Home-Word-Mobile operating system bada. History of the development of mobile operating systems: Samsung Bada

Mobile operating system bada. History of the development of mobile operating systems: Samsung Bada

Samsung Wave (S8500)

The first phone based on bada mobile OS - Samsung Wave (S8500) - became a real hit in its time due to its excellent design, excellent technical characteristics and low price. Wave II (S8530) was a minor update, differing from the first Wave only in the screen and slightly changed design. Wave 3 brought with it not only a new version of the bada operating system, but also an updated hardware platform. But is this enough to survive in a world of green robots and predatory fruits?

Specifications Samsung Wave 3 (S8600)

While the original Wave and Wave II were equipped with a Samsung Hummingbird processor, Wave 3 uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8225-T chip with a clock speed of 1.4 GHz. In a sense, this can be considered a step back, since the Adreno 205 video core used in this chipset is significantly inferior to the PowerVR SGX540 graphics in the S8500 and S8530. Otherwise, the technical characteristics of the new product are close to previous models.

  • Ranges: GPRS/GSM/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900, UMTS/HSPA 900/2100.
  • Form factor: keyboardless monoblock.
  • Operating system: Samsung bada 2.0 with TouchWiz 4 interface.
  • Display: 4 inches, Super AMOLED, 480x800 pixels, 16 million colors, touchscreen (capacitive matrix).
  • Camera: 5 MP, autofocus, geotagging, LED backlight, video recording (1280x720/30p).
  • CPU: Qualcomm MSM8225 based on ARM Cortex A8 core, clock frequency 1.4 GHz; integrated video accelerator Adreno 205.
  • Memory: 3 GB + microSDHC cards.
  • Multimedia capabilities: MP3 player, FM receiver, video player (supports MPEG-4, Divx, Xvid, H.264), video editor, integration with YouTube, Find Music service (analogous to Track ID in Sony Ericsson phones).
  • Wireless technologies: Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0 HS.
  • Interface connector: microUSB, 3.5 mm headphone output.
  • GPS: yes, A-GPS support, Google Maps support, Samsung LBS navigation app (Route 66 based).
  • Dimensions and weight: 126x64x10 mm, 122 grams.

Appearance and design features

In terms of design, Samsung Wave 3 is close to previous models in the Wave line. As before, its body is made of metal, the screen is covered with protective glass Gorilla Glass with an oleophobic coating that makes it easier to clean from fingerprints.

Thanks to the use of a 4-inch screen, the phone has noticeably increased in size compared to the first Wave. In general, in terms of dimensions, it is now close to the Galaxy S II, which is equipped with a larger diagonal screen (4.3 inches). From an ergonomic point of view, Wave 3 is a step back compared to Wave - the call and end call buttons have become touch-sensitive, the camera button has disappeared, and the headphone and data cable jacks have moved to the bottom edge of the case.

Interestingly, the device does not have a removable back cover. Instead, the chassis with all its contents slides out of a metal casing on a sled, revealing access to the battery and slots for a SIM card and microSD memory card. To access the slots, you need to remove the battery, so you can forget about hot-swapping memory cards.

Screen

Wave 3 uses a 4-inch Super AMOLED matrix with a resolution of 480x800 pixels. This screen belongs to the first generation of Super AMOLED and differs from the screen in the Galaxy S II in the arrangement of subpixels according to the PenTile scheme.


Subpixel arrangement: left - regular (RGB), right - PenTile (RGBG)

In practice, this means that the actual screen resolution is noticeably lower than stated. PenTile screens display text and other small image elements noticeably worse, as can be seen in the photographs below.


Galaxy S II


Wave 3


Galaxy S II


Wave 3

Please note that the Wave 3 screen looks blatantly green in the photos. Another problem with such displays is the very rough rendering of smooth gradients, which is clearly noticeable when viewing photos and videos.

