If you have been using a basic phone or feature phone all this while and would like to buy a smartphone for the first time without breaking the bank then look no further than Samsung’s Galaxy Ace Plus. The Ace Plus was introduced in January 2012 as a replacement for Samsung’s older mid-range smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy Ace. The newer model sports faster processor and slightly bigger screen powered by Android 2.3.6 Gingerbread which is up-gradable to Android v4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.
The Galaxy Ace Plus was introduced in Malaysia somewhere in early 2012 with an introductory price of RM800 or less. It is an affordable mid-range phone perfect as an upgrade from an entry-level Android phone. This is also the phone that you might consider if you are not able to afford the high-end Galaxy SII or SIII. What is more interesting is that the phone now cost less than the RM800 retail price when it was first introduced. I saw one sold at RM598 at an online store and a few others sold at the price range of RM570 to RM650 at a local phone shop. I am not sure whether the phones are AP (Approved Products) or original but what is clear to me is that the phone has definitely had a huge price cut.
The Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus key features are as follow:
- Quad-band GSM and dual-band 3G support
- 7.2 Mbps HSDPA support
- 3.65″ 16M-color TFT LCD capacitive touchscreen of HVGA (320 x 480 pixels) resolution
- 1 GHz ARM Cortex A5 processor, Adreno 200 GPU, Qualcomm MSM7227A chipset; 512MB of RAM available to the user
- Android OS v2.3 (Gingerbread) with TouchWiz 4.0 UI customization
- Swype text input
- 5 MP autofocus camera with LED flash; geotagging, smile detection3 GB of internal storage, microSD slot
- Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n and DLNA
- GPS with A-GPS connectivity; Digital compass
- microUSB port (charging) and stereo Bluetooth v3.0
- Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
- FM radio with RDS
- Document editor
- File manager preinstalled
- Samsung Apps brings a few nice apps for free
- Accelerometer and proximity sensor
Downsides
- VGA video recording @30fps has no special features
- No front facing camera
- No shutter key
- Average loudspeaker performance
- No ambient light sensor
- No DivX/Xvid video support out of the box
Verdict
The Galaxy Ace Plus has very few downsides (except for the camera), the faster processor coupled with larger internal storage, RAM and 3.5-inch screen definitely will give you years of good experiences with the phone. Most of all I think is the price cut – it is cheap, powerful and sexy…why not buy one as a replacement for your old basic phone? For more information, you may want to watch the video review below courtesy of PhoneArena.
