Review-Samsung Galaxy Y: Feature-rich, Yet Affordable

Operating System: Android Gingerbread 2.3.5

Despite its wallet-friendly price tag, Galaxy Y comes standard with the Android “Gingerbread” (ver. 2.4.5) operating system. This is very nice indeed, since even more expensive models aren’t always equipped with that version of the OS. The Gingerbread should be able to maximize processing capabilities, resulting in more responsive operations.
By default, Samsung Galaxy Y provides three home screens, with the first one being your primary content-holder. If needed, you can add some more screens.

On the bottom of the screen you will see four soft buttons (icons). The leftmost icon is used to make a call, the “contact” and “sms” buttons are right next to it, while the “home screen” button that will take you to the main menu is on the rightmost side.

Display: 3-inch, Capacitive touchscreen

Given its relatively affordable price, the inclusion of a capacitive touchscreen on the Galaxy Y is well worth mentioning. The screen feels very responsive when we attempted to navigate through the menus. It supports two-touch multi-gesture input, and we didn’t notice any sensitivity problem during our test. You can easily play touch-sensitive games such as seperti Guitar Heroes, Fruit Ninja, and Angry Birds. No lagging was observed as we tap, swipe, and move our fingers around the screen in those titles. However, the 3-inch size did feel a bit restricting when we play some other games. We recommend replacing the “virtual keyboard” buttons layout with the “virtual keypad” for more flexible typing.

Camera

As with most other modern smartphones, Galaxy Y comes with a camera. It is a 2-megapixel unit without auto-focus, which is quite standard these days. Although it may not be good enough for serious use, the camera is actually able to produce fairly good results under ideal condition (lighting).

Indoor shots are not too bad either, given proper lighting of course.