Samsung Galaxy Ace user reviews

iAMkRy10 23 November 2011

Good: Looks nice, good price, Samsung phones are known to last for ages

Bad: Battery life is not as good as other phones

Comment: I'm goting to make a move from a HTC Wildfire to this. The only 2 things that has put me off is that my friend has one and it keeps crashing on him when he turns it on and the battery life is not as good as the one in my HTC

FredF1994 22 November 2011

Comment: sticking with the camera, i changed the settings to +2 contrast and clicked save. but when i close it and re-open it, it goes back to the default..... does the update cure that if i can get it?

FredF1994 22 November 2011

Bad: no proxy authentication

Comment: continuing from where i left off, i tried to connect to my college wifi but the phone had no username and password authentication settings, so had to download an app. twas only 40kb big but still, i believe samsung should have included that in the first place!

battery life seems to be ok for me - still have to charge every day but i only mainly wanted it to blend in and to use facebook and twitter.... lol

camera seems fine - probably could have done with 720p...

oh and my mate who has the samsung galaxy w says he has android 2.3.5 gingerbread on his.... i tried to update mine using the software update app built in to the phone but it said nothing was available....

and finally (i think) i tried setting a custom background but it only showed half of what i selected.... but then i only have one homescreen atm so im wondering if that will change... if not, someone help me on that please :)

FredF1994 22 November 2011

Bad: mp3s sounding bad through headphones

Comment: i've just joined CNET so bare with me... lol
i got this phone 2 days ago and i love it! it does everything i want it to :)
the only thing that's annoying me is the quality of mp3's played through headphones.... ive tried with the crappy ones that came in the box and my panasonic on ear's, and with bass heavy music, the speakers seem to vibrate a lot, but with aac files, they're fine. for those who might know why im having trouble with mp3 files, bit rates i use are 128 and 256 - both having the same effect....

Maria Lincoln 10 November 2011

Good: Camera, Apps, Firmware, Navigation

Bad: no Flash availability so cannot watch bbc iplayer

Comment: I might be getting this one for Christmas as my main present, i like Samsung, my current phone is this make but is the Samsung chat which i would recommend to anyone!!

mrs angry 30 October 2011

Good: nothing

Bad: everything

Comment: got this on contract from virgin - the first one arrived, I charged it as instructed, turned it on and got the blue screen of death, then had to wait 2 days for the replacement to arrive. No 2 arrived, I charged it, turned it on and got the blue screen of death. 2 brand new phones, but totally unusable, and useless. 24 hours electricity wasted charging them for nothing. It also comes with the most useless hand/guide book I have ever seen. I am disgusted with this phone and have now changed to a blackberry, which worked first time with no problems. Will NEVER touch samsung again.

Samsunggg 21 October 2011

Good: Features

Bad: Battery Life... But!

Comment: Up the top it says this phone is cheap... that depends what you call £150+ these days...
I love the phones features, and all the android apps. The phone does lag at times but not too much.
The battery life is bad, but there are apps you can download and its saves alot! of energy.

AndyP000 9 October 2011

Good: Good size, light and uses Android 2.3

Bad: Random failures of wifi connection, phone connection, failure of software to minimuze battery use

Comment: This phone had the potential to be the perfect mid range smart phone.
However, I had to send the first phone back because it suffered from the screen of death where the phone doesn't come back from idle - and to any callers, appears as if it is off.
My second phone has suffered from a number of problems
- fails to sleep properly, and fails to stop using wifi, so uses battery too fast
- for no apparent reason, ran the battery flat in about 10 hours (mostly overnight) - normally lasts 1.5 days for my normal use - power cycled to sort it out
- told me there was no phone signal - power cycled to sort it out
Another niggle is that using the video in a reasonably lit indoors scene gives an image that is almost too dark to see. I have to play them back on a PC using vlc with some gamma.
Oh - and another one i that the Samsung Apps tells me that there is an app that I have never downloaded or used needs updating.... I had to download it and then delete it to get rid of the update notification... bizzare!
I can - just about- put up with these niggles. Not sure what a less technically literate or patient person would feel about these issues.

