Samsung is the largest manufacturer of Android smartphones that it already produces 15 years. However, the very first Android phone from Samsung was not the legendary Galaxy S, which you probably immediately thought of, but a phone a year older. It was a timid attempt to use a (then) completely unknown platform, which soon became absolutely essential for Samsung. And importantly, without the first Samsung Galaxy, there would be no further models of the iconic series, and of course not even the first Galaxy S.
15 years have passed since the premiere of the first Samsung with Android. However, it was not the Galaxy S, but its predecessor – the Samsung i7500 Galaxy
On April 27, 2009, the Samsung Galaxy (i7500) model was introduced, just half a year after the debut of the first Android ever, which was the T-Mobile G1, aka the HTC Dream. Samsung offered, by the standards of the time, a large OLED display (3.2 inches) and a large battery capacity (1,500 mAh). It was a device that still didn’t want to give up physical controls under the display. There was a cursor cross with confirmation, the familiar back arrow, a context key, a miniature Home button and physical keys for handling calls. The volume controls remained on the left edge, the unlock button was ready on the right near the camera shutter.
Samsung’s first Android: the i7500 Galaxy. Its moniker later served as the designation for all Android smartphones, and over time for all smart “mobile” products from Samsung, including watches, headphones and laptops
The phone was built on a 528MHz MSM7200A processor from Qualcomm with 128MB of RAM. It had a headphone jack, microUSB and a rear 5MP camera. Above the display with a resolution of 420 × 320 pixels, there was no selfie camera, inside the phone Samsung used pure Android 1.5, which already supported the Czech language when writing texts. The TouchWiz graphic superstructure did not appear until a year later with the aforementioned Galaxy S, which made a stronger impression on users than the first Galaxy.
Samsung and its four smart platforms
The period around 2010 was quite turbulent for Samsung and its mobile division. Nokia was the world number one, but Samsung suspected that it had to dethrone it (and thanks to Nokia’s fatal missteps, bordering on controlled sabotage, it succeeded in 2012). But first he had to clarify with which smart software platform he wanted to achieve this.
South Koreans have tried almost everything in their phones. They started, of course, with their own closed platform for “dumb” push-button phones. But the main business began to revolve around smartphones. Way Symbian was almost unreal – Nokia ruled there for years. Mobile Windows they were cumbersome and clumsy. Development of own platform Bada proved to be expensive and poorly thought out (Bada did not support multi-core processors). And so in the end, of all the options, Samsung was left with a newborn Android.
The first Android swallow Samsung i7500 Galaxy received an even cheaper i5700 Spica sibling before the key moment that started Samsung’s journey to the top took place – the introduction of the Galaxy S (i9000) model. This created the most famous line of Android smartphones. At its beginning in 2010, however, success was far from guaranteed. No one knew how the new system would be received.
The “new blood” met the old dinosaurs in the market. Between 2009 and 2010, you could find Samsungs with Symbian (eg Omnia i8910 HD), with Windows Mobile (Omnia II i8000), with the new Bada (Wave S8500) and with the new Android. It was certainly the most colorful period for fans of the brand, but for the average customer it meant complicated orientation in the products.
The first Galaxy was just the beginning
But the Samsung Galaxy blazed a trail that Samsung later used to literally flood the market with its Androids. And how did we see the first Galaxy in a period review? We didn’t like the readability of the display in the sun, on the other hand we liked the five megapixel camera. Especially since the loss of sharpness was only visible in the lower corners of the photo. However, the recorded videos were of very low resolution. The headphones had too strong bass, the video player couldn’t cope with subtitles including Czech characters.
At the time 15 years ago, HTC was taken as the standard of mobile technology with its own superstructure and environment functions that Samsung could not match. In the review, the software “sterile” Samsung with pure Android was likened to a local bar, while the HTC resembled the Pendolino in terms of looks and functions. But times change and where is the mentioned Pendolino today…
Tags: Android Samsung celebrates years legendary Galaxy series created SamsungMania .cz
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