Samsung Galaxy R deals & review

The Galaxy R is essentially a scaled down version of the Galaxy SII flagship device from Samsung. In almost all areas the phones are virtually identical, particularly in terms of physical design, with the Galaxy R and SII being pretty indistinguishable. There are some noticeable differences however. The Galaxy R uses a Super Clear LCD screen rather than the SII´s Super AMOLED Plus, meaning it is perhaps not as vibrant indoors but will fair a little better out in direct sunlight.

The Galaxy R also uses a slightly slower 1GHz dual core processor, and this is a Tegra 2 chip rather than the Exynos 1.2GHz chip found on the SII. The Galaxy R still runs on Android Gingerbread with TouchWiz and so in the software department little has been changed. You can get access to Android Market to download many excellent games and apps to enjoy, and the Galaxy R features great support for social networks like Facebook.

Email and SMS messaging are also a joy on the Galaxy R. The phone does feature 3G and Wi-Fi, although the connections are not perhaps quite as nippy as those found on the S2. They still offer an excellent web experience compared to most contemporary phones, with a full HTML browser included for excellent web browsing, with Flash support and streaming videos from services such as YouTube.

The YouTube app also allows you to directly record and upload your own videos from the phones camera. The camera is one of the main areas that has had a bit of a streamlining from the SII, with the 5 megapixel camera coming with 720p video. This is an excellent camera and will serve most camera needs on a day to day basis.

As with the SII, the Galaxy R comes with fantastic entertainment value with superb music and video playback support, put to great effect with the large screen, and comes bundled with plenty of Google services and an FM radio. The Galaxy R is ever so slightly thicker than the Galaxy SII, but in most respects remains faithful to the design.

Put simply, the Galaxy R is a slightly streamlined version of the Galaxy SII. Bear in mind however, that the SII is pretty much at the top of the market, and while it offers excellent value for money the Galaxy R still provides plenty of high end features.