY messengers have not exactly been setting the world on fire. They have done well though to set the scene for this one. The Samsung Galaxy Pro B7510 follows on the heels of Omnia and Corby. It puts Android in a time-tested form factor and is ready to entertain upgraders coming from dumbphones and PocketPCs alike.
The Galaxy Pro has a clear objective – deliver the full Android experience, a good social package and hassle-free messaging. What does it need to meet those tasks? Well, a comfortable QWERTY keyboard obviously, possibly a touchscreen, enough processing power and at least some basic shooting skills to capture the important moments. Of course, a messenger is nothing without a proper OS and this is where the Android Froyo comes in. But let’s see what else the Galaxy Pro has to offer.
Key features
- 2.8″ 256K-color TFT capacitive touchscreen of QVGA (240 x 320 pixels) resolution
- Full four-row QWERTY keyboard
- ARMv6 800MHz CPU, 270MB RAM, 180MB of user-available storage
- Android 2.2.2 (Froyo) with TouchWiz 3.0 UI
- Quad-band GSM and dual-band 3G support
- 7.2 Mbps HSDPA
- Wi-Fi 802.11 b, g, n with hotspot functionality
- GPS with A-GPS connectivity; digital compass
- 3.15 MP autofocus camera
- QVGA video recording @30fps
- microUSB port (charging) and stereo Bluetooth v3.0
- microSD slot (up to 32GB, 2GB in box)
- Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
- Accelerometer and proximity sensor
- Document viewer out of the box, paid editing
- Stereo FM radio with RDS
- Light and compact
- Smart dialing
Main disadvantages
- The QVGA screen looks bad and limits the choice of apps
- Portrait homescreen ported to landscape takes some time getting used to
- QVGA-only video recording
- No shutter key
- No Adobe Flash support in the browser
- No secondary video-call camera
- No ambient light sensor
- No dedicated video player app
- No multi-touch
- Android 2.2 Froyo, instead of latest Android 2.3 Gingerbread
It should be clear by now the Galaxy Pro B7510 isn’t your typical Android powerhouse for HD video, quality imaging or heavy-duty internet browsing. Gaming is out of the picture too. To be honest, the Galaxy Pro doesn’t quite make the grade as a BlackBerry competitor. To make up for it, it is social and friendly – and a great texter too. Virtual keyboards have been getting better but the Galaxy Pro’s superbly laid-out keypad is the prefect addition to Gmail.
User Interface: TouchWiz on Froyo
The Galaxy Pro B7510 uses Android 2.2 Froyo, topped with the in-house TouchWiz UI. The thing which immediately stands out is the landscape layout of the whole UI. The four docked icons, which normally sit at the bottom of your screen, have migrated over to the right side, leaving the homescreens and menus to use the center of the screen.
Android gallery is nice
The Galaxy Pro uses the standard Android gallery, which is great. It offers the good functionality, we’re accustomed to, cool 3D looks and nice transition effects, but unfortunately (again) only shows a downsized version of your images.
The thing missing here is multi-touch zooming and if you’ve used an Android with this feature you’ll immediately feel the difference. Sadly, Android isn’t quite suited for zooming in and out without the pinch gesture and feels laggy and unnatural.
Getting back to the gallery, images and videos placed in different folders appear in different sub-galleries that automatically get the name of the folder, which is very convenient – just like a file manager.
The different albums appear as piles of photos, which fall in neat grids once selected. Online albums at Picasa show up as separate stacks as well.
Video player is as basic as you can get
The video player of the Galaxy Pro B7510 is nothing to rave about. It covers only the basic 3GP and MP4 formats and doesn’t even have an icon in the menu. The only way to get at it is through the file browser or the gallery. Watching DivX or XviD movies is a no-go with the default player though Samsung official specs advise otherwise.
TouchWiz music player
The music player in the Samsung Galaxy Pro is blessed with the TouchWiz UI as well. You can sort the music using the sorting options, which are neatly displayed in a tabbed interface. Among the options are current playlist, all tracks, playlists and albums, artists and composers. You are free to remove some of the filters to make the interface easier to navigate.
Passable audio quality
The Samsung Galaxy Pro B7510 audio is hardly the best we have seen, but given the device market positioning, it’s more than adequate.