Software

Samsung Wave 3 runs on the bada operating system version 2.0. We will prepare a separate material on this OS, but now we can confidently say that only very inexperienced people can call bada phones smartphones. In the year and a half that has passed since the release of the first Wave, neither Skype, nor WhatsApp, nor even the most popular casual games in the world - Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja - have appeared on the bada platform. The situation is further aggravated by the fact that applications written for bada 1.x are not compatible with bada 2.x and require at least recompilation, so the process of moving to a new version of the OS is unlikely to be painless, both for users and for developers

Bottom line

The phone in its current state does not allow us to draw definitive conclusions regarding its stability, battery life and camera quality. However, it can already be argued that bada as a platform for smartphones has failed. Phones with this OS occupy an intermediate position between “dumb” phones and full-fledged smartphones, significantly inferior to the latter. The first Wave was a hit because it allowed the buyer to get top-end hardware for the price of a mid-range smartphone. But the hardware of Wave 3 initially corresponds to today's mid-class Android smartphones, so, in our opinion, it can only become popular if its price corresponds to the budget category of smartphones.

Samsung management could not calmly look at the developing market of operating systems for smartphones, where OS from RIM, the consortium of Symbian, Apple, Google, Microsoft reigned supreme, and offered its own progressive platform - bada (translated from Korean as “ocean”). This happened in 2009.

One of the features of bada-backgrounds is the relatively low price with the powerful hardware characteristics of the flagships Wave (S8500) and Wave 2 (S8530), running bada 1.0. The proprietary TouchWiz 3.0 shell was chosen as the interface for the platform. The long-awaited version of bada 2.0 with the TouchWiz 4.0 interface entered the Russian market along with the new flagship in the Wave line – Wave 3 (S8600). Let's talk about it in more detail.

Technical characteristics of Samsung Wave 3 (S8600):

  • Network: GSM/GPRS/EDGE (850/900/1800/1900 MHz), UMTS/HSPA 14.4 Mbit/s (900/2100 MHz)
  • Platform (at time of announcement): bada 2.0
  • Display: touch, capacitive, 4”, 800 x 480 pixels, Super AMOLED, 16 million colors
  • Camera: 5 MP, autofocus, flash, video recording 720p@30fps, f/2.6
  • Additional camera: 0.3 MP
  • Processor: single-core, 1.4 GHz, Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8255T
  • Graphics chip: Adreno 205
  • RAM: 512 MB
  • ROM: 3 GB (1.7 GB available to user)
  • Memory card: microSD (up to 32 GB)
  • Navigation: A-GPS, GLONASS
  • Bluetooth 3.0
  • Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g/n), Wi-Fi Direct
  • 3.5mm audio jack
  • FM radio with RDS
  • microUSB 2.0
  • Position sensor, distance sensor, light sensor, digital compass, pressure sensor
  • Audio: MP3, AAC, AAC+, EAAC+, 3GA, M4A, WMA, FLAC, OGG
  • Video: 3GPP, H.263, H.264, MPEG4, WMV
  • Battery: Li-ion, 1500 mAh
  • Talk time: up to 13.3 hours on 2G networks, up to 8.3 hours on 3G networks
  • Talk time: up to 490 hours on 2G networks, up to 430 hours on 3G networks
  • Video call time: up to 200 min
  • Dimensions: 125.9 x 64.2 x 9.9 mm
  • Weight: 127 g
  • Form factor: monoblock with touchscreen
  • Type: smartphone
  • Announcement date: August 30, 2011
  • Release date: November 2011

Design and Construction

The design of Wave 3 is made in the style of previous flagships. Wave 3, like the original Wave, uses a Super AMOLED display, but Wave 2 was equipped with a lower-quality Super Clear LCD panel (there was not enough production capacity and all Super AMOLED screens went into Galaxy smartphones). The resolution is identical to previous devices - 800 x 480 pixels, but the screen diagonal has increased to 4" (Wave - 3.3", Wave 2 - 3.7"). Despite the fact that the smartphone seems large, it can be controlled with one hand.