William LX 6 October 2011

Good: Features

Bad: Battery Life

Comment: If you do any google search for Android or iPhone reviews you will see loads of very aggressive Android rules and iPhone is bad reviews. I am reviewing the Galaxy Ace as someone who has experience of iOS on the iPod Touch and iPad and whose wife uses an iPhone 4. My son really wanted an iPhone like his mothers. but there was no way I was going to pay a premium monthly contract to get an iPhone 4 at anything like a reasonable price and was taken aback that even the 3Gs would cost money with a mid priced monthly contract on Three. The Galaxy Ace was free on a cheap contract and so I opted to get him this phone. It was a good buy as he is delighted with it. However having played with it, I have to say that I would not want to get one for myself (I will get an iPhone 4 or 4S later this month when I am due an upgrade). Everything you need to do in Android is just that bit less straight forward than for the Apple iOS devices. For example there are two levels of menu for your apps, and it took some time and fiddling to work out how to get newly installed apps from the second level (accessed by first pressing a menu 'button') to the front more iOS style level. Then you are forced to set up a Gmail address before you can set it up to use your existing email or buy apps from the Android market. Another big let down is the on screen keyboard for typing. In comparison with my iPod Touch (same size same resolution) or my wife's iPhone 4 (same size much higher resolution) my typing rate on the Ace is slow because it seems to produce miss hits at about 10x the rate of either the iPod Touch or the iPhone 4. Then comes the Android Market. Using this is awful compared with the Apple App store (even as accessed via the phone rather than iTunes on your PC). It is much harder to find decent apps and I always seem to have to try several times to get them to download on the Ace. Also for some reason Apps will only download when using WIFI. Just will not work over 3G. Another Android problem is that while many apps are free, you get very irritating adverts. Angry birds is ruined by this. I would have preferred to pay as you do for the iOS version than have have the game picture obscured periodically with adverts for dodgy services.

The Galaxy Ace has an 800Mhz processor which should make it faster than my iPod Touch. However Android seems sluggish on the Ace compared with iOS4 on the Touch (even though my Touch is a 3rd gen model that was designed for iOS3 and has I think a 600Mhz processor). Angry Birds loads in about a quarter of the time on the Touch compared with the Ace. Finally the biggest weakness compared with an iPhone is the battery. My son has to charge the Ace every day, and even then if he actually uses it to play angry birds it will be fully drained by the evening. With the screen set to a reasonable brightness, and Wifi turned on his battery lasts 6 hours! My wife has Wifi and bluetooth (for her cars hands free) switched on at all times with her iPhone 4 and gets 2 to 3 days on a charge. Now I know he uses his battery with Angry Birds etc, but still I would expect 1-2 days which he never gets even with light use.

There is an issue with phone calls. It is very easy to lose the key pad when making a call, which means you lose the hang up button. Twice when making a call on this phone I have been forced to actually turn it off to terminate the call!

I know I sound quite negative but given its price this phone has many great features, it is easily better that way than my BlackBerry Curve, however the poor battery severely limits its practicality and Android is still very rough compared with iOS. In fact I would rate Android as being closer to Nokia's old Symbian OS than to iOS (I have used 4 Symbian based Nokia smart phones before getting my current BlackBerry). Oh I should mention that Android fans always go on and on and on about Flash and the lack of it in iOS, well the Ace does not support Flash (which I would imagine is also the case for the majority of Android phones). If you want flash you would need to get a higher spec phone as it seems only the premium models like the Galaxy SII seem to support flash, which is strange given that 4 years ago my Nokia N95 (symbian)had flash support in its browser.

Kanacho 28 September 2011

Good: this phones is an all - rounder in terms of what it can offer

Bad: video recording could be better

Comment: i bought this phone after giving back the samsung galaxy s 2, this was mainly to do with the fact that i could not sleep at night knowing the price i paid for the phone and that the battery life was around 2 hours. this samsung galaxy ace is a great phone and the price is great for what it can offer too. at first i did not like this phone but then i realised that it is great for me as i don't have a big budget. this phone is great for using the internet and doing everyday things. however the recording is ... sh*t compared to others but dont let that get you down... unless recoding lifes moments is your thing... then i suggest looking elseware. this is great for everyday use.