Samsung Galaxy S

Codename	Galaxphones
Manufacturer	Samsung Electronics
Slogan	Turn on Smart Life
Series	Samsung Galaxy
Model	GT-i9000
Compatible networks	Dual band CDMA2000/EV-DO Rev. A 800 and 1,900 MHz; WiMAX 2.5 to 2.7 GHz; 802.16e 2.5G (GSM/GPRS/EDGE): 850, 900, 1,700, 1,800, 1,900, and 2,100 MHz; 3G (HSDPA 7.2 Mbit/s, HSUPA 5.76 Mbit/s): 900, 1,900, and 2,100 MHz; TD-SCDMA (China Mobile Only)
First released	4 June 2010; 13 years ago (2010-06-04)
Discontinued	6 March 2012; 11 years ago
Units sold	24 Million (as of 14 January 2013)[1]
Predecessor	Samsung Galaxy (original)
Successor	Samsung Galaxy S II
Related	Samsung Galaxy Player Samsung Nexus S
Type	Smartphone
Form factor	Slate (most versions) Slider (Sprint version)
Dimensions	122.4 mm (4.82 in) H 64.2 mm (2.53 in) W 9.9–14 mm (0.39–0.55 in) D
Mass	119 g (4.20 oz)
Operating system	Original: Android 2.1 "Eclair" with TouchWiz UI 3.0/4.0 Current: Android 2.3.6 "Gingerbread" with TouchWiz UI 3.0/4.0 Unofficial: Android 7.1 "Nougat" via LineageOS 14.1 （Unofficial）
System-on-chip	Samsung Exynos 3 (Previously known as Hummingbird)
CPU	1.0 GHz ARM Cortex A8
GPU	PowerVR SGX 540
Memory	512MB RAM
Storage	8 GB / 16 GB
Removable storage	microSDHC (up to 32 GB)
Battery	Removable Li-Ion 1,500 mAh Battery
Display	4.0 in (100 mm) Super AMOLED with RGBG-Matrix (Pentile) 480x800 px WVGA (233 ppi)
External display	TV out via headphone jack and mDNIe via WiFi (HD)
Sound	SoundAlive, 16 kHz 64 kbit/s mono in HD video recording
Rear camera	5 MP with auto focus; 720p HD video (12 Mb/s); auto-focus; self-shot, action, panorama, smile shot; face detection; anti-shake; add me
Front camera	VGA camera (some models)
Connectivity	3.5 mm TRRS; Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n; DLNA; Bluetooth 3.0; micro-USB 2.0; FM radio with RDS with recording
Data inputs	Multi-touch capacitive touchscreen display, Ambient light sensor, microphone, 3-axis Magnetometer (Compass), aGPS, 3-axis accelerometer, stereo FM radio with RDS and Swype, physical QWERTY keyboard (on Sprint version only)
Other	TV out, integrated messaging Social Hub, Google Play, GALAXY Apps, A-GPS, Augmented reality with Layar Reality Browser, video messaging, Exchange ActiveSync (offline and no SIM Mode), voice command, RSS reader, Widgets, Smart security[2]
SAR	Head: 0.325 W/kg 1 g Body: 0.422 W/kg 1 g Hotspot: -[3]

The Samsung Galaxy S (retrospectively referred to unofficially as the Samsung Galaxy S1, Galaxy SI or simply S1) is a touchscreen-enabled, slate-format Android smartphone designed, developed, and marketed by Samsung Electronics; it is the first smartphone of the Samsung Galaxy S series. It is the first device of the third Android smartphone series produced by Samsung.^[4] It was announced to the press in March 2010 and released for sale in June 2010. Due to shortage of Super AMOLED displays, Samsung released a successor to the device called S scLCD or SL and ceased production of the original I9000 model.

The Galaxy S is produced in over two dozen variations. The international 'GT-I9000' reference version features a 1 GHz ARM "Hummingbird" processor, a PowerVR graphics processor, 2 or 4 GB of internal flash memory, a 4 in (10 cm) 480×800 pixel Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen display, Wi-Fi connectivity, DLNA support, a 5-megapixel primary camera and a 0.3-megapixel secondary front-facing camera.^[5] Derivative models may include localized cellular radios or changes to button layouts, keyboards, screens, cameras or the Android OS.

At the time of its release, the Galaxy S included the fastest graphical processing of any smartphone,^[6] was the thinnest smartphone at 9.9 mm^[7] and was the first Android phone to be certified for DivX HD.^[8]

As of 2013, over 25 million Galaxy S units have been sold.^[9] The Galaxy S name continued on with the semi-related Snapdragon-based Galaxy S Plus and NovaThor-based Galaxy S Advance smartphones. The next major release of the series was the Samsung Galaxy S II, which was introduced in May 2011.

