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Launched 2009 and 2010
12th March 2013
With all the buzz about the forthcoming Samsung Galaxy S IV this
week, it's easy to forget where this all started. We take a
look at some of Samsung's first forays into the Android market.
 Samsung
Galaxy I7500
These days there seem to be dozens of Samsung Galaxy devices
with a variety of names like the Note,
S,
Mini,
Tab,
Xcover
and so on. But in the beginning was the plain old Samsung
Galaxy (model number SGH-I7500) which came before any of
them.
Viewed from 2013, the 2009 era Samsung Galaxy is a bit of a shock
to look at. Modelled after traditional
Samsung designs the
Galaxy featured a 3.2" display on the front and a very large
set of physical buttons. The display is a pretty basic 320 x 480
pixel panel, inside is a 528MHz CPU with just 128MB of RAM. On the
back is a 5 megapixel camera, and as with almost all Android devices
the Galaxy had 3.5G support, WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity plus
GPS.
The specifications may seem primitive, but they were roughly
comparable with the Apple
iPhone 3G that it was competing with. The operating system
was Android 1.5 with an update in some regions to Android 1.6 (unofficial
updates to 2.3
exist), but the Galaxy become obsolete pretty quickly and it was
replaced by the Samsung
Galaxy Spica later in the year.
 Samsung
Galaxy S I9000
Samsung's first generation of Android devices were a bit quirky
and not hugely successful. But all of that changed in March
2010 with the announcement of the Samsung
Galaxy S (model SGH-I9000) which introduced the high-end
Galaxy S line.. and also kicked off a massive legal row with Apple.
A black slabby phone with an overall design that certainly wasn't
a million miles away from the iPhone
3GS, the Galaxy S sported a 4" 480 x 800 pixel display,
a 1GHz CPU with 512MB of RAM, a 5 megapixel camera plus many other
features that were relatively groundbreaking such as Gorilla Glass
and a dedicated GPU. There exist many different variants of the
Galaxy S including a slider version and one supporting the now-obsolete
4G WiMAX system.
The operating system out of the box was Android 2.1 with the
Samsung TouchWiz interface on top, with an official upgrade to Android
2.3 available plus some unofficial
upgrades to Android 4.2. The Galaxy S was a sales success
with a reported 24 million units shipping worldwide, and it establish
a successful series of devices including the Galaxy
S II, Galaxy
S III and also the Nexus
S.
The difference between the two devices (released just one
year apart) is significant - the original Galaxy would be unusable
by today's standards, but there are still many handsets on the market
with a specification similar to the Galaxy S. The latest version
- the Galaxy S IV - promises to be another major step forward
and has already generated significant (and free) media coverage
for Samsung before its official announcement. Over 100 million
Galaxy S handsets have been sold since launch - and with the latest
generation we suspect that 200 million sales will not be far off!
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