The front panel is made in an original way. The protective glass covers not only the screen, but also the touch control buttons below it, as well as the front camera, light and proximity sensors, and the Samsung logo above it. The smartphone speaker is installed above the logo. The central button is not touch sensitive and is located in a glass slot under the display.

The back cover of the Wave 3 is made of metal, it is sliding, but it is completely impossible to remove it. After pressing the button at the bottom, the lid moves up. The solution is interesting, although it is not clear how long it will take root. Access to the SIM card and microSD slot is only possible after removing the battery. But it is almost impossible to remove it without breaking your fingers - it is better to use a screwdriver or a paper clip.

There are no connectors on the top end. At the bottom there are holes for a microphone, microUSB and 3.5 mm audio output. The sound rocker is on the left, and the power button is on the right of the screen. The smartphone lacks a camera button, so the S8600 is not suitable for quick shooting. The upper and lower ends of the case have plastic inserts that cover the radio modules. The body is made well - it doesn’t creak, it feels solid in your hands.

Software

The TouchWiz 4.0 interface installed on bada 2.0 has a lot in common with iOS. Users of Apple smartphones will immediately notice the similar fixed area with the main functions at the bottom of the screen, the notification strip and similar square shortcuts in the menu. The main difference between TouchWiz and Cocoa Touch iOS is the presence of empty desktops for placing the necessary widgets. To be fair, it must be said that a similar interface can be seen on Android. Desktops with applications are called up using the Menu button. It also allows you to organize applications into folders.

When turned on, we are greeted by six desktops. In the localized version, the main table is represented by Yandex services: Maps, Mail, Metro, Market, Weather and Exchange Rates. Four more screens are free to place widgets. Unfortunately, there are only five widgets: digital clock, pointer clock, weather, calendar and notes. But it is possible to install folders with application shortcuts on windows. The sixth desktop will be of interest to business users: it contains a calendar, a news application in English, time in two time zones, a stock chart and a panel of 4 contacts. If you pull the clock located at the top of the screen down, the notification bar will open. In addition to the list of received messages and system errors, it provides access to quickly enable/disable Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, sound and vibration, and auto-rotate the screen.

Among the pre-installed applications and services, we can mention the ChatON and Chat programs for text communication, Social Portal for communication via Facebook, Twitter, etc., BookReader for reading books, E-mail email client, AllShare (a program for broadcasting content via DLNA), office application PolarisOffice, Samsung Apps store. An interesting feature is Wi-Fi Direct - it allows you to use Wi-Fi to transfer files directly between devices. Some applications and functions are clearly presented in the screenshots:

Camera

The smartphone is equipped with a main 5-megapixel camera with LED flash and a front camera with a resolution of 0.3 megapixels. The camera's autofocus adjusts to objects quite quickly, and the settings in the camera application can't help but please. At the camera position, flash modes (auto, on, off) and shooting modes (Single Shot, Highlight, Panorama, Portrait, Landscape, Night, Sports, Indoor, Beach/Snow, Sunset, Dawn, Autumn Colors, Fireworks, Text, Twilight) are available , Against the light). Moreover, the panorama mode pleasantly surprised me with the ability to take a picture in any of four directions:

Manual settings are also quite extensive: Exposure value (from -2.0 to 2.0 in steps of 0.5), Focus mode (Autofocus, Macro), Resolution (0.3 MP, 0.4 MP, 1.5 MP, 2 MP , 2.4 MP, 3.2 MP, 4 MP, 5 MP), Auto Contrast, Timer (2, 5, 10 sec), White Balance (Auto, Daylight, Incandescent, Fluorescent, Cloudy), ISO (Auto, 100, 200, 400), Effects (Gray, Sepia, Negative), Metering (Matrix, Center-weighted, Spot), Grid, View, GPS, Memory and reset.

