Samsung Galaxy S Relay 4G Review

Introduction:

Back a couple years ago, it was actually quite common to find QWERTY based smartphones being offered by everyone, but strangely this year so far, they've been in relatively short supply. Rather, we've seen a huge push for these ginormous super spec'd devices – and very little of any QWERTY packing ones. Luckily, T-Mobile seems to have a doozy with the Samsung Galaxy S Relay 4G, which seems to be a modest mid-ranger that's sure to please those individuals yearning for some QWERTY action.

The package contains:

• microUSB cable
• Wall charger
• Quick Start Guide
• Health & Safety and Warranty Information

Design:

What's there to say about its design other than it's typical Samsung? Specifically, it employs the distinct styling of past Samsung devices, which is pretty boring to say the least, and lacks any highlighting elements to make it stand out from the crop. With its so-so construction and all-plastic body, it's still somewhat comfortable to hold in the hand thanks to its compact form – though, it's pretty thick by today's standards.



You can compare the Samsung Galaxy S Relay 4G with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

Despite being an ICS smartphone, it still packs a couple of capacitive buttons beneath its display – with a flat looking physical home button scrunched between them. Meanwhile, the earpiece, 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera, and LED notification light are all positioned above the display.

Peering around the sides of the handset, we're greeted to all the usual suspect of items we're accustomed to seeing – like its 3.5mm headset jack, microUSB port, microphone, power button, and volume control. With the latter two, however, we're not fans of their flat appearance, but at least a press is accompanied with a decent response.

Flipping it over to its rear, its 5-megapixel auto-focus camera with LED flash sticks out from the rest of the surface, which has the ability to shoot 720p videos. Towards the bottom side, there are two slits hiding away the handset's internal speaker – while prying off the rear cover grants us access to its microSD slot, 1,800 mAh battery, and SIM slot.



Display:

Enough to appease our taste for a mid-ranger, the Samsung Galaxy S Relay 4G's 4-inch WVGA 480 x 800 Super AMOLED screen is still pleasant to look at. Indeed, it's employing a PenTile Matrix arrangement and its PPI is not high, but it is OK for a mid-ranger. Furthermore, it has all the other qualities we love about AMOLED screens in general that we come to appreciate, like its over-saturated colors and average viewing angles, but it still requires some proper shielding away from the sun for visibility.

Keyboard:

Sliding open to expose its 5-row keyboard, it is accompanied with a fair amount of snappiness to ensure our feelings about its decent build quality. Honestly, the keyboard on here reminds us of the one found with the Samsung Epic 4G from long ago, as it employs a very similar layout and style of buttons. Despite finding some flat looking rectangular keys, we're able to type away at a casual rate thanks to its springy response, dedicated row for numbers, and shift keys on both sides of the layout.

Interface and Functionality:

Most certainly, the Galaxy S Relay 4G isn't gunning to outshine Samsung's prestigious Galaxy S III in the experience department, but we're glad to see that it has been blessed with a few of the cool features found with the TouchWiz Nature UX experience. Of course, running underneath it all is Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich, which still provides for all the exciting personalization aspects of the platform. Supplementing it, however, are things like S Beam and S Voice, which gives the experience some delightful functionality. Although it doesn't offer the comprehensive level of functionally attached with Sammy's flagship, we're nevertheless pleased by offering.



As we take a look at some of the core organizer apps on the smartphone, it's quite clear that they're identical to what's offered by the Galaxy S III, which we appreciate. Furthermore, the email experience is soundly intact for power users, as the Gmail app coughs up all the usual set of deep functionality we desire.



Already winning us over with its slick physical keyboard, you can always fall back on using its on-screen keyboard instead. However, we find ourselves being a bit more cautious since the layout is somewhat cramped in portrait – albeit, it's responsive enough to keep up with our pace.



Not surprisingly, there are a small handful of third-party apps preloaded on the handset – these include Dropbox, Evernote, Lookout Security, Slacker Radio, and TeleNav GPS Navigator. Yet, T-Mobile's presence is in full force as it packs items like Access T-Mobile, Game Base, MobileLife Organizer, T-Mobile Name ID, T-Mobile TV, and visual voicemail.



