Electronics

[Stargazer77]

As I mentioned in the other post I started, I needed a new Tracfone (my LG Ultimate 2 is pretty old now, running KitKat).  After whittling all the phones down based on my requirements, the only phone left standing was the Samsung Galaxy Sky.  I'm a big LG fan, but decided to try something new.

I've had the phone for 2 days and have had it activated for 1 day, so this is my initial review so far.  Overall, a thumbs up! 

I like the size.  I went from a 4.5" screen to a 5" inch screen and it's very nice.  

I like that it has 16gb of memory.  I don't think any of the apps can be moved to the SD card, though.  I could move some apps to my SD card on my old phone. 

The screen is very nice and clear and colorful.  The brightness is excellent.  There's an outdoor feature, which makes the screen super bright for 15 minutes (I think).

The scrolling between screens is very smooth and the movements are quick, from opening an app to browsing the internet.  

The battery life so far has been very good.  I've been playing with it quite a bit and setting it up just so and the battery has lasted.

I like that the flashlight is in the pull-down menu.

I like that my CNN app will load once again!  It wouldn't load any more on my LG.  Reuters was a good substitute, but I do prefer the CNN app.

I like that the keyboard is big enough to always display the row of numbers.  No more toggling between letters and numbers when texting or typing.

I like that the power and volume buttons on the Samsung are on the sides of the phone.  The newer LGs have put these buttons on the back of the phone and I don't prefer that at all.  My backup LG Sunset has that setup and I find it awkward to handle.

Here are my dislikes...My LG had a feature where if I scrolled over to the last screen and kept scrolling it would wrap around to the first screen again.  I really liked that feature.  I just looked and it's called screen looping.

I don't like that the back button on the bottom of the phone screen is reversed compared to my LG.  That will be an adjustment.  Plus, I'm left-handed, so I guess the phone caters to right-handed people, who are the majority of the population??

I don't like that the Samsung does not have whatever is needed for the Compass app.  That was disappointing to me.  I've only used it a couple times, but it was still handy.  Sometimes I get turned around when I pop out of the subway station in Manhattan, especially if I'm in an unfamiliar area heading to another unfamiliar area.

I don't like that the music on my microSD card will only play a song at a time.  There's no in-house music app on the Samsung like there is on the LG.

I also couldn't find the call waiting feature in the settings menu.  I wanted to make sure it was turned on.  Maybe I just keep missing it.

I miss double tapping the sleeping screen to wake the phone up.  LG has that feature, Samsung does not.  I actually used it quite a bit.

The main reason I waited so long to upgrade my LG Ultimate 2 was because of the light-up notification button.  It was my favorite feature and so very useful.  Another poster here talked about the NoLED  app and I tried that on my backup phone and it worked pretty well, so that's been a good thing for my new Samsung.  I don't think I can customize it with a different color for each person like I did with my LG, but that will OK I guess.  It's been working well and I can see if I have a missed call or text when I glance over at my new phone.  I do see an option to have the person's picture show up when available, so maybe I will go around snapping pictures of people.  

So, that's my intital review of the Samsung Galaxy Sky.  Everything transferred over quickly and easily and I am up and running with my new phone.  All that said, if LG releases a phone that's similar I will go back.  In the meantime, I will enjoy the Samsung.  Thanks for reading!  

[CinNC]

Thanks for the review.  I bought an LG after my tracfone Moto died and was pleasantly surprised by it. But, I ended up frustrated w/the 8g of memory and ended up w/the the Samsung Sky also. 

[gardenman]

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@CinNC wrote:

Thanks for the review.  I bought an LG after my tracfone Moto died and was pleasantly surprised by it. But, I ended up frustrated w/the 8g of memory and ended up w/the the Samsung Sky also. 

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The 8g of RAM is an issue, but if you get the message that you have to delete apps to download an update, what you'll often find is that the phone is lying. It's calculating how much space you'd need to update every app that needs updating at once. (There will often be five to ten that need updating.) If you go into the Play Store and select each app individually, you can generally update the apps individually without having to delete anything. It's a little tedious, but it works.

What's really funny these days is how huge programs have grown. Apps were originally supposed to be small little programs. My first real PC had a whopping 1.2 gb hard drive and I used that computer for seven years and still had space remaining. It had two operating systems on it (Windows 3.11 and WIndows 95) at least three old word processing programs (Word Pro 95, WordPerfect, and whatever version of Word was around at the time) and lots of other programs. (And I mean lots of other programs.) Nowadays we get phones with 8 gb's of storage and we don't have enough space to store everything we want on our phones. It's kind of a crazy world.

