By Hubert Nguyen, Ubergizmo
When it was announced, the Samsung Galaxy Round has sparked a lot of interest and curiosity since it is Samsung’s first phone that comes with a slightly curved display. Interestingly, although the underlying AMOLED display is somewhat “flexible”, the phone itself is curved. There was a lot of preconceptions (if not misconceptions) about what a “curved” phone should look like, or whether it should exist at all.
Galaxy Round. Photo from Ubergizmo.
Some said that it should “roll completely” (what’s the point of a stick-phone if it occupies the same volume?), while others didn’t see any value in a curve design, calling it a “gimmick”… well, if “design” variations was a gimmick, maybe we should all wear the same shoes. After all, they all protect our feet, and that’s all we want right? Of course not… Let’s look at the Galaxy round as we would with any other phone: how does it feel? What does it do for you? How good is it in the real world? By the end of this review, you will have the answer to all these questions.
Galaxy Round Specifications
5.95 x 3.13 x 0.31 inches, 154g
32GB + microSD (64 max)
Snapdragon 800, 3GB RAM
Android 4.3
2800 mAh battery
5.7” AMOLED display (1920×1080), 386ppi
As you can see, the specifications are “high-end” and very close to what you could get from the Galaxy Note 3, which is one of the best large-display smartphones available today. Design aside, the smaller 2800mAh battery and the absence of a stylus are the most glaring differences with its Note 3 cousin. Other than that, everything is nearly the same.
Context
Before we dive into the full review, let me tell you what I do with my phones – that’s the kind of details that shed new light on the whole review. I hope that by knowing where I come from, you can picture what your own usage of the phone would be. I mainly use my smartphones to keep up with email (exchange), social networks and browse the web. I don’t really play much or watch movies on my phones. However, I’ll happily listen to music while I’m in a long flight. I tend to use less than 20 apps on a regular basis, and I try to keep my phone as clean as possible.
Industrial Design
It’s fair to say that the Samsung Galaxy Round is first and foremost a Samsung Galaxy phone with a slightly different take on design. While it is routinely compared to the LG Flex, it’s interesting to note that both phones have a completely opposite use of the screen curvature. The Galaxy Round has been designed to make a relatively large phone fit with a greater comfort in small hands, thanks to the gentle curve.
While in Seoul, Korea, I noticed that it is extremely common to see people with big phones, and since the network is excellent and that there are WiFi access point everywhere, people do use them quite a bit. Also, because many users take the train and other means of public transportation, the one hand usage isn’t as big of a deal as when you’re driving (you should probably not use the phone while driving…).
Much has been said about the Galaxy Round, especially in regards to its “flexible” screen. First of all, let’s clarify this: the phone is NOT flexible. It was designed to be “curved” and although the underlying AMOLED display has some flexibility property, the product does not. Since the Round was a product designed for the Korean market I’m not sure that Samsung paid a particular attention to how the “flexibility talk” would be interpreted in the west and some of it was misunderstood. Morality: every single Samsung product release should be treated as a “global communications” matter.
OK, so how does it feel?
First let’s address the width of the phone: it is about the same as the Galaxy Note 3’s, so overall this remains a large and relatively wide phone. The main difference to me is that when holding the Note 3, most of the pressure is on either side of the phone. On the Galaxy Round, the curved back help relieve some of that.
Stylus and camera performance aside, I prefer the ergonomics of the Galaxy Round when holding it in my hand. The second question that one may have is: how does it feel in the (pants) pocket? I was a bit worried about this, but it turns out that if I put it in my pocket with the curvature is a good fit against my thigh, so it feels a little better than the Galaxy Note 3. It works equally well in the back pocket, although I think that the LG Flex is a better back pocket phone because you can sit on it.
All around look
The Galaxy Round uses a very standard Samsung layout: at the top, you can find a noise-cancelling microphone, an infra-red emitter and the 3.5mm audio connector. On the right side, the Power button is the only protruding feature and at the bottom, there’s another noise-cancelling microphone near the USB 3.0 connector.
Finally, on the left side, there’s the Volume control. Just below the screen there’s a big “home” button that is typical to Samsung phones. The front is fairly clean with the ear speaker location being a bit busy with the chrome speaker grill and the Samsung logo, along with the various sensors, webcams and LED indicator. In the back, this phone gets the same faux-leather treatment as the Galaxy Note
Display (Very good+)
As usual, Samsung is using a beautiful AMOLED screen. This one has a diagonal of 5.7” and provides an excellent image quality and color rendering (if you like very saturated colors). AMOLED displays tend to have an excellent contrast and black-levels (blacks are really blacks and not gray) because each pixel illuminates itself.
LCDs on the other hand cannot match this because the light source and pixels are separated, so black happens by trying to prevent light form going through. Since it’s not easy, black pixels are often “dark gray”. The curvature of the display is not really visually noticeable.
However from “tactile” point of view, the curvature is most noticeable while swiping from left to right. It feels pretty good, and I like it very much. It is a more agreeable when typing on the keyboard, even though the distance from thumb to screen varies only by a tiny amount when compared to a flat display. I can’t say that it improves my typing performance or something like that, but it does feel better.
Read the full article by Hubert Nguyen from Ubergizmo.
