Tech n Gadgets Blog: Samsung Galaxy M Pro hands-on

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Samsung Galaxy M Pro hands-on

IFA 2011: Full QWERTY, half price
Samsung Galaxy M Pro hands-on

If you're searching for a phone that's high-performance at an economic price-point and happens to have a full QWERTY keyboard, then according to Samsung, this is the mobile for you.

Meet the Samsung Galaxy M Pro; what the promise seems to translate to is a handset that still boasts the latest version of Android, and very respectable 5-megapixel camera with LED flash, but without any super speedy insides or any of that top end Samsung screen technology.

All the same, the outer of this phone is okay. Actually, it's more than okay. It's pretty damn good. The keyboard is well laid out and, while there's none of the nobbles you get on BlackBerry devices to make things easier, it's still a decent enough mobile type. The phone also looks good. The grey brushed metal finish with splashes of orange here and there really make it stand out among the other Galaxy devices and no one's going to accuse you of being cheap if you pull one out.

The four Android hard keys make you wonder why manufacturers seem to have switched to the touch-sensitive type, and the optical trackpad in the middle is everything you need it to be. We're also glad that Samsung didn't try to make it any more by keeping the home key separate.

One place you do take a hit, that's quite tough to stomach on Android, is on the size of the screen itself. With the QWERTY taking up precious real estate, all the user ends up with is a 2.7-inch HVGA and, seeing as this isn't a premium Samsung device, it's only backed by straight LCD technology; but that's perhaps not such a loss as it's not that big anyway.

While you can get your emailing done, browsing the web and playing Angry Birds isn't quite what it could be but, then, that's the full keyboard trade-off. To combat this, Samsung has added a side dock to the TouchWiz interface and that was simple and intuitive enough to get used to in the 10 minutes that we had it in our hands. It's also good to see that the company hasn't ditched the accelerometer at this level, unlike with the Galaxy Ys

There's no price or date on the Samsung Galaxy M Pro yet, but we shouldn't have to hold our breath for too long.