That first PC used a 100MHz Pentium processor. The new processor I have coming tomorrow to upgrade my computer is a 3.5 GHz processor with six cores. That's six cores each of which is 35 times faster than my original computer's CPU (which was about twenty years old  I think). I'm adding in a 120 GB SSD just for the operating system and essential programs. The new motherboard, SSD, 8 gb's of RAM, CPU, and operating system cost me around $370 and by reusing my old case. power supply, optical drive and hard drives (1.32 terabyte's worth) I'll have an essentially new computer that's superior to anything I can buy at that price point.

Building your own computer costs you more for the upfront costs for that initial build, but if you invested wisely, you can reuse many of those components down the road making rebuilding your PC much more affordable. Things like cases, power supplies, optical drives, hard drives, mice, keyboards, speakers, case fans, etc. don't really get obsolete so if they're working you don't need to replace them. I'll have gotten either eight or nine years of use out of this setup by July, and it's still running Vista which is no longer supported, so it's time to upgrade it. In all likleihood the upgrade I'm doing will keep it going for another seven plus years. I'll likely have to replace a piece here or there as I go (power supplies are notoriously unreliable, but they're pretty cheap and easy to replace) but overall I'll have saved enough on this rebuild to have made building my own computer a good investment.

[millieshops]

@Stargazer77I'm new to Tracfone and to Samsung.  I also bought the Galaxy Sky and am playing with it and liking it for the most part.

If you catch my post, one thing I don't know is what pull-down menu you were referring to that has a flashlight.  If there's an easy way to explain that to me, I thank you in advance for the info.

[Marp]

@Stargazer77said:  "I miss double tapping the sleeping screen to wake the phone up.  LG has that feature, Samsung does not.  I actually used it quite a bit."

You just have to press the home button to wake the screen.

This is a link to the full user manual for the Galaxy Sky.  There is a lot of reading so you might want to download and save it to read at your leisure.  http://tracfoneusermanual.com/samsung-galaxy-sky-s320vl-user-manual/

[x Hedge]

@millieshops, she means the Quick Settings panel.
Place one finger on screen at top, just under the wird Samsung.
Draw finger down slowly to reveal Quick Settings. Tap the word Edit to tailor the panel for your needs.

[x Hedge]

@Stargazer77 wrote

I like that the keyboard is big enough to always display the row of numbers.  No more toggling between letters and numbers when texting or typing.

FYI  Stargazer77, you dont have to switch back and forth between screens on the older OS/keyboards. The numbers and basic punctuation marks, and more, is accessible from the qwerty alphabet screen.

On older phones with Jellybean, KitKat and the like, just touch & hold letter keys in the top row (instead of tapping) to reveal the numbers.

So tap the Q to type the Q, BUT touch & hold the Q to type the 1, and so on to type any number without leaving the alphabet screen.

Touch and hold other keys to punctuate w/o changing screens. 

On newer phones the row of numbers is displayed above the letters, but the touch&hold to punctuate from the letter keys still applys.

@Big Sister

[Stargazer77]

@Marp  Thank you so much for the link to the user manual!  I will definitely check it out.

[Stargazer77]

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@x Hedge wrote:

@Stargazer77 wrote

I like that the keyboard is big enough to always display the row of numbers.  No more toggling between letters and numbers when texting or typing.

FYI  Stargazer77, you dont have to switch back and forth between screens on the older OS/keyboards. The numbers and basic punctuation marks, and more, is accessible from the qwerty alphabet screen.

On older phones with Jellybean, KitKat and the like, just touch & hold letter keys in the top row (instead of tapping) to reveal the numbers.

So tap the Q to type the Q, BUT touch & hold the Q to type the 1, and so on to type any number without leaving the alphabet screen.

Touch and hold other keys to punctuate w/o changing screens. 

On newer phones the row of numbers is displayed above the letters, but the touch&hold to punctuate from the letter keys still applys.

@Big Sister

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@x Hedge  Very cool!!  Thanks so much for the info!  

[Moonlady]

No native music app with the Samsung Sky? Yikes. I have the LG Premier, and have about 120 favorite songs downloaded because I'm a big music fan. Speaking of that, BTW, I also have 9 albums in my gallery, each with anywhere from 50 to 200+ pics. Folders, contacts, apps...you name it. I don't know what people are storing on their phones, but I sure don't need double the storage that the Sky offers. Not yet, anyway lol.

I've liked the Samsungs I've had, though I'm partial to LG now. But I'd CONSIDER even going down to the Sky's 5" display from the Premier's 5.3" display--IF it had its own music app.