Among the disappointments I encountered at MWC was Samsung. They had a few products on display, including the brand new Galaxy Note 8.0, the Samsung Grand and the Samsung Xpress, however none were particularly good, especially the Grand, which was just absolutely terrible.
To be fair, the Galaxy Note 8 wasn’t that bad, but it didn’t really bring anything new and useful to the market that wasn’t already there. With the Galaxy Tabs already on offer, it was also a questionable decision from a Samsung point of view. Graphics performance was decent, but again, it didn’t produce any fireworks. This time next year, the Galaxy Note 8 will have been forgotten.
Also on display was the Samsung Galaxy Express, a feature phone that’s not really new (it came out in October 2012). Performance was not great, but this was to be expected for a device of this class, as this is more targeted at those who can’t quite afford the full Galaxy SIII or flagship smartphone, but who want to get in on the action. I can’t really recommend it, but it wasn’t terrible either.
The phone that was terrible though was the Samsung Galaxy Grand. It’s basically a Galaxy Note, but not as good, and the performance stinks. It seems what Samsung has done is taken a massive 5 inch screen, but stuck in a rubbish dual core 1.2Ghz processor, making it pretty unusable for games and anything else remotely intensive.
Games lag, and even browsing at high speed is difficult. Again,this is probably targeted more at emerging markets, however the experience is still abysmal, and you’d be better off either choosing a phone with the same size screen and faster processor or a smaller screen and the same processor.
Overall, while using Samsung’s products, you really can’t help but notice the “plastic” feel they have. It really takes away from the experience, and you have to credit a company like HTC for at least trying to make something well built (even though the HTC One isn’t a great phone). For the full specs and more images of Samsung’s devices, check out the gallery below.
