Once a pleasure reserved for high-end smart phones, we're increasingly seeing Google's Android operating system trickling down to more reasonably priced handsets. Samsung has well and truly embraced the Android platform, and now we're treated to this -- the Samsung Galaxy Europa GT-i5500. It's yours for around £180 SIM-free, £150 on pay as you go, or free for as little as £10 per month.
Build quality and design
Let's start with the look and feel of this Android-toting phone. Measuring 56 by 108 by 12.3 mm, it's reasonably slender, though at 102g it has a pleasing amount of weight to it. Build quality seems sturdy enough -- it certainly hasn't been precision-machined from a solid block of granite, but it didn't feel like it was about to hopelessly fall apart.
On the Europa's face, you'll find a five-way navigation key, 'call' and 'call end' buttons, and two rocker buttons on either side with 'menu', 'home', 'back' and 'search' functions represented. Around the edges, you'll find mechanical volume keys, a covered mini-USB port for hooking the Europa up to a PC, and a 3.5mm socket on top of the phone, where your headphones plug in.
We know not to expect the greatest of displays from mid-range mobiles, but this 2.8-inch panel ain't half bad. It has a resolution of 240x320 pixels, which isn't great, and you'll have to zoom in to make out text on Web pages. On the plus side, it's quite bright and colours are rendered vividly. This is a capacitive screen, which is a huge relief -- capacitive screens generally make for much more precise use, which is essential on smaller displays such as this one.
Using the Europa is extremely enjoyable. This enjoyment is due, in part, to the capacitive touchscreen, which allows for precise and sensitive command over the mobile's interface, and partly due to the Android 2.1 operating system this phone runs.
Android software
While 2.1 isn't the most recent version of Google's mobile OS (2.2 at the time of writing), this operating system still feels fresh. In case you're new to the whole Android thing, it's a pretty simplistic but surprisingly powerful system. You'll get five home screens, which you can scroll between with a swipe of your finger. These are populated with widgets, or shortcuts to apps you frequently use. All entirely customisable, you can drag-and-drop these widgets around to your heart's content.
There's a more detailed menu, which can be called up by tapping an icon at the bottom of the screen. You'll have access to the Android Market app store so you can load up your phone with software, games and useful apps like Spotify. The whole interface is impressively nippy -- we often find mid-range mobiles acting sluggish, but swiping and scrolling through the Europa's various menus was impressively smooth and fast.
Web connectivity
The Europa is a really nifty little Web phone, thanks to 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity. The Web browser on board works well, though, as noted, you'll be doing loads of zooming in to read text on sites that don't have mobile versions. Still, with access to apps, and with maps and navigation software pre-installed, this is a mobile with real Web potential.
It's worth noting there's no multi-touch support here, so you won't get the pinch-to-zoom functionality when viewing maps and Web pages that you'll find on devices like the iPhone or HTC Desire. Another issue is a lack of Flash support, meaning many online videos will be out of your reach.
There's a 2-megapixel camera on the back of the Europa, but it's a little uninspiring and the shots it takes are quite naff. It'll serve you just fine, however, if you're more concerned with grabbing a quick and dirty snapshot than producing glorious landscape photos. The same goes for the on-board camcorder -- the footage we recorded was pretty shaky and a little blurry. Still, the camera software is fairly intuitive, so that's something.
Battery life
As for battery life, expect the juice to dwindle more swiftly if you're making frequent use of the phone's 3G capabilities -- downloading data like that tends to put strain on the phone's power reserves.
Conclusion
The Samsung Galaxy Europa GT-i5500 is a fairly unassuming mobile. To look at it, you wouldn't guess that it's running a powerful OS, or that it offers better connectivity than most mobiles in its price range. It won't be troubling high-end smart phones, but for the money, this is a great little mobile capable of delivering your Web-based kicks on the move.
If you're not fussed about all the features of Android and fancy saving yourself a few quid, check out the Samsung Monte.
Edited by Emma Bayly
Android App 
RSS Feeds 
iPhone App 
Newsletters
User reviews56
Add your review
sonymad 5 May 2012
Good: Reponsive screen Good battery life Decent included apps Good Twitter and Facebook integration Unobtrusive Android skinning
Bad: Too many buttons Screen too small for media rich activities Camera could be better No QWERTY keyboard in portrait mode Measly 1GB microSD card supplied
Comment: The Galaxy Europa i5500 is another small format Android handset, running Android 2.1 but also packing in a much more pocket-friendly price.
You can get it on deals from £10 a month, and SIM free we found it for £186.83 inc VAT at online retailers such as Clove.
This means the Galaxy Europa is a notch up the food chain from the ultra low cost Alcatel OT-980, and closer in price to the LG Optimus GT540.
