Quick Review: Samsung Galaxy Fame

Samsung introduces another Android phone to the low-end market in the form of the Galaxy Fame. It has a design that resembles the Galaxy S3, runs on Android 4.1 and has a cheap price tag. Now let’s take a quick look at what’s inside the Fame.

The Fame has curves all over and so it fits comfortably in the palm. It’s made of plastic but it doesn’t feel cheap although it’s just an entry-level phone. The front is dominated by the 3.5″ screen and accompanied by the earpiece, home button, and 2 capacitive buttons. At the back of the device are a 5MP camera with LED flash, speakers, and a removable 1300mAh battery. On top of the device is the headphone jack while the micro USB port sits at the bottom end. On the left side you’ll find the volume rocker and the power button on the right side.

The device has a 3.5″ HVGA TFT screen with 320x480p resolution. It’s not the best display amongst low-end devices but it’s functional. The Fame lacks a light sensor, therefore, it will be hard to see the display under direct sunlight as it tends to become really reflective.

It is powered by a single-core processor clocked at 1GHz and 512MB of RAM. It has 4GB of internal memory that’s expandable up to 64GB through a MicroSD card. It’s not super snappy or super responsive but then again, it’s a low-end phone and that’s expected.

It runs on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. That is a really nice feature for a low-end phone to have. It’s supposed to give the device an easier screen transition but, unfortunately, it’s not as smooth as Samsung said it would be. Navigation around the device is not as smooth, and some apps may take longer to open. On the bright side though, there are games that you can play on the Fame, like Angry Birds Star Wars and Temple Run 2, without experiencing a lot of slowdown. It has motion UI that understands movement. By shaking the device, it will refresh and update widgets and other contents or if someone is calling and you’re in the middle of something and can’t take the call, you can simply flip over the phone to mute it.

The 5MP rear camera with LED flash is nice to have on a low-end phone. It has auto-focus and Panorama and takes pretty decent pictures even in low-light conditions. The Fame does not have a dedicated camera button, but you can set it up with a shortcut so you can launch it from the homescreen. The downside of the camera is it lacks speed. It takes lags prior to taking a photo and takes some time before it is ready to take another picture. It will certainly be hard to take quick pictures especially when your subject/s is moving.

The Fame has an accelerometer, digital compass and proximity sensors. It has Bluetooth, NFC, and can connect to Wi-Fi. It also has GPS and GLONASS technology which is a tracking system that is really useful especially for users who like the outdoors.

With Android Jelly Bean and a cheap price tag, the Galaxy Fame will surely catch the attention of low-end smartphone users. It’s useful for users who want to be updated but don’t want to deal with the stuff that goes on with high-end phones.