Processor and Memory:

What do you know people? It turns out that the Samsung Galaxy S Relay 4G is outfitted with a 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor with 1GB of RAM – instead of the previously reported last-gen S3 CPU. With it in tow, we're treated with an overall peppy performance with few instances of it straining to perform smoothly. Heck, the benchmark scores prove that it's packing some serious heat under the hood!

	Quadrant Standard	AnTuTu	NenaMark 2
Samsung Galaxy S Relay 4G	4960	6692	60,3
T-Mobile myTouch Q	2040	3806	29,7
T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy Note	3417	6491	35,1
HTC Desire V	1807	2866	19,7

Always a comforting item to find on any smartphone, the handset's microSD card slot gives us the flexibility to supplement its 5.06GB of available internal storage out of the box.

Internet and Connectivity:

Knowing that it's tucking away one serious processor behind the scenes, it doesn't surprise us that we're given a great web browsing experience – thanks primarily to the fluid navigational controls it has to offer. Additionally, it's complemented by its speedy 42Mbps HSPA+ connection, which enables it to load complex sites in no time all. Combining those two factors, it results in simply an enjoyable experience.



Already winning us over in the web surfing department, its 42Mbps HSPA+ connection is able to keep us content with real world maximum download and upload speeds of 7.6 Mbps and 1.3Mbps. On top of that, it also features aGPS, Bluetooth 3.0, Wi-Fi, and mobile hotspot. And yes, it packs NFC too!

Camera:

At 5-megapixels, some would presume the Galaxy S Relay 4G's camera to be passable enough to accept, but sadly, that's not the case here. Instead, its quality is severely diminished by its lackluster details, prevalent over-exposure, and inaccurate color reproduction due to its cooler appearance. Meanwhile, it doesn't get any better in low lighting, as the unflattering amount of graininess simply softens its overall quality.



Normally, a handset's still shot quality can eventually dictate the outcome of its video capturing quality as well. Rightfully so, that's the case here, since there's not a single improvement found with the handset's 720p recording. Specifically, it continues to suffer from over-exposure and dull details, deeming it as far from what's perceive to be high definition.

Samsung Galaxy S Relay 4G Sample Video:



Multimedia:

Donning the same TouchWiz music player we've been seeing of late with many Galaxy devices, it has that balance of presentation and functionality – with the music square feature on board to associate songs as being calm, joyful, exciting, or passionate. Audio-wise, its speaker outputs some average tones that don't strain at the loudest setting.



Having support for a wide variety of codecs, the Samsung Galaxy S Relay 4G is fully capable in playing our test video that's encoded in DivX 1920 x 1080 resolution. Pleasing to the eyes, its Super AMOLED screen surely keeps our eyes affixed at all times.

Call Quality:

Despite some minor flaws, such as the crackly tones heard on our caller's end and through the speakerphone, it's still tolerable enough to carry out conversations. Through the earpiece, however, there's not a problem with the distinct voices we're presented with.

Signal strength is hardly a concern with this one, as we didn’t experience any dropped calls or major fluctuation during our usage in the greater Philadelphia region.

Battery:

Even though it pumps enough juice for us to get through a solid day of normal usage, power users are more than likely to connect it to a power source at least once through the course of a day. So yeah, it's pretty much average with its performance.

Conclusion:

If you can somehow see through the boring design of the Samsung Galaxy S Relay 4G, you'll find a superb Android smartphone that manages to be a good device in the mid-range category. In this day and age, it seems that the sweet spot for mid-rangers tends to be at $100, and at $150 with a 2-year contract, some might think the Relay 4G to be overpriced. Instead, we find it fitting knowing that it's one of the few Android smartphones being released nowadays with a fantastic keyboard – plus, some of the cool software features found with Sammy's flagship. Therefore, if you desperately desire something with a great keyboard, you should keep this in contention at the moment.

Software version of the reviewed unit:
Android Version: 4.0.4
Build Number: IMM76D.T699UVALH1
Kernel Version: 3.0.8-855246-user

Samsung Galaxy S Relay 4G Video Review: