Samsung GALAXY Ace GT-S5830 - Onyx black (Unlocked) Smartphone

Relatively poor and quite tech-savvy, I was looking to move from a small standard Nokia handset to a smart phone, by which I mean something relatively capable of browsing the internet, downloading apps etc.

I bought a second hand Samsung Galaxy Ace GT-S5830. It had seen quite a lot of use already. Small chips to the casing made the price affordable (£61 with p&p - a small bargain, I think).

I purchased the following accessories:
A protective case or cover (under £3 - it looks nice).
A 16 GB Micro SD card (under £10 - it makes sense getting one of these; great for loading music up).
A USB to phone adapter (under £2 - you may already have one issued with the phone).
A brand new battery (under £10 - my battery seemed to be running out quick).
A magazine 'Android For Beginners' (under £10 - I recommend this guide; a great introduction to working with your new phone).

Battery Use - Smart phone users tend to complain about battery use. My major loss of power seemed to come from the phone looking for an internet source so scanning very weak Wi-Fi connections or using the (poor in this area) Vodafone 3G network. It's a very good idea to understand the options for internet connection available to you and then stick with a decent connection or go without. Rapid loss of battery charge comes more than anything from trying to connect to weak networks (be they 3G, Wi-Fi, GPS or Bluetooth). Get securely connected to a network (perhaps Wi-Fi at home) and battery use is much more lenient.

This is not a high-end smart phone. Options I considered too were the Nokia Asha 301 and the Blackberry Curve 9320. I was concerned about moving to touchscreen from a phone with keys. After a week of having my new phone I'm still not a huge fan of touchscreen but I'm quite fast at typing.

My phone uses the Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread operating system. The Swype facility allows for pretty fast texting and its quite a delight to use. Nice.

I've downloaded lots of apps. I have a Sim only contract with Vodafone so I have downloaded a widget from them that (fairly clearly) displays the data I have used since my last billing. Very helpful. The Yahoo! Mail app is really neat and I found the Opera Mini a really useful browser to use. I like the way it works.

I was very negative about the phone at first and disturbed by the short battery time. Then I worked out how to use it!

The Android OS is nice enough and easy to use. Very simple to navigate. I advise you keep 'Settings' close at hand because of the adjustments you can make to save battery power as mentioned above. There is a pull down screen of Notifications that is pretty good for switching GPS, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi on and off easily. GPS and Bluetooth are other great power-hogs that I don't use. This notifications screen is great when you get a new text and without pressing a button you can read the text as it comes through.

I'm not sure if there's a way around it but I had to open a Gmail account (free of course) before being able to effectively get the phone internet-ready.

As a new smartphone user what do I think of...
Smartphones - Great!
Samsung Galaxy Ace GT-S35830 - Pretty nice. It's not really a looker in my opinion but its a very functional, surprisingly powerful and useful phone.
Android OS - Good. Easy to use.

This review is just a few things I've noticed from using a new phone. I hope you've found some of these scant notes helpful and wish you good luck in your search for a new mobile.

The Samsung Galaxy Ace (also known as Samsung Galaxy Cooper in some territories[3]) is a smartphone manufactured by Samsung that runs the open source Android operating system. Announced and released by Samsung in February 2011,[4] the Galaxy Ace features an 800 MHz Qualcomm MSM7227 processor with the Adreno 200 GPU. It is available in black, with back covers in three different colors: black, purple and white.[5]
In January 2012, Samsung announced its successor, the Galaxy Ace Plus,[6] then in February 2012 announced the Galaxy Ace 2.[7]
The Galaxy Ace is a 3.5G smartphone, offering quad-band GSM and announced with two-band HSDPA (900/2100) at 7.2 Mbit/s. The display is a 3.5 inch TFT LCD capacitive touchscreen with its protection by a Gorilla Glass and has HVGA (320x480) resolution. There is also a 5-megapixel camera with LED flash, capable of recording videos at QVGA (320x240) resolution and VGA (640x480) resolution with the Gingerbread update, and a 1350 mAh Li-Ion battery.

Well If Your After A Cheap Android Mobile You Can Not Go Far Wrong With the Galaxy Ace. feels nice to the Touch And A good Size Phone. I Also Have A Galaxy SII And I Find It A Little akward To Hold At times with Its Square Frame And I Have Large Hands For A Bloke! were As The ace Fits Well With Rounded Design, the Phone Has Very Small Internal Memory But has Easy access To Micro SD At The Side, The Phone Is Average At Running Apps With Its Small Ram And Prossesor but copes Well With Most Apps I Threw At It. The Camera I Found To Be Distinctly Average, Fine for Facebook Pictures And Quick Snaps But Do Not Expect A Camera Quality Picture. Battery Is Not Going To Win awards For Stamina With Its Low 1300 M.A.H Battery But Will Last A Day With Moderate Use There Are aftermarket battries With A Better M.A.H
So In Conclusion A Well Rounded Budget Android Smart Phone

I bought this phone as I wished to upgrade from my existing mobile to a Smartphone. Having previously owned two Samsung mobile phones and been highly satisfied with them, I looked at what Samsung had to offer.

With a budget in the £150 range the choice of Smartphones is a bit limited but I saw a Samsung Galaxy Ace at that price on eBay. After checking out the product specifications it seemed this was the top-end phone available for that price.
It was also considerably below the normal retail price, so I decided to buy.

Although new to Smartphone technology I found the phone easy to learn and to use. Finding my way around the settings and apps was easier than I thought it might be, and I particularly like the Qwerty keyboard for texting. The camera has an impressive 5Mb spec and is relatively easy to use, with a good range of functions (such as 14 picture modes) and a choice of settings.

I have seen some negative comments about the battery draining quickly. I find that a full charge will last me all day and if I charge it overnight it's ready to go next day so this really isn't a problem for me.

On the downside, I like to keep my apps in a certain order so that they are easier to find, but I find it frustrating that after switching the phone off they have re-arranged themselves when I switch back on again. This also happens after connecting to the PC.
I am also at the moment unsure whether I can free-up internal memory by moving some data to the SD Card. I'm still working on this!

All in all though, the Galaxy Ace is a good phone to chose as a first-time Smartphone and at the price I managed to get it for it is exceptional value for money. I would certainly recommend it to anyone.

My boyfriend bought me this phone as i had to send my iphone back (lots of problems) so i wanted something similar.. having liked the ease of use of the Samsung Tocco Lite, i decided i wanted this, and because this phone at the time was under £200 i thought, i want this one.

It does everything an iphone does apart from super fast applications and face time etc.

It is a budget value good for money phone.

You can download loads of cool apps, really easy to use, lots of memory, my terms i think an android smartphone are better.. so if your looking for a value for money android then this is the one!

Only downside to this phone is if you use the net or gps a lot etc the battery is aweful, it just dies.

If you charge for about 4 hours and only use the phone for email calls or texts then this will last you a good 2 days on standby.

But apart from the battery life i have had no problems with this phone and glad i ditched apple to have this :-) IGNOR THE SILLY MAN ON THE AD 'IF YOU DONT HAVE AN IPHONE.. WELL.. YOU DONT HAVE AN IPHONE' LOL IGNOR THIS, if you want something similar on a budget this is all you need!! :-)
i am pleased with this phone :-)!!

Hope my review has help buyers decided there new phone x