When connected to an external amplifier the smartphone is slightly on the quiet side, but it achieved some great results all over the place.
The hit that the performance takes when headphones are connected is quite substantial though – stereo crosstalk spikes, intermodulation distortion rises too, while frequency response is no longer perfect. Volume levels aren’t spectacular here either.
FM Radio
The Samsung Galaxy Mini is equipped with an FM radio with RDS. The interface is simple – there’s a tuning dial and you can save as many as 4 stations as favorites. You can also play on the loudspeaker, but the headset still needs to be plugged in to act as an antenna.
Camera
The Galaxy Pro is equipped with a 3.2 MP snapper with autofocus, capable of producing images of 2048×1536 resolution. Sadly, the Galaxy Pro doesn’t feature a camera flash so night shots are out of the question. And there’s no dedicated camera button either, but considering the form factor it wouldn’t be very comfortable to use it in portrait anyway.
The UI of the camera itself is touch-friendly and has great built-in features such as smile shot, preset scenes on-screen guidelines and panorama mode.
Photo comparison tool
The Samsung Galaxy Pro enters our Photo Compare Tool to join the 3.2MP lineup. The tool’s page will give you enough info on how to use it and what to look for.
Video recording maxes out at the very bottom
Apart from the TouchWiz camcorder UI we can hardly say anything good about the video capturing capabilities of the Galaxy Pro. It would’ve been a great handset 5 years ago but today QVGA doesn’t even begin to cut it.
Connectivity
The Galaxy Pro is worldwide roaming-ready with quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE and dual-band HSPA with download rates of up to 7.2 Mbps.
The connectivity package offers Wi-Fi (b/g/n), Bluetooth v3.0 with A2DP support and USB v2.0. The USB interface is standard microUSB, which makes finding a suitable cable a lot easier.
Android 2.2 Froyo enables Bluetooth file transfers, so there’s little else to ask for.
The Samsung Galaxy Pro doesn’t pack much internal memory (133MB is downright low for app installation), but it comes with a microSD slot with supports for cards up to 32GB. Thanks to Android Froyo you can install compatible apps on the SD card though we admit, it might be a hassle.
The 3.5 mm standard audio port completes the connectivity tally. You can keep your favorite headphones and use them with the Galaxy Mini hassle-free.
Overall any self-respecting smartphone messenger should offer the complete connectivity package and the Galaxy Pro delivers on it.
Stripped Android browser fails to impress
The Android browser is one of the best available on a mobile device. It’s relatively fast, generally bug-free and really easy to use. In the case of the Galaxy Pro it’s truly stripped and feels low end in a way with the low resolution display, lack of multi-touch and flash support.
The user interface, at least, is pretty much nonexistent at first sight. Once the page loads, all you see is the URL bar and the bookmark button on a line at the top of the screen. Once you zoom in and pan around though even that line disappears (scroll to the top or press menu to bring it back).
Organizer is good enough
Coming to the organizing skills of the Galaxy Pro we have almost no complaints. It has a nice preload of apps and those that are missing can be downloaded through the android market easily and in no time.
The calendar app is very good. It has four different types of view – agenda, daily, weekly and monthly. Adding a new event is quick and easy, and you can also set an alarm to act as a reminder.
Apps for QVGA resolution is limited
The Samsung Galaxy Pro is running on Android version 2.2 (Froyo) so it’s a little behind its family members. The Android Market is where you can download thousands of apps for whatever you can think of and the Mini will have no problems running them.
The structure of the Android Market is quite simple – featured apps on top and above them, three sections (Applications, Games and Downloads). There is also a shortcut up there for initiating a search.
GPS the Google way
The Samsung Galaxy Pro packs a GPS receiver, which got a satellite lock in about five minutes with A-GPS turned off. A-GPS can speed this up quite a bit, but requires Internet access.
Google Maps is on board, complete with Navigation, which can do voice-guidance for free. Availability is still limited though, and it relies on Internet connection.
Still, even without Navigation, there is some kind of guidance: your route and current location appear on the screen so you’ll reach your destination eventually, but you’ll need a co-pilot to read you the instructions for that one.