In the video shooting position, the settings are quite sparse: Flash in flashlight mode (on, off) and Recording modes (Normal, Video for MMS). Manual settings: Exposure value (from -2.0 to 2.0 in steps of 0.5), Resolution (176x144, 320x240, 640x480, 720x480 and 1280x720 pixels), Timer (2, 5, 10 sec), White balance (Auto, Daylight) Light, Incandescent, Fluorescent, Cloudy), Effects (Grey, Sepia, Negative), Image Stabilization, Grid, Playback, Memory, Reset.

Photo quality is average. It’s not worth comparing the Wave 3 camera even with simple point-and-shoot cameras, but for posting on the Internet or making a contact, the resulting images are quite suitable. I note that shooting in panorama mode occurs automatically and, unlike most camera phones, allows you to stitch in any direction.

The video, despite the declared HD 720p, turns out blurry and out of focus. The camera does not reproduce color well, the optics are blurry, but it is suitable for emergency photography of an unusual event. It's a pity that there is no dedicated button on the body, and to start shooting you need to wake up from sleep mode and launch the camera application.

Experience of use

The battery lasts for about a day in medium load mode. In any case, in order not to be left without a phone, you will have to connect the S8600 Wave 3 to charge every evening.

The screen is great. With a black background, it is not easy to see the boundary between the screen and the black plastic border; it has excellent viewing angles. The screen has a drawback - the size has grown to 4”, but the screen resolution remains the same (800x480 pixels), that is, the pixels have become larger, which has affected the display of solid colors. White, for example, appears grayish with a blue tint.

The built-in video player opened all the declared formats, including streaming video, but it completely refused to play some HD files downloaded directly without conversion.

Unfortunately, among the applications written for bada, not many are actually useful. Therefore, finding an alternative to out-of-the-box programs is not so easy. In addition, setting up a messenger agent or choosing a normal navigator will be a difficult task.

Samsung Wave 3 has a single-core Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8255T processor with a frequency of 1.4 GHz. The graphics are powered by the Adreno 205 video accelerator. In general, this is a fairly powerful platform, which Nokia, Sony Ericsson, and HTC installed in their 2011 flagships.

Among the minuses, I would like to note the slowness of the sensor, which regularly “thinks” when reacting to presses. Strange system errors, for example when the network is lost, are also confusing.

Bottom line

Bada phones remained on the market thanks to their low price and good hardware characteristics, and in 2011 they occupied 14% of the Russian smartphone market (more than 1 million of the 7.6 million devices were in the Wave series). But developers are still cautious and reluctant to support the platform. As a result, Samsung Wave 3 turned out to be a stylish and productive gadget that will appeal to those for whom appearance and hardware characteristics come first, rather than the range of the application store. We will continue to monitor the development of bada and wait for Tizen.

It is a closed platform, and it can only work with so-called “native” applications written specifically for a given operating system.

The platform has a multi-level architecture, the operating system layer is the bottom one, the upper levels use its functions to access the hardware. The device layer sits above the platform core layer. Services running at this layer build on the capabilities of the kernel and allow upper layers to access device functions such as media and communications. It is this level that provides programs written for Bada with 3D graphics and the ability to access the Internet through all existing communication interfaces.

The history of the platform began quite successfully, as between 2010 and 2012, sales grew from 2 million devices per quarter to 5 million. In the third quarter of 2012, Bada even overtook Windows Phone in popularity, but then began to lose ground.

As for the budget line, it, of course, was devoid of the “frills” of the flagship line; plastic and other inexpensive elements were used in their assembly, but the build quality itself was maintained at a high level.

Throughout 2012, Samsung continued to mention here and there that there would be no merger between Bada and Tizen - both products are interesting and have different goals, company representatives said. However, on February 25, 2013, the company's management announced the merger of the platforms, saying, however, the following: “This step should be considered not as a merger, but as a transition from old to new quality.” This was the end of Bada. The complete end of support for the platform should have stopped immediately after the release of the first Tizen device. However, on February 28, 2013, Samsung for some reason released an updated version of the Bada SDK 2.0.6 development kit.