So, all other things being equal it ought to be better than the former and close to the latter. In fact, we'd say it is rather better than both those offerings.
It has the Android necessities of Wi-Fi, 3G and GPS on board and there is 140MB of user memory, plus a 1GB microSD card in the box.
The build has a weird asymmetrical design that makes the phone look fatter at the top than at the bottom when viewed edge on.
That's an optical illusion created by the fact that there is a silvery edging to the handset that sits at a non-uniform angle. It forms the whole of the top plate, then slants along the edges so that it can form a lip on the bottom front of the handset. Clever, but not rocket science, really.
The actual dimensions are 56 x 108 x 12.3mm, and the handset is not thinner at one end than the other.
The plastic build materials mean the Samsung Galaxy Europa i5500 is quite light at just 102g, but the plastic doesn't feel shoddy. We doubt the Samsung Galaxy Europa i5500 will survive to many falls from a great height, but the odd drop from a table top ought not to cause it any real harm.
The shiny black backplate is a fingerprint magnet, and we aren't sure we need the 'with Google' reminder on the backplate.
The front fascia is positively riddled with buttons and the area in which they sit looks cramped, though actually using the buttons did not feel especially squeezed.
We are never really sure you need Call and End buttons on an Android handset and in this case there is a shortcut to the dialler hardwired to every main screen. At least the End button doubles as the off switch.
There's a nice sized D-pad which, like Call and End buttons, can feel redundant on a handset with a touch screen, though we can see why some people might like to use one from time to time.
Samsung has also found room for two extra buttons – one offering the Android Menu and Home functions, the other giving you Back and Search functions. There are very slightly concave, which helps with ease of use.
Samsung hasn't gone overboard with side buttons and connectors. There's a 3.5mm headset connector on the top edge, nothing on the right or bottom, and on the left a volume rocker and microUSB power connector.Samsung has skinned Android 2.1 so that while things look pretty familiar, there are plenty of tweaks on offer to play with joyfully thanks to the TouchWiz 3.0 overlay from the Koreans.
There are seven home screens, ready for you to populate with links to apps, widgets and shortcuts. The main home screen is the one you get to when you press the Home button, and oddly it is the one on the far left of the sequence - much like the Samsung Galaxy S.
That means a lot of screen sweeping to get to the far reaches of home screen number 7. We prefer the main home screen to be in the middle of the group.
At the bottom of each home screen is an array of three icons. One calls up the dialler, one takes you to contacts, and the central one drops you into the main applications menu.The Samsung Galaxy Europa i5500 has the usual high quality Android web browser on board. The 2.8 inch screen and 240x320 pixel resolution do both mean that it is not always easy to see much of a web site when you go to its home page though, and text can be grainy and blurred. For web browsing we are fans of much larger and higher resolution screens.
Sadly a capacitive screen's usual treat of pinch to zoom is not implemented, so you have to do the rather more irritating double tap to zoom or use the on screen zoom button. This makes web browsing a rather less rewarding experience than it is on handsets that do support pinch to zoom.
But at least zooming is a reasonably smooth affair, and the Android browser understands about text reflow so that you don't have to scroll back and forth like a mad thing to read a page.
There is a YouTube client pre-installed, making it easy to get to your favourite video clips, and video streaming was very smooth.
Even the relatively slow 600MHz processor on board the Samsung Galaxy Europa i5500 didn't seem to be a problem, and we did a fair amount of YouTubing over Wi-Fi during the course of testing this phone.
As we mentioned earlier, if you are web browsing or otherwise using the internet over 3G and suddenly decide you'd rather switch to Wi-Fi, you can just pull down the notifications area and turn Wi-Fi on.
This only works if you are in a Wi-Fi zone you've used before, though. If you need to log in for the first time you'll need to take the old-fashioned route and use the Android settings area to log on.
That's a pity – we'd have liked a link right through to where the Wi-Fi settings are from this nifty little shortcut.
jaisonrincon 4 May 2012
Good: es un gran equipo es un android muy bueno
Bad: tienes muchas funciones
Comment: me gustaria saber como hacer la configuracion de calendario entre otras cosas gracias...
PeterXD 2 May 2012
Good: I've had it for around six months and so far it has survived. It is a great music player and I have a ton of apps on it. It has a really nice looking screen and the touchscreen feels great. I would recogment this for people that want a phone that can perform for a cheap price. Also, i dont know why so many people are going on about the battery, its alright.
Bad: can be a bit slow at times, (takes around 5 seconds for apps tom load up and sometimes crashes, making you close the app) Also no flash or multitough and some games are not support6ed or run really slowly. Its not really a gaming phone.
Comment: I recogmend it.
See all 56 user reviews