First impressions

From what we can tell at this stage, whether or not you like the Galaxy Grand boils down to your preferences for screen size and your need for a second SIM slot. If you must have a 5 inch screen and you don't want to pay the extra premium for a flagship device or you need a large screen smartphone with two slots, then the Grand makes a strong case for itself.

Keep in mind though, that size aside, the display may leave you somewhat wanting. While its image quality is not bad, it's far from top notch either. The contrast is decent if unspectacular, but more importantly, the WVGA resolution gets stretched pretty thin at this size.

Samsung's original foray into the phablet realm, the Galaxy Note, offers all you'll get with the Grand (besides the dual-SIM support), and then some. You larger, crisper Super AMOLED display of 800 x 1280 pixels resolution, which is covered with Gorilla Glass to boot. Keep in mind that the Note, even after all the price cuts, is still notably more expensive than the Galaxy Grand will be at launch.

Stock gallery with a pinch of TouchWiz :~

• The Samsung Galaxy Grand comes with the default Jelly Bean Gallery which, as you'd imagine, has been treated with some additional TouchWiz flair. It opens up in Album view, which is what we're used to seeing. Rather than the familiar stacks, the app uses a grid of photos, two on a line.
• Besides Album view, photos can also be sorted by Location, Time, Person (photos with tagged faces) and Group.
• The Gallery app
• Getting inside an album displays all the photos in a rectangular grid, which is horizontally scrollable. When you try to scroll past the end, the photo thumbnails will tilt to remind you you're at the bottom of the list.
• When viewing a single photo, you'll find several sharing shortcuts and a delete button above the photo, while below is a line of small thumbnails of all other photos in the album. You can tap those small thumbnails to move to other images or you can just swipe sideways.
• Viewing a single photo • Simple editing options
• The Gallery also supports highly customizable slideshows with several effects to choose from, as well as customizable music and speed. You can also highlight specific images to be included in the slideshow.
• When viewing a photo with people's faces in it, the Galaxy Grand will try to detect them automatically (and you can manually highlight faces where it fails). Buddy photo share will use your contacts' profiles to try and recognize people automatically.

• Very capable video player

• Samsung has gradually become one of the best around when it comes to video playback, and the Galaxy Grand is no exception. It offers several view modes - grid, list, folders and nearby devices (which accesses DLNA devices).
• The grid view shows static video thumbnails (unlike the handset's more powerful siblings, which animate the thumbnails).
• The video player on the Grand does feature Pop up play - it moves the video in a small floating window and you can use other apps on the phone with the video on. You can pinch-zoom the video window to adjust its size.
  

Nature UX goes dual-SIM.......

The Samsung Galaxy Grand runs Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean out of box, skinned with the latest TouchWiz launcher, dubbed Nature UX. Its user interface is basically identical to that of the Galaxy S III mini and S II Plus, which is hardly a surprise given that the two share the Grand's Android version and screen resolution.

Beyond the obvious benefits to the user experience compared to stock Android, a clearly midrange handset takes advantage of the same premium combination that powers the Galaxy S III and the Galaxy Note II.

The lockscreen is a standard "tap and drag in any direction to unlock" affair and there're ripples accompanied by water-drop sound as you drag your finger. There are a number of additional unlock routines provided also - motion, face and voice among them.

There're three customizable lockscreen shortcuts, and you can drag one to activate the corresponding app. That there are only three is rather odd since on the Galaxy S III there are five, and it has a smaller (albeit higher resolution) screen.

• The dock at the bottom of the homescreen fits five custom shortcuts. The rightmost one always opens the app drawer, but the other four can be set to any shortcut or even a folder.
• As usual, you can pinch to zoom out and manage homescreen panes - add, delete or just reorder them. You can have 7 panes at most, which are enough to fit plenty of content even if you use widgets that cover an entire pane.
• The notification area is quite feature-rich and offers quick toggles for Wi-Fi, GPS, Silent mode, Screen rotation, Bluetooth. You can swipe to the side to get even more: Mobile data, Blocking mode, Power saving and even Multi-Window support.
• Below the toggles is the brightness slider, complete with an automatic mode checkbox. There are also a couple of other useful things like the Settings shortcut in the upper right corner, the time/date to its left and the carrier name at the bottom.
• This being Jelly Bean, you get expandable notifications to get more info. You can expand and collapse them with a two-finger swipe and the top one is expanded by default (if the app that put up the notification supports it, of course).
• The app drawer accommodates both app shortcuts and widgets. Unlike stock Android, you cannot move between tabs by swipes - you have to explicitly hit the widget tab. Some will find this more logical (scrolling past the available apps to find yourself in the widgets takes some getting used to).
• Using pinch-to-zoom reveals an overview of the pages and lets you rearrange them, but you can't create new ones. Hitting the menu key reveals some more options, including hiding apps or enabling tap-to-uninstall mode.
  