The announcement that Samsung had decided to close the project to develop mobile devices on its own Bada operating system did not come as a surprise, although the company had long denied this development, but it was not clear whether the platform would become history or a kind of legacy of Tizen. But not so long ago, in an official statement, the director of Samsung Media Solutions Center Hong Won-pyo announced that all developments regarding Bada would be stopped, and the developments would become the basis for Tizen. However, Bada users will not have the opportunity to upgrade to Tizen, although some

bada(from the Korean word 바다 - ocean) is a mobile operating system and platform produced by Samsung Electronics. The bada operating system is planned to be equipped on both high- and low-end Samsung phones, while bada is intended to replace proprietary operating systems on the company's feature phones.

Story

Samsung announced the bada platform on November 10, 2009. The first phone based on the platform, Samsung Wave S8500, was presented in February 2010 at the 2010 Mobile World Congress. On May 15, the SDK for application developers was released. Sales of this phone around the world began on June 1, 2010. At the end of August 2010, version bada 1.0.2 was announced, which mainly contains bug fixes. Updates since August 2010 for some European countries, and since October for Ukraine. In September 2010, Samsung Wave 723 went on sale based on a simplified version of bada 1.1. On October 4, 2010, the Samsung S8530 Wave II smartphone was introduced running bada 1.2, the SDK for which was released later in December. December 29, 2010 SDK updated to version 1.2.1.

On November 28, 2011, Samsung Wave III went on sale, which is the first smartphone running bada 2.0. In Ukraine, sales of smartphones with Bada 2.0 began in December 2011.

In January 2012, Tae-Jin Kang, vice president of Samsung, in an interview with Forbes, confirmed information about the integration of the bada and Tizen mobile platforms, which is supported by Intel and the Linux Foundation. Once the integration process is complete, Tizen will support the execution of mobile applications built using the bada SDK, while maintaining full backward compatibility for already released applications. In the future, a single SDK and set of APIs will be provided for application developers for bada and Tizen. Later, Samsung noted that the issue of integrating the bada project into Tizen is still under consideration.

Architecture

The bada platform has a multi-tier architecture. The bada core can be Linux in powerful smartphones or a proprietary real-time operating system in budget options. The development platform API (C++ development tools are officially provided) gives access to all levels of the platform.

Peculiarities

Support for full multitasking between third-party programs appeared in the release of bada 2.0. Before this, limited multitasking was implemented, in which native bada programs were allowed to simultaneously launch several pre-installed ones on the phone and only one third-party program. The bada platform also has support for Java ME programs, and up to 4 Java programs can be launched simultaneously. Bada has support for its own implementation of push messages for third parties.

Third-party software developers do not have access to SMS and MMS.

What's the coolest phone in the world? All the most interesting things.

02 / 11 / 2011

A person who wants to buy an expensive smartphone on a popular platform is often forced to choose between a “popular platform” and an “expensive smartphone” due to lack of funds. It’s no secret that top gadgets on Android and Windows Phone 7 cost well over 20 thousand rubles. And what to do when you want it to be expensive and beautiful, but don’t have the money? One answer is to buy a smartphone on the Bada platform.

Badafon

The first perversion of Samsung's proprietary platform appeared about two years ago and was not taken seriously by anyone then. Much has changed since then, and especially the fact that manufacturers’ own closed platforms have slowly begun to become a thing of the past and into the lower price segment, giving way to more mass-produced solutions. What’s more, a smartphone in the entry-level price category on Android can already be bought for 6-8 thousand rubles, and a “Chinese phone” will cost even less. Two times.

Samsung Wave III

Given these facts, it is surprising to see the development of Samsung's closed proprietary Bada platform. Not only is this platform not blown away by the powerful winds of Android, iOS and WP7, but it has recently gained fresh breath in the form of version 2.0. A corresponding update will soon be published for all existing badafons, but in addition, three new smartphones will see the light of day, with the second version pre-installed from the start. And the top one - with an index - is the hero of our today's presentation.

