Samsung I9010 Galaxy S Giorgio Armani review: Fashionware

What we have here is a limited edition fashion item – there’s no doubt about that. But it’s got a better purpose than blind you with bling. The phone has it all: impressive hardware, commanding looks and excellent build. The important thing though is you don’t care if it’s the Galaxy S or Armani taking credit.

Super specs combined with beautiful finish, a dazzling Super AMOLED display in an impressively thin package – a combination like that simply cannot go wrong. The Galaxy S line has long been committed to delivering high performance. With the Armani touch, looks and build quality are catching up. You can have anything you want as long as you are willing to pay the price. The Samsung I9010 Galaxy S Giorgio Armani is anything but cheap.

Key features

• Quad-band GSM and tri-band 3G support
• 7.2 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA support
• 4" 16M-color Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen of WVGA (480 x 800 pixel) resolution
• Android OS v2.2 with TouchWiz launcher
• 1GHz Cortex A8 Hummingbird platform; 512 MB of RAM
• 5 MP autofocus camera with face, smile and blink detection
• 720p HD video recording at 30fps with continuous autofocus
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b, g, n
• GPS with A-GPS connectivity; Digital compass
• 16GB internal storage, microSD slot
• 9.9mm slim
• Excellent build quality
• Full Flash support for the web browser
• Accelerometer and proximity sensor
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• microUSB port (charging) and stereo Bluetooth v3.0
• 1650 mAh Li-Ion battery
• Great audio quality
• Document editor
• Secondary video-call camera
• Swype
• Access to the official Android app repository and Samsung Apps repository

Main disadvantages

• Pricey
• No flash for the camera
• No dedicated camera key
• Average loudspeaker performance
• No FM radio

Samsung didn’t need perhaps Italian craftsmen working on the I9010 Galaxy S – they already had the design tested on the AT&T Captivate. However, someone at Armani must have had a say on the choice of materials: the appearance and hand feel are first class – being subtle is no small part of that by the way. That’s another – surprising – point in favor.

Posted in: samsung,touch