

Samsung Galaxy S sales surpass five million - Garbage
http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/06/samsung-galaxy-s-sales-surpass-five-million-world-domination-pl/

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moe
Got one. Nice hardware. Still waiting for the firmware update to fix GPS
(completely shot) and WLAN (locks up frequently, requiring a reboot).

It has been promised for September. Now it's promised for October.

The eventual execution of this update will be the deciding factor over whether
this has merely been my _first_ samsung phone or also my _last_.

The otherwise splendid hard- and software can't mitigate the fact that the
device has shipped with not one but _two_ critical features being defective.
That shouldn't happen in a flagship device like the Galaxy. And when it
happens then it shouldn't take upwards of 3 months for a fix. Get your act
together Samsung, quick.

~~~
machrider
This GPS fix worked for me on the Vibrant:
[http://www.androidcentral.com/quick-fix-gps-issues-your-
new-...](http://www.androidcentral.com/quick-fix-gps-issues-your-new-samsung-
galaxy-s-series-phone)

~~~
moe
Sadly this exact fix seems to have caused my WLAN lockups.

After enabling it the GPS accuracy improved, but I noticed that my WLAN would
be shot almost every morning (stuck in state "turning off...", could only be
revived by rebooting).

After reverting the GPS settings to "standalone" a couple days ago I have not
seen any more WLAN lockups.

My suspicion is that the fix causes the GPS subsystem to force-enable WLAN at
regular intervals when it tries to pull updates from the internet server. This
"force-enabling" seems to confuse the regular android/samsung WLAN manager and
leaves it in a broken state as described above...

Either way, not an acceptable state of affairs for what is supposed to be a
high-end smartphone.

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johnnygood
It's not surprising that they've sold so many. The Galaxy S seems to be the
first Android device that the maker hasn't gone the exclusive route. In the
US, yes, they did rename it and make minute changes for different carriers,
but its substantially the same phone released at mostly the same time.

It's about time that my choice in phone didn't dictate the carrier I'm tied
to. Samsung gives me that choice in a way that Motorola makes me tied to
Verizon, Apple makes me tied to AT&T and HTC ties me to a various carrier
depending on which model of their's I want.

I was really hoping he Galaxy S line would succeed even if just to prove that
you can have a non-exclusive phone that's a big seller.

~~~
jedbrown
If you want 3G in the US, then your choice of phone ties you to a carrier. I
own a Vibrant (off contract) and although I can use it with any carrier when
in Europe, I couldn't leave T-mobile because the 3G radio won't work with
other US carriers. (I'm happy with T-mo, but that's not the point.)

~~~
jmillikin
I have an unlocked Vibrant, and it works well on AT&T's 3G network. Generally
it's AT&T phones that don't work well with others, since they actually disable
non-AT&T frequency bands.

~~~
jedbrown
Interesting, all the specs I've seen say it only supports UMTS Band I (2100,
Europe) and IV (1700 "AWS", US T-mobile). You'd think they would have
mentioned that it also supports band II (1900, AT&T). I just ran a fresh
search and came up with this page which supports your claim, but it's absurd
not to list it anywhere else:
[http://ars.samsung.com/customer/usa/jsp/faqs/faqs_view_us.js...](http://ars.samsung.com/customer/usa/jsp/faqs/faqs_view_us.jsp?SITE_ID=22&PG_ID=2&PROD_SUB_ID=557&PROD_ID=560&AT_ID=296330)

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CoffeeDregs
Got one (broke my contract with AT&T/iPhone3GS). Baked the Fascinate off
against the Droid Incredible and the D2. The Galaxy/Fascinate's UI's response
is iPhone-smooth. All of the other phones had little interaction lags even
though they were running 2.2. It turns out that smoothness is a real concern
for me (probably because I think it indicates something about full-stack
performance), so I grabbed the Fascinate.

I was comparing my Fascinate to a friend's iPhone4 the other day and ... there
wasn't much of a comparison... Build quality and screen on the iPhone4 are
better; everything else is better on the Fascinate. I was kinda shocked that,
after a short time using a fast Android phone, I couldn't conceive of wanting
an iPhone; it seemed limited in its conception/functionality.

Definitely some hiccups with the phone, but I was all set to root it, delete
BlockBuster, switch to LauncherPro, blah, blah, blah, and I'm not sure that
I'll do any of that. Was concerned about the delay in getting 2.2; now, not so
much. I'm not a huge GPS user, so haven't been bugged by the GPS issue.

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rue
The phone is pretty excellent (I have not been victim of any GPS/other
problems) though the pushed-back 2.2 update is a bit annoying.

The only _real_ annoyance I have had is with Samsung Kies (the company's
firmware update- and externalised crapware-management application), which is
just about the worst desktop app I have ever had to try use. I say try because
it never works.

Of course, the solution is easy if it fails to update 2.2 - will just install
it "unofficially" and probably not look back.

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fondue
I've got one, it cost me a penny (plus a two year contract to T-Mobile, which
I would have got anyway).

