Introduction
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 I8160 official photo
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 PLS TFT 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
- 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
- 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
- Accelerometer and proximity sensor
Main disadvantages
- No Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich out of the box
- All plastic construction
- 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 I8160 at ours
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
Standard retail package
There are no surprises in the Galaxy Ace 2's retail package. The
phone comes with just a compact charger, a microUSB cable and an
unusually designed headset with a single button remote.
Charger, USB cable and a headset: the Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 retail package covers the basics
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.
Display
Speaking of the screen, it's a very good unit and a major improvement
over what the Galaxy Ace had. It's a PLS LCD unit with a 3.8" diagonal.
The resolution has been more than doubled and is now WVGA (480 x 800)
at 246ppi pixel density.
Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 has a great screen for the class
The image looks sharp, with reasonably good viewing angles and
pleasant colors. The brightness could've been better though and the
screen is rather reflective, meaning sunlight legibility is less than
stellar.
We put the Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 through our usual display tests and
we are now giving you its results.
| Display test |
50% brightness |
100% brightness |
| Black, cd/m2 |
White, cd/m2 |
Contrast ratio |
Black, cd/m2 |
White, cd/m2 |
Contrast ratio |
| Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 I8160 |
0.24 | 225 | 921 | 0.59 | 500 | 843 |
| HTC Desire C |
0.23 | 186 | 814 | 0.5 | 360 | 723 |
| HTC One X |
0.15 | 200 | 1375 | 0.39 | 550 | 1410 |
| Sony Xperia U |
0.35 | 287 | 831 | 0.55 | 515 | 930 |
| Samsung S7500 Galaxy Ace Plus |
0.27 | 239 | 873 | 0.6 | 528 | 888 |
| Samsung Galaxy Pocket |
0.31 | 238 | 774 | 0.62 | 468 | 753 |
We zoomed into the display using our digital microscope so you can
get a better idea of how the pixels are arranged, and how big they are.
As you can see the pixels are slightly bigger than those of the Xperia
U, which suggests slightly lower perceivable sharpness.
The Galaxy Ace 2 display pixels compared to those of the Xperia U
Handling and build quality
The Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 I8160 is solidly built and since it has no
chin or hump, the phone slides into pockets easily. The Ace 2 is a bit
on the wide side at 62.2mm but it's quite comfortable to hold.
We have no gripes with the handling and usability of the phone, the
one complaint we do have is the phone's plain plasticky aesthetics.
Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 held in hand
This concludes the hardware part and we're ready to move on to
software. With Android 2.3 and TouchWiz 4.0 we don't expect any
surprises there. Value for money phones like the Ace 2 aren't supposed
to surprise, as long as the functionality is up to standard.
Gingerbread with TouchWiz UX up front
The Galaxy Ace 2 is running Gingerbread 2.3.6 and Samsung's custom
TouchWiz 4.0 launcher. It's not ICS (let alone Jelly Bean), but
Samsung's customizations make using Gingerbread a smoother experience
than the stock UI.
Here's a demo of the Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 doing its thing on camera.
The lockscreen of the Ace 2 has the usual integration of missed
events but doesn't go any further. It's the "drag your finger outside of
the circle" type of lockscreen but no shortcuts like in the Galaxy S
III. You do get music player controls though.
The standard Samsung lockscreen
The homescreen accommodates plenty of widgets with lots of
functionality. You can have up to 7 homescreen panes. A pinch zoom
brings you to an aggregate view of all homescreen panes, which can be
rearranged, deleted or added.
Homescreen • Thumbed preview
In typical TouchWiz fashion, there are four shortcuts docked at the
bottom of the screen that are visible both on the homescreen and in the
app drawer. The first three are user configurable (Phone, Contacts,
Messaging), the fourth one being locked. It's the app drawer/home
shortcut so it makes sense to always keep it in the same place.
Adding widgets, shortcuts, folders or changing wallpapers is done by a
context menu that pops up on demand at the bottom of the screen. The
list of available widgets can be swipe-scrolled, enjoying a smooth
animation throughout. You can also swipe each of the homescreen panes,
which is a nice bonus of TouchWiz 4.0.
Adding elements to the homescreen
The app drawer is very similar to the homescreen - you can create
folders and pages by dragging them to the appropriate icon at the bottom
of the screen. You can also rearrange pages from the same aggregate
view as the homescreen.