Badi background

If you previously read our review of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the “first swallow” on the new version of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, then you can forget that it is inconvenient - it turned out to be much more inconvenient in terms of design and general convenience.

Of course, its metal body inspires respect - this is not “cheap Chinese plastic”, but the same body made the device extremely slippery, which is comparable only to the Sony Ericsson neo. Only the latter slips out of your hands due to its complete “glossy” appearance from head to toe, but it does this by relying on its metal body polished to a shine.

Because, unlike, for example, the square corners of the iPhone, the side ends of the Wave III are beveled in the manner of the HTC 7 Mozart. But if the Mozart was round and it was still possible to find an approach to it, then this is more difficult, since the bevel from the front cover to the back is very sharp and there is simply nothing for your fingers to grab onto. And often because of this, it is not possible to press the power button located on the top right side or the volume rocker located on the opposite side. On the top, by the way, there is nothing at all: the micro-USB connector for communication with a computer and the mini-Jack for headphones are placed at the bottom end.

Everything is simpler at the back: a square camera lens and a single LED, which acts as a flash, were placed on top, and a speaker for speakerphone and calls was placed next to it.

The front panel, as you might guess, is almost entirely occupied by a four-inch capacitive touch screen, made using Super AMOLED technology with a resolution of 800x480 pixels and capable of displaying 16 million colors. Below it is a large mechanical “Home” button, on either side of which two touch buttons are placed - “Call” and “End End”, respectively. Moreover, it should be noted that the images on the touch buttons are so stylized that a person unfamiliar with Bada’s philosophy may not at first understand that these are call and end call buttons; We are already accustomed to the fact that there are practically no such buttons on smartphones anymore. Above the screen you can see the front camera lens, the Samsung logo and an oblong speaker.

But, nevertheless, this smartphone has a very convenient opening mechanism - the back cover simply slides up on the grooves after pressing the wide button, under which the locking spring is hidden. After opening the lid, the user has access to a 1500 mAh battery, a slot for a memory card and a SIM card. The battery is difficult to remove; you need to pry it off with something thick.

And finally, a surprise: the dimensions of the new product completely coincide with the dimensions of the first Samsung Galaxy S. It is 125.9x64.2x9.9 mm, and it weighs quite a lot - 122 grams, of course, due to the metal case.

Po-bada-banim

Technical characteristics are precisely the cornerstone that should convince the user to choose this smartphone, since this smartphone is quite powerful and at the same time is very inexpensive for its performance. Another question is how the user will use this power, especially since it is limited to applications developed specifically for Bada and offered primarily in the Samsung Apps store. On the other hand, you can use it to watch and shoot videos - at a minimum.

Or if we take the processor. We were not able to obtain information about what kind of “stone” is located inside the aluminum case, but we know that it is single-chip and that its frequency is 1.4 GHz.

The smartphone has two cameras: a 5 MP rear camera and a 0.3 MP front camera. The indicators are quite average, but the resolution of the rear camera of the flagship of the line could have been higher.

The built-in memory is 2 GB, up to 32 GB can be obtained by installing a micro-SD card, and this card has a small problem. According to eyewitnesses on the forums, the Bada platform has a long-standing problem in the form of not very correct operation of large-capacity micro-SD cards (from 8 GB) - which results in about half an hour of constant slowdowns after the first turn on. This can be treated by forcing a wait or replacing the card with a less capacious one, but for some reason the problem still exists.

The smartphone's wireless interfaces are fully present, with Bluetooth, for example, already version 3.0. It is noticeable that not all vendors are willing to switch even to the third version, not to mention the fourth. It’s all the more pleasant to see that the Korean manufacturer nevertheless decided to introduce the “troika” in the new devices. Unfortunately, the operation of the GPS and GLONASS modules, which seem to be embedded in the flagship Badafone, could not be verified: this module did not work due to the dampness of the test sample. We will also not comment on the operation of mobile data transfer standards for the same reason.

