Samsung Galaxy ACE 

With the Galaxy S III busy grabbing the headlines, a midrange smartphone has been making its way to a number of markets without much fanfare. But you can bet the Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 won't settle for the role of just another sequel. It has a chance to prove the Galaxy S III is not the only superhot smartphone Samsung has released this season.

Samsung Galaxy Ace 2

And it's going to use it. Aiming to deliver 90% of the benefits of its extremely popular sibling for a fraction of the price, the Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 plays to the company's strengths and might turn out to be one of the unsung heroes of the year.

Dual-core might not be top-dog material in the Android realm any more, but it's enough to run virtually all apps and give you a nice smooth sailing around the interface. The entrance of ST-Ericsson in the smartphone race has enabled Android OEMs to make sub-€250 smartphones, with specs that would be considered high-end on any other platform. Now who would say no to a bargain like that?

Key features

• Quad-band GSM /GPRS/EDGE support
• 3G with 14.4 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA
• 3.8" 16M-color capacitive LED-backlit LCD touchscreen of WVGA resolution (480 x 800 pixels), Scratch-resistant glass
• Android OS v2.3.7 Gingerbread, planned Android 4.0 ICS update
• Dual-core 800 MHz Cortex-A9 CPU, 768MB RAM, Mali-400 GPU, NovaThor U8500 chipset
• 5 MP autofocus camera with LED flash and geotagging, Multi Angle shot
• 720p video recording @ 30fps with continuous autofocus and stereo sound
• VGA front-facing camera
• Wi-Fi b/g/n and DLNA
• Built-in GPS receiver with A-GPS
• NFC connectivity
• 4GB built-in storage expandable through the microSD card slot
• microHDMI port
• microUSB port (charging) and stereo Bluetooth v2.1
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• Stereo FM radio with RDS
• Voice dialing
• Adobe Flash 11 support
• Deep Facebook integration
• Accelerometer and proximity sensor

Main disadvantages

• No Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich out of the box
• All plastic construction
• Slightly more expensive than the Xperia U
• NovaThor U8500 is the least powerful of the dual-core offerings on the market
• No screen and capacitive key haptics

The recent crop of inexpensive but reasonably powered droids also answers another criticism Android has been facing lately - that it fails to offer performance in a compact package. Sony was first to up the ante with the Xperia U and now Samsung is ready to rise to the challenge.

  
Samsung Galaxy Ace 2

The Koreans have stepped up the pricing of their smartphone a bit, but they are willing to throw in a larger screen and expandable storage, so it's going to be a pretty tough pick between those two. Let's waste no more time then and get down to testing - the answers should be coming as the review unfolds.

Design and controls

The Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 resembles a compact Galaxy S, which helps brand identity (the original Ace looked a lot like a certain very popular competitor). The phone remains relatively compact, despite the increase in screen size.

Above the display, there is the proximity sensor, but no ambient light sensor. The new addition here, compared to the original Ace, is a front-facing VGA camera.

Below the display there's an arrangement of three keys, in what's become the trademark Samsung layout. There's a hardware Home key in the middle, with two capacitive buttons on either side - Menu and Back. There's a dedicated setting for the duration of the capacitive key backlighting, and you can even have it always on. But there's no way to enable vibration on press - the entire screen has haptics disabled - just like on entry level handsets like the Galaxy Y and the Galaxy Fit.

 
The proximity sensor • The three Android keys rest below the display

On the left side of the Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 I8160 you get, top to bottom, the lanyard eyelet, volume rocker and a microSD card slot, under a plastic flap. The card slot handles cards of up to 32GB, so you can have plenty of storage even when the built-in 4GB run out. You'd have to get your won card though, there isn't one in the box.

The Power/Lock key is on the right (again, typical Samsung), which makes it accessible with both the right-hand thumb or the left-hand index finger, depending on which hand you're holding the phone with. Some users would still rather have this button at the top though.

   
The volume rocker and microSD card slot on the left • Power/Lock combo key on the right

On the top side of the phone is the 3.5mm standard audio jack, as well as the small crevice for removing the back panel. The bottom of the phone features the USB port and the mic pinhole. The microUSB port is used for both data and charging.

   
The 3.5mm jack is on top • The microUSB port located on the bottom

The back of the Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 is almost completely flat with a very subtle diamond pattern. The plastic feels nice to the touch and takes almost no fingerprints, but hasn't got any sort of premium feel to it.

Around back, the 5MP camera lens is centrally placed near the top, along with the LED flash. Just like in the original Ace, the lens is exposed and vulnerable to scratches so you'll have to take care not to damage it.

 
The smudge-resistant back panel and 5MP camera

The back also features the loudspeaker grille, which has a small nub to make sure the sound doesn't get muffled when you place the phone down on a level surface.

Underneath the battery cover is the SIM card slot and the battery. The battery is a 1500mAh unit, which Samsung says should last for up to 7 h 30 min of telephony or 640 h of stand-by on a 3G network. If you stick to 2G you get up to 16 h 20 min of talk time or 670 h of stand-by.

The 1500mAh battery and SIM card slot

Our dedicated battery test found the Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 I8160 to be a pretty long-lasting device, the smartphone getting an endurance rating of 43h. That's exactly as much as the Galaxy S III did and slightly better than the Galaxy S II.

Courtesy gsmarena