List view can be enabled in the app drawer instead of the regular
grid view. There's also a preview of all your app drawer screens for
quicker browsing.
The app drawer
The notification area has toggles that give you easy access from
anywhere in the interface to the following functions: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth,
GPS, silent mode and screen auto-rotation.
With the Galaxy Ace 2 you get a standard Android task switcher with
the traditional Samsung modification - it has a button to launch a task
manager.
The custom task manager offers a lot of functionality. It also comes
with a handy widget, which shows you the number of active applications
right on your homescreen.
Notifications area • Task manager
Most of the time, Android does really well when it comes to managing
apps by itself (in fact, some claim that using a task manager is
detrimental to the performance of a phone), so you would only need the
task manager to occasionally kill a buggy app.
Social phonebook
The phonebook has a wide range of features and practically unlimited storage capacity.
There are options to filter contacts that have phone numbers,
show/hide some of the groups you've created (including groups from
social networks) and change the sorting (by first or last name).
The Galaxy Ace 2 phonebook
The phonebook has the Quick contacts feature, which lets you tap the
contact photo for a popup menu with shortcuts to call, text, or email.
The TouchWiz-specific swiping gesture is here too - swipe a contact
right to make a call and left to compose a message.
Quick contacts • Swiping is a neat gesture for calling and texting
There are many info fields that you can assign to each contact, but
it still remains perfectly organized. You have all types listed
(numbers, email addresses, etc) and there's a plus sign on the right to
add another item of that type. Pressing the minus sign under it deletes
the redundant field.
Editing a contact's details
Of course, the real flexibility of the phonebook becomes apparent
when you sign into your Facebook or LinkedIn account. After syncing, the
phonebook will automatically merge your contacts (you can do it
manually too).
The contact info screen is tabbed. The first two tabs are pretty
standard - one displays the person's contact information, while the
other stores call and message history. The third and fourth tabs handle
the social stuff - status updates and the contact's online galleries.
Viewing a contact's details
Weirdly, only Facebook and LinkedIn contacts can be synced with the phonebook - we usually see Twitter contacts in here too.
Smart dialing and video calling
The Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 had no issues with reception even in areas
with poor coverage. Sound in the earpiece was crisp and fairly loud.
The dialer and call log have been integrated into the phonebook, each
in its own tab. Smart Dial is enabled for both names and numbers.
Only one contact (with photo) is shown at a time in the Smart Dial
suggestions. You can tap the down arrow to view the rest (a digit above
the arrow indicates how many contacts have matched your query).
Smart dial is nice
The dialer also has a key for making a video call and another for sending a message instead.
Thanks to the proximity sensor, your screen will automatically turn
off during a call. The available options during a call include taking a
note, using the keypad, muting or holding the call, or adding another
call to the conversation. There's turn-to-mute too, thanks to the
accelerometer.
The Call log is the tab next to the dial pad. It displays all the
dialed, received and missed calls in one list, while sorting your call
history by contacts.
Call history
The Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 scored Average in our traditional
loudspeaker test. The vibration on the other hand is strong, which will
alert you in case you don't hear the ringer in a loud environment.
Here's how it stacks up against the competition.
| Speakerphone test | Voice, dB | Pink noise/ Music, dB | Ringing phone, dB | Overal score |
| Nokia Lumia 800 | 60.9 | 59.0 | 61.7 | Below Average |
| Samsung Galaxy Nexus | 66.2 | 60.5 | 69.0 | Below Average |
| Apple iPhone 4S | 65.8 | 64.5 | 74.6 | Average |
| HTC Desire C | 64.9 | 64.6 | 72.2 | Average |
| Sony Xperia S | 72.7 | 61.8 | 69.6 | Average |
| HTC One S | 65.1 | 64.6 | 76.7 | Average |
| Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 | 66.8 | 66.2 | 75.7 | Good |
| Motorola RAZR XT910 | 74.7 | 66.6 | 82.1 | Very Good |
| HTC Desire | 76.6 | 75.7 | 84.6 | Excellent |
Messaging and email
The messaging interface is quite straightforward: there are no
folders here, just a new message button. Under that button is a list of
all your messages organized into threads.
Swiping on a message header will do exactly the same as in the
phonebook - a left swipe starts a new message, while swiping to the
right will start a call.
The Galaxy Ace 2 messaging mode and swipe functions
There's application-specific search that lets you quickly locate a message among all your stored SMS and MMS.
