Samsung Galaxy Gio

i've had this phone for 4 months now. It's decent. Its running gingerbread fine. I can run any app the fancy expensive ones can. It was $80 on sale at bestbuy as a pay as you go phone, and i just got the bell dude to put my remaining contract on to it, no extention, easy peasy. Totally worth it. Regular it's $150, or obviously free with a contract.

It does everything a smartphone can do, but slower. Not much slower, mind you. It's obviously limited in power and ram, I can't have maps running along with a browser and expect swype to work smoothly if i switch over to texting someone. So just don't make it do too much at once, and you're fine.

it's super small, which is good and bad (good, obvious. bad means smaller screen size for browsing the web, so a lot of scrolling needed).

it can occasionally get glitchy, freezing up and such, but that likely has to do more with running out of ram from too many apps open or an app attempting to do something fancy. by "occasionally" i mean it happened maybe 3 times in the past 4 months, and i use it a lot.

battery, lasts about 3 to 4 days with just occasional light texting, 1 day with heavy browser use and calling.

camera is better than those old school cams, but still looks like a "cell phone pic". It does have some decent presets that let you take pics at night, or of neon signs clearly, or other odd things.

great phone if you want a smartphone but don't want to extend a contract by getting a fancy expensive one at discount. instead just pay for this outright and ride it out.

Overall, we were quite satisfied with the Samsung Galaxy Gio. It has a pleasant design with tapered edges and rounded corners that make it comfortable to hold and operate with one hand, plus it is very light – you can slip it in any pocket, and forget it's there.

The quality of the photos taken with the 3MP camera was a nice surprise, even on the dark, rainy day when we were shooting the samples – the colors are saturated, the sensor catches good amount of detail, and the camera focuses well even if you don't hold the phone extremely steady.

One relative disappointment is the lack of full Adobe Flash support in the browser of the Samsung Galaxy Gio. We don't know if Samsung left it out so as it doesn't bog down performance and battery life, or just that this 800MHz chipset doesn't have the instructions to support it, but it takes away from the true Android 2.2 Froyo experience.

Other than that the interface runs slick, the LCD screen is very good, and you have a plethora of connectivity options with the Samsung Galaxy Gio - what's not to like here, considering the price range.

If you are looking for alternatives that support Adobe Flash, you will have to chip in for something more powerful like the Samsung Galaxy S. If you want to stay on the same level, but prefer soft-touch plastic and chromed accents, the LG Optimus One was a huge hit, and shares the specs of the Samsung Galaxy Gio, albeit with a slower processor.

Read original review at PhoneArena.

The Samsung Galaxy Gio S5660 is one notch down the ranks compared to the Galaxy Ace but has a sensible feature set backed up by good build and simple design that will appeal to many. Your average Android phone – simple and reliable, up for grabs for budget upgraders and smartphone beginners.

Read original review at GSMArena.