Bada boom

First of all, it should be noted that without a SIM card the smartphone works with great displeasure. In the sense that a SIM card is required for the operation of many programs and services, including settings - and a user who does not want to receive constant annoying messages that there is no SIM card is better off installing it right away.

In terms of control logic, the Bada system is very similar to Android (sometimes even too similar), but much more similar to iOS. Often there is even a strong feeling that Bada programmers created their closed platform, constantly looking back at Apple. And due to the complete absence of the three main control keys of any Android phone, retraining as a Google user is not such an easy task. It will be much easier for Yabloko to retrain, since the control logic is practically the same both there and here.

Let's say that on the desktop the user sees the same icons and widgets that can be added and removed; There are also several desktops, and at the bottom there are four icons for constantly present applications.

But there is no context-sensitive “Options” button (returning to the comparison with Android), and the “Back” button appears on the screen when it is convenient for programmers of both Bada itself and third-party applications. In all other cases, you will have to use the call end button - which, let us remind you, has been “restyled” so much that without using the method of scientific poking, you will not be able to guess what these two lines on the front screen on the right mean. We also note quite detailed settings, among which, as has become popular recently, there is a mobile hotspot mode, both via Wi-Fi and USB. And it’s completely unusual to see VPN mode. Moreover, “Settings” contains most of the applications listed as a separate item - and these settings can vary greatly from program to program and at the same time relate only to the appearance of the application itself. In general, the solution is quite unusual and at the same time extremely convenient.

Bada-soft

In general, what immediately catches your eye is that there is a fairly large set of applications preinstalled. Apparently, since the platform stands apart, the creators decided to make sure that the user of third-party software required the bare minimum.

For example, a number of applications from Yandex are preinstalled - maps with traffic jams, a metro map, an email client and Yandex.Market. All of the above takes up the main screen out of seven, but, of course, can easily be removed or replaced with something more interesting.

There are quite a lot of other applications, and they cover many areas of activity: this is a browser, an application for playing music (as archaic as in Android, by the way), a comprehensive Social Hub application for working with email and social network accounts, a chat room ", calendar, notes, FM radio, online bookstore and BookReader book reading application, Polaris Office office suite with the ability to create and read Microsoft Office files and several smaller and highly specialized programs. If desired, all this can be supplemented with paid and free applications from the Samsung Apps online store.

The browser is quite functional, and it even has elements of the convenience of Internet Explorer 9 and the browser in Android Ice Cream Sandwich, but not all sites were displayed correctly - in particular, those whose pages had a lot of Java scripts and Flash animations did not always work .

I was also surprised by the rather confusing way in which some applications work: for example, the application for watching YouTube videos does not have its own interface for searching for videos, and therefore it uses a browser for this purpose. After which everything switches to a separate interface. And the main Yandex widget is slightly flawed, since when you click on a city map, everything opens again in the browser, and not in a special application.

Swype is not pre-installed on the phone, and there is no way to download it.

Badakamera

The five-megapixel rear photo and video camera has quite a lot of capabilities, for which it can be praised. Sixteen (16!) options for shooting modes are available, including even such not very popular modes as shooting text or “against the light.” Plus, in the settings you can change the exposure value, various focusing modes (including autofocus), stepwise change in resolution, geotags and other settings, including three effect options (here it’s a little disappointing, as well as in choosing the ISO value - the maximum available is only 400 units) . Among the most unusual things, the “blink detection” function should be noted.

Much fewer settings are available for video mode, in which you can shoot in resolutions up to 1280x720. But it is worth noting that there is the possibility of applying effects, as well as an image stabilizer.

I wasn't very pleased with the camera's performance: the main complaint was that the delay was too long. As for the quality of the pictures, they are surprisingly good. Of course, not as much as in the Galaxy Nexus, Samsung's new Android flagship, but still better than in many “phono cameras”. Let's say, you can thank the camera for the lack of blurriness in the pictures alone. Moreover, the color rendition is correct, there is enough contrast, and in general everything is wonderful.



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