When you add multimedia content to the message, it automatically
turns into an MMS. You can either quickly add a photo or an audio file
to go with the text, or compose an MMS using all the available features
(like multiple slides, slide timing, layout, etc.). The multiple slides
are all shown inside the compose box.
Adding any multimedia content automatically turns an SMS into an MMS
Moving on to email, the Gmail app supports batch operations, which
allows multiple emails to be archived, labeled or deleted. Multiple
Gmail accounts are also supported.
The Gmail interface must be familiar to everyone by now
There is also a generic email app for all your other email accounts
and it can support multiple POP or IMAP inboxes. You have access to the
original folders that are created online, side by side with the standard
local ones such as inbox, drafts and sent items.
It offers a combined inbox option, which color-codes emails from
different accounts for easier sorting and viewing. Conversation layout
is also available - it groups related emails into single entries with a
number in parenthesis showing the number of emails grouped. A tap on
that entry expands it to show a list of the individual messages.
The standard email app is easy to set up
Google Talk handles Instant Messaging. The G-Talk network is
compatible with a variety of popular clients like Pidgin, Kopete, iChat
and Ovi Contacts. Video chat support is also onboard here.
As far as text entry goes, you have the standard Samsung keyboard at
your disposal, with an XT9 option. Text input is quite comfortable for
the range thanks to the bigger screen. Swype comes preinstalled too, you
can switch to that in the Language and Keyboard submenu of the general
Settings. It would've been more convenient to have that option in the
dedicated settings of the keyboard itself.
Samsung Android keyboard
Gingerbread gallery and My Files
The Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 uses the standard Android gallery. It
automatically locates the images and videos no matter where they are
stored.
The standard Android gallery
Little about the Gallery should surprise you. It displays full
resolution images and supports double tap and pinch zoom. Sharing images
over Bluetooth, email and MMS is enabled, and so is uploading to Picasa
or using DLNA to push the image to a compatible TV.
The Gallery offers only a few editing and sharing options
The My Files app is a simple to use but efficient file manager. It
can move, copy, lock and rename files in bulk, even send multiple files
via Bluetooth. My Files will only browse the memory card and the large
internal storage (it can't access the system drive).
The My Files app
Music player has DNSe, 5.1ch virtualization
The Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 uses the standard TouchWiz music player.
Samsung have enabled equalizer presets (including a custom one) along
with the sound-enhancing DNSe technology and 5.1 channel virtualization.
By default, tracks are sorted into four categories - All, Playlists,
Albums and Artists. From the settings, you can add or remove categories
to set up the music player just the way you like it.
The music player is great • The DNSe settings • A now-playing interface in the taskbar
The album art has a central place in the Now Playing interface, but
you can replace it with an equalizer. You can skip songs by sideways
swipes. There's an onscreen scrubber, as well as a volume slider.
Another nice feature allows you to quickly look up a song on YouTube
or via Google search by tapping on the track title. The handset will
prompt you to select whether to look up the artist, the song title or
the album and whether you want to do an Internet search, search your
music library or YouTube.
The Now playing interface • Looking up a track
The Music player offers quick shortcuts to play the audio over Bluetooth or DLNA.
In this screen we also found a "Tag" button, which tries to identify
the song and automatically fill in any missing ID3 tags (that's info
about album, artist, etc.), but that came back with a negative result
all too often. The "Lyrics" option in the settings didn't seem to do
anything either.
FM radio with RDS
The Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 is equipped with an FM radio with RDS. The
interface is simple - there's a tuning dial and you can save as many as 8
stations as favorites. You can also play on the loudspeaker, but the
headset still needs to be plugged in to serve as an antenna.
The FM radio app
Good video player hindered by iffy codec support
The player on the Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 can handle the most common
video files - MP4, AVI (DivX, XviD) and MKV. But we often ran into
problems (even with some old, low-resolution files) and the player would
either show a blank screen or fail to play sound.
The video player interface itself is fairly simple, but it covers the
basics. You can adjust the brightness independently of the global
setting and you can stream the audio over Bluetooth or use DLNA to play
the video on another device.
The video player is good, but codec support lets it down
720p files usually played (including DivX, XviD and MKV files), but
1080p didn't work. That is just FYI, since there's no TV-Out and the
screen has just WVGA resolution, meaning you'd better stick with SD
videos, as it will save storage and you won't see much difference. DTS
and AC3 audio aren't supported.
