Abdul Moiz (May 8, 2014)
on Gadgets 360
With the Galaxy Chat, Samsung proves that it too can make good-looking phones. We were nicely surprised by the device's stylish looks, as well as solid feel. Of course, it's all plastic, but this phone somehow manages to feel more reliable than something supposedly more premium like the Galaxy S III, for example.The screen is one of the weakest aspects of the Samsung Galaxy Chat, not because of its relatively small size, but because of its low resolution. The panel measures 3 inches, but its resolution is only 240x320 pixels, resulting in a pixel density of 133 ppi. Needless to say, this display doesn't look very good, and reading is quite difficult with it. Viewing angles are also poor, and so is outdoor visibility. But after all, it's an entry-level model, which has to be easy on the budget, and such compromises are unavoidable if the manufacturer wants to hit a very low price-point.
Besides the physical QWERTY keyboard, you can also use the on screen one, which, as you might guess, isn't as comfortable, especially on that 3? display. Still, it's not that bad and is definitely usable, though we really can't think of a reason why one might choose to side with it. The physical QWERTY will offer you a quite decent input experience, plus it won't take up space on your screen
With such a low-resolution screen, it should be no surprise that the browsing experience is lacking. The stock browser is quite slow, due to the 850MHz single-core processor, but that is easily fixed by installing a third-party one like Firefox, Opera or Chrome. The trouble is that reading the text on web pages is a real pain, considering the unclear and pixelized letters.
The Galaxy Chat comes with a basic 2MP snapper. Still on this part? OK, so it also has a bunch of settings which are also present with pretty much every other Samsung smartphone. No surprises here.
The pictures themselves aren't pretty. Colors are dull and everything is quite blurred. It's good to know that it's there, but otherwise we can't imagine that many users will be ?taking advantage? of this camera.Video is captured at 320x240 and 15fps, and, as you might expect, it's very hard to look at. In our opinion, Samsung should have included at least a 3.2MP shooter in this phone.
The TouchWiz music player is easy to use and pleasing to the eye (as much as the QVGA screen allows it to be). It comes with the mandatory EQ presets and the ability to set a custom EQ, but that's not all. There are also a few additional options, which allow you to add Reverb, Room Size and Clarity effects to your tunes..
The handset easily plays MPEG-4 video at resolutions that are higher than its native one . However, in order to play other codecs like DivX or Xvid, you'll have to install a third-party player like MX Player.
the Galaxy Chat is a fine piece of equipment for those of you who want an affordable and good-looking smartphone, and/or those who are really into physical QWERTY keyboards. But you get what you pay for.
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