 

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Samsung I9082 Galaxy Grand 360-degree spin

As expected, the Samsung Galaxy Grand is not the most compact device you can find. At 143.5 x 76.9 x 9.6mm, it isn't the thinnest 5 incher we've seen either, but it does hold decently well in-hand, and we're happy that Samsung managed to keep the thickness below 10mm.

Weight-wise, the scales tip at 162g, which is relatively good for a device this size.

Design and build quality :~

The design takes after the design scheme first introduced with the Galaxy S III, and the large screen size means you'll have a hard time telling the device apart from, say, the Galaxy  grand mobile.

The Galaxy Grand features a similar paintjob as what you'll see on the other post-Galaxy S III Samsung devices, but it uses a slightly different and somewhat more slippery to the touch plastic. It also doesn't look quite as nice as the Galaxy Note II plastic, so we assume Samsung employed it as some sort of cost-cutting measure.

Display

The Samsung Galaxy Grand uses a 5" capacitive touchscreen display of 480 x 800 pixels resolution. One huge knock against stretching such a low resolution along this much screen estate is the pretty low pixel density - 187 ppi to be exact.

Galaxy Grand Quattro

• Samsung†s newest Galaxy Grand Quattro delivers a winning mobile featuring powerful performance, smart multi-tasking and enhanced usability! Make no comprise with your mobile experience. With the 1.2Hz Quad-Core CPU, enhanced multi-tasking abilities, motion commands, Dual SIM and more, this mobile offers mobility at the top of its class. Samsung†s smartpones have just gotten a whole lot smarter!

• 11.9cms Large display is a great showcase, especially for photos and movies
• 1.2GHz Quad-Core CPU offers advanced computing power to handle all your applications, multitasking and more....
• Enjoy features such as Continuous Shot, Best Photo, Colour Effect and Scene Mode for enhanced photo-taking on the 5MP Camera....
• Easy Mode helps you access key functions such as favourite contacts, apps, dialer, etc on the homescreen with ease.
• Simple motions over are understood, enabling you to perform common actions sampling by shaking the mobile (to update contents), turning it over (to instantly mute).
• Smart Alert informs you of missed events when you pick up the phone again.........
• Samsung Apps introduces you to a variety of e-books, games, news, navigation, productivity, social networking apps, etc. with easy billing options, try before you buy service, vouchers for discounted prices, and more....

Set Your Sights on a Stunning Picture.......

If you use your smartphone to play games, watch movies and browse photos, you know how important image quality is as well as a great viewing angle. Super AMOLED screens not only have a 180 degree viewing angle, they are brilliant—20% brighter and noticeably clearer than a typical AMOLED screen. With this type of screen colours really pop thanks to colour reproduction that’s 30% better than LCD screens. The high resolution WVGA (800 x 480) display in the Samsung Galaxy Grand, delivers sharper, clearer images on an extra-large 4” screen.

If you’re a fan of sharing your screen with friends, then a wide 180 degree viewing angle is ideal. You can hold the smartphone’s display at eye level and see the screen's images without blurring or distortion. The screen looks like it should regardless of whether you're looking at it from the sides, top, bottom, or front so sharing videos and photos with people around you is easier.


Get a Longer Battery Life

A phone that runs out of power quickly can be frustrating. A brighter screen might mean more power consumption in some phones with LCD displays, but Super AMOLED screens like the one found in the Samsung Galaxy   series, actually save battery life. Each pixel is its own light source, so black pixels aren’t lit, and use no energy. You get better contrast, lower power consumption and 20% more battery life than conventional screens. Watch movies and play music longer, and shoot continuous video without having to stop and recharge.

How Does a Mobile Network Work?

Definition:

A mobile network, also referred to as a cellular network, employs the use of radio frequencies that can be used simultaneously by several callers at one and the same time. Cell-sites and mobile devices manipulate the frequency, so that they can make use of low-power transmitters to supply their services with the least possible interference. 

Galaxy Grand: A New Era in AMOLED Technology

What good is having a smartphone if your screen fades in sunlight—or if you can’t see a great picture on an angle? The type of screen you have affects your experience. A Super AMOLED screen is an entirely new way to experience the content you like glare-free screen and with brilliant images.