Subtitles in various languages are supported, but you can't load them
manually - the video and subtitle files must have the same name. You
can adjust the text size and subtitle sync.
Audio output is good
Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 I8160 did pretty well in our audio quality test.
The smartphone was nearly perfect with an active external amplifier and
more than decent when a pair of headphones is plugged in.
An active external amplifier lets the Galaxy Ace 2 show its full
potential and achieve some excellent scores. It's only averagely loud,
but that's just the only bad thing we can say about it here.
The degradation when headphones come into play consists of a
moderate hike in stereo crosstalk, and some extra intermodulation
distortion. Overall it's a really solid performance.
And here come the full results so you can see for yourselves:
| Test | Frequency response | Noise level | Dynamic
range | THD | IMD + Noise | Stereo crosstalk |
| Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 I8160 | +0.20, -0.27 | -88.7 | 87.6 | 0.0086 | 0.018 | -88.9 |
| Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 I8160 (headphones attached) | +0.37, -0.08 | -88.6 | 87.6 | 0.044 | 0.221 | -57.9 |
| Samsung S7500 Galaxy Ace Plus | +0.14, -1.30 | -88.2 | 88.1 | 0.010 | 0.065 | -84.1 |
| Samsung S7500 Galaxy Ace Plus (headphones attached) | +0.12, -1.12 | -86.0 | 88.1 | 0.018 | 0.186 | -43.1 |
| Samsung S5830 Galaxy Ace | +0.11, -0.47 | -84.9 | 86.8 | 0.025 | 0.084 | -82.1 |
| Samsung S5830 Galaxy Ace (headphones attached) | +0.82, -0.22 | -84.5 | 86.7 | 0.083 | 0.628 | -42.3 |
| Sony Xperia U | +0.03, -0.04 | -87.3 | 87.5 | 0.0091 | 0.020 | -87.7 |
| Sony Xperia U (headphones attached) | +0.45, -0.10 | -86.4 | 86.6 | 0.393 | 0.352 | -66.5 |
Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 I8160 frequency response
Very good 5MP camera
The Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 comes with a 5MP camera and a single LED
flash. It captures photos at a maximum resolution of 2560 x 1920 pixels.
There's a front VGA camera for video calling too.
The camera interface is the same as on previous Gingerbread Galaxy
devices with two shortcut bars on each side of the viewfinder. On the
right you get the still camera / camcorder switch, a virtual shutter key
and the gallery shortcut.
On the left there's the front-back camera toggle, the flash options
and the Settings shortcut. You can add a total of four shortcuts above
the Settings shortcut - any four you like in any order.
Camera interface
The Galaxy Ace 2 has rich camera functionality - touch focus, scenes,
geotagging, panoramas, smile and blink detection, effects and manual
settings for things like ISO, exposure compensation and so on.
The Galaxy Ace 2 produces good images overall but not quite the best
in the 5 MP league. Our main issue with the results is that they came
out with pretty low contrast and are a bit too soft. Still colors are
nicely balanced and the detail is enough for the Ace 2 to be considered a
good shooter in times of need.
Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 camera samples
Image quality comparison
The Galaxy Ace 2 joins our image quality comparison tool and will
face off with the likes of the Xperia U and the LG Optimus L7. The
tool's page will give you all the information you'd need on what to look
for.
Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 in our Photo Compare Tool
720p video recording is uninspiring
The Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 can capture 720p videos at 30 fps with its
main camera and VGA videos with the secondary camera. The camcorder uses
the exact same interface as the still camera. You can use effects in
the videos, but there's no touch focus.
The camcorder interface is identical to the still camera one
Videos are recorded into MP4 files with a bitrate of 12Mbps, which is
pretty good for 720p resolution. The accompanying sound uses the AAC
audio codec, but is mono only (64 Kbps bitrate, 44.1 kHz sampling rate).
The framerate hits the 30 fps target easily and videos are very smooth.
We weren't very pleased with the video performance of the Galaxy Ace 2
- despite being smooth the videos lack contrast and the resolved detail
isn't nearly as good as on some other 720p-enabled camcorders.
Here's a video sample shot with the Galaxy Ace 2 that we uploaded to YouTube.
And here is an untouched
720p@30fps (0:16s, 24.7MB) video sample for direct download.
Video quality comparison
The Galaxy Ace 2 enters our video quality comparison tool to square
off against the Xperia U and the Optimus L7, check out the results
below.
Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 in our Video Compare Tool
Streamlined and feature-rich connectivity
The Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 has dual-band 3G and quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE
support, with HSPA (14.4 Mbps downlink and 5.76 Mbps uplink).
Moving on, there's stereo Bluetooth 3.0 for fast local file
transfers. Then there's Wi-Fi b/g/n support, DLNA, Wi-Fi Direct and a
Wi-Fi hotspot option.
The AllShare app allows you to stream content to and from various devices (TV or computer) over DLNA.
NFC will be available in select models. For charging and file transfers there's a MicroUSB port and a microSD card extension.
Connect to a PC wirelessly with Kies Air
The Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 comes with Kies Air preloaded. The app
connects to the local Wi-Fi network (or it can create a Wi-Fi hotspot)
and gives you a URL to type into your computer's web browser.
From there you can manage just about anything on the phone - from
contacts, messages (including composing messages), to browsing images,
videos and other files straight in your desktop browser. You can grant
or reject access to computers and see who's connected to the phone at
any moment.
The cool thing is you can stream music with handy playback controls. It works for videos too.
Kies Air in Google Chrome
Gingerbread browser is a little behind the ICS/JB curve
The interface of the Android web browser has hardly changed. Its user experience is, as always, flawless.
The Android browser
The browser supports both double tap and pinch zooming along with the
new two-finger tilt zoom. There are niceties such as multiple tabs,
text reflow, and find on page and so on. A neat trick is to pinch zoom
out beyond the minimum - that opens up the tabs view.
Zoomed in view
Yet another neat trick is the browser-specific brightness setting.
You can, for example, boost the brightness in the browser to comfortably
view your web pages but keep the general brightness low to conserve
battery.
Settings
There's Flash 11 support, which means you can watch YouTube videos
right in the browser (videos up to 720p worked smoothly) and play Flash
games too.
Flash support in action
Samsung Hubs - games, Facebook and more
The Social hub we've seen before - it combines your email accounts
with social networking (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) and email accounts
and shows all incoming messages on one list with handy shortcuts to
reply, mark as favorite and so on. There's filtering by message source
too, to help manage the inflow of incoming updates.
The Social Hub
The Music Hub lets you browse music online (with search tools,
charts, lists of new releases and so on). You can preview songs (30
seconds each) and buy tracks or whole albums.
The Music Hub helps you discover and buy new albums and songs
Finally, there's the Game Hub, which will quickly become your go-to
place for finding new games. The titles break down into Social and
Premium, and there's a news section, too. You also get to try before you
buy. The nice thing about that Hub is it includes the titles by
Gameloft, which are otherwise not available on the Android Market.
Impressive office suite
The Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 comes with Polaris Office preinstalled. It's
one of the most feature-rich mobile editors we've seen. You can view,
edit and create Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents (Office 2003 and
Office 2007 are supported) and there's a PDF viewer as well. The app
enables searching through your office files just like in a file
explorer.
There are a large number of editing options - from font size and
style, justification and bulleting options, to table styles. You can
easily pick Excel functions from a list too (a feature commonly missing
in mobile editors).
Polaris Office
A plethora of organizational tools
The calendar has four different types of view: list, daily, weekly
and monthly. Adding a new event is quick and easy, and you can also set
an alarm to act as a reminder.
The calendar
The list view (often referred to as Agenda view) shows a list of all
the calendar entries from the recent past to the near future. It's a
very handy tool when you need to check your appointments for the next
few days.
There is also a calculator aboard. It is nicely touch optimized - the
buttons are big enough and easy to hit. Turning the phone landscape
reveals more advanced calculator functions.
Calculator • Advanced view
The Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 features a decent alarm clock application
with a huge number of alarms to be set, each with its own start time and
repeat pattern.
The Clock app and the alarm options
The Memo and Mini Diary are self-explanatory. The first app works with text only, while the Diary lets you also attach pictures.
You also get a To-Do app called Task and a Voice recorder to round off the organizer functionality.
The Memo and Mini Diary • Task handles your To-Do list • The Voice recorder
The latest Google Maps
The Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 managed to get a GPS lock in just under a
minute without A-GPS. A-GPS can speed up the lock (but it involves data
traffic). Cell-ID and Wi-Fi positioning are also available if all you
need is a rough location, but they need a data connection too.
Google Maps is a standard part of the Android package and we've
covered it many times before. It offers voice-guided navigation in
certain countries and falls back to a list of instructions elsewhere.
You can plan routes, search for nearby POI and go into the always cool
Street View.
Google Maps
The latest version uses vector maps, which are very data efficient
and easy to cache. The app will reroute you if you get off course, even
without a data connection.
3D buildings are shown for some of the bigger cities and you can use
two-finger camera tilt and rotate to get a better view of the area.
The improved Android Market
The Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 has the latest version of the Android
Market. Upon launch of the Market app you're greeted with the tiled
interface of the Featured window. A swipe to the right takes you to the
Categories view.
Swiping to the left takes you through Top Paid, Top Free, Top
Grossing, Top New Paid, Top New Free and Trending (the ones with growing
popularity). New sections are available such as Staff Picks, Editor's
Choice and more.
Android Market
Downloads are easy and won't take more than a couple of seconds.
Before you agree to download an app, the Market will show you what
features the app requires access to (e.g. Internet connectivity, access
to the file system, etc.).
Final words
At the end of the review, we think we are ready to answer the two
most important questions about the Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 I8160. The first
one's "Is it worth the asking price?" and it couldn't have been a more
resolute "yes".
Indeed, the new Samsung mid-ranger offers so much for its modest
price tag that it's hard to resist. A capable processor, a pretty decent
screen, good build quality and above average media are things you
wouldn't normally expect to find in a single device at this price point.
As we said, the ST-Ericsson chipsets are exactly the news that those
after solid smartphone experience on a tight budget wanted to hear. One
might argue that if you spend little on your phone you can't be a power
user, but the extra core and the relatively new architecture make a huge
difference no matter what you use your smartphone for.
This leads us to the second question and the fact we're about to ask
it says much about how well Samsung have done with the Ace 2. It would
hardly surprise you to hear that the Galaxy Ace 2 is excellent value for
money but could it be the best bang for your buck?
At first glance the Sony Xperia U is the logical choice, for its
slightly faster CPU and cooler curved design. The compact Sony
smartphone will give you more power and character for less.
But before you think that the deal is sealed, you should know that
there is a catch. The Xperia U has 6GB of user-accessible storage and
there's no way of expanding that. This means that if you like to have
your music and videos always at hand you might run into trouble.
The Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 on the other hand offers you a microSD card
slot for all the storage you need and a larger screen, which is quite
important for gaming and watching videos.
Overall, if the limited storage is of no consequence we'd go for the
Xperia U (which should also get ICS next month). But anyone choosing
with the head, not the heart, will probably look at the Galaxy Ace 2.
Sony Xperia U
We shouldn't also forget the Xperia sola, which is Sony's direct
competitor of the Galaxy Ace 2. It addresses the limited storage and the
smaller screen issues, but doesn't look quite as good as the Xperia U
and its highly promoted floating touch feature turned out to be pretty
useless in real life. Still the sola costs the same as the Ace 2 and
should give it a pretty good run for its money.
Sony Xperia sola
Of course there are other options in this price range, but it's hard
to see anyone stealing too many customers from those three. The HTC One
V, for example, costs just a few bucks more than the Ace 2 and offers
superior looks plus Android ICS right out of the box, but it's let down
by its chipset. It might seem like a solid option now, but in the long
run the Samsung smartphone has it easily beat.
HTC One V
Then there's the LG Optimus L7, which would offer you a much larger
4.3" screen (of the same resolution though) and the ICS experience out
of the box, but again fails to come anywhere near the Galaxy Ace 2's
performance levels.
LG Optimus L7 P700
If you are willing to look beyond Android for your next smartphone,
Samsung can treat you to some Super AMOLED WP goodness with the Omnia W.
It was already confirmed that it won't get WP8, but smooth performance
and a cooler-looking and consistent (if not nearly as functional) UI on a
superior screen has its charm.
Samsung Omnia W I8350
Overall, Samsung have a winner in the Galaxy Ace 2. This is a very
meaningful upgrade over the original and ticks all the right boxes to
get in the running for midranger of the year. Now it's up to Samsung to
release the ICS update (and if we dare dream, Jelly Bean after that).
Anyway, the moment it gets the Ice Cream Sandwich, there will be just
the Xperia duo between it and its goal.