In 2012, Samsung introduced the dual SIM version of the Galaxy S.

Launch

The phone was initially launched in Singapore on June 4, 2010.^[10] Before the end of its first weekend on sale in Singapore, Samsung tweeted that Singtel, the exclusive carrier to sell the device in Singapore, was sold out of devices.^[11] On Friday, June 25, 2010, the phone was launched in Malaysia and South Korea.^[12][13] Overall the launch schedule comprised launches on 110 carriers in 100 countries at the same time.^[14] U.S. Variants named as Epic, Vibrant, Fascinate, Captivate, and Mesmerize were released from June through September 2010.

Reception

CNET Asia gave the Galaxy S a favorable review with a score of 8.4/10. The Galaxy S was compared to current high-end Android-based phones such as the HTC Desire, Xperia X10, Nexus One, and smartphones using different operating systems like the iPhone 4, which runs iOS, and HTC HD2, which runs Windows Mobile in CNET Asia.^[15]

GSMArena.com described the Galaxy S as having "perfect audio quality," claiming the phone's superior all-round performance made it a "new leader of the Android pack."^[16]

TIME listed the Galaxy S as #2 device in "Top 10 Gadgets" of 2010, praising its Super AMOLED display.^[17]

The phone was criticized by some reviewers for sub-par GPS performance. Anandtech, reviewing the Epic 4G variant, said, "the phone will take an inordinate amount of time to determine your actual location, and/or it won’t pinpoint your location very accurately."^[18] Engadget described the GPS in the Vibrant and Captivate variants as "utterly broken and non-functional … this is a problem for which there's no reasonable explanation why it made it all the way to retail devices."^[19] Samsung released an application for the Captivate and Vibrant variants only that resets the phone's GPS settings to factory defaults.^[20] TechRadar acknowledged GPS faults in the Galaxy S and stated that these have been fixed in the Google Nexus S.^[21] There is, however, a solution to the problem and it includes opening it and welding the antenna contacts with the motherboard.^[22]

Hardware

Processor

The Samsung Galaxy S used the Samsung S5PC110 processor.^[23] This processor combined a 45 nm 1 GHz ARM Cortex-A8 based CPU core with a PowerVR SGX 540 GPU made by Imagination Technologies which supported OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0^[24] and is capable of up to 90 million triangles per second.^[25] The CPU core, code-named "Hummingbird", was co-developed by Samsung and Intrinsity.^[26] This processor was subsequently renamed to the Samsung Exynos 3110 in October 2011.^{[citation needed]}

Memory

The Samsung Galaxy S has 512 MB of LPDDR1 RAM (Mobile DDR). Some variants also come with either 8 GB or 16 GB of OneNAND memory combined in a package-on-package stack with the processor. An external microSD card slot supports up to 32 GB of additional storage memory.^[23]

Screen

The Samsung Galaxy S uses a 101.6-millimetre (4.00 in) Super AMOLED touch screen covered by Gorilla Glass, a special crack and scratch resistant material.^[27] The screen is a WVGA PenTile display manufactured by Samsung.

Audio

The phone uses Wolfson's WM8994 DAC as its audio hub.^[28]

Camera

Samsung Galaxy S has a 5 megapixel back camera with no optical but digital zoom. It has sensor type 1/3.6" (rectangle 4×3 mm), which is a bit smaller in size than usual sensor in digital compact cameras, which have 1/2.33"-1/2.5" type sensor. It also has a 0.3 megapixel VGA front camera.

GPS

The Samsung Galaxy 'S' was well known for the poor performance of the GPS module. This was due to poor electrical connectivity caused by the use of 'conductive rubber'.^[29] Modification of the i9000 to improve GPS performance was a popular hardware modification within the handset hacker community.

Software

User interface

The phone employs the proprietary Samsung TouchWiz 3.0 user interface. Unlike TouchWiz 3.0 on the Samsung Wave, it allows up to seven homescreens. However, different from other Android user interfaces, TouchWiz 3.0 allows users to add, delete and rearrange homescreens. The program launcher is also different from other Android user interfaces in that it has an iOS-like program menu which allows customization of shortcuts. In addition, three of the four shortcuts at the bottom of the screen can also be customized.

The Epic 4G features a specialized version of TouchWiz based on TouchWiz 3.0. Because of the Epic 4G's QWERTY slide-out keyboard, the homescreen needed to be able to rotate into landscape mode. The other Galaxy S TouchWiz 3.0 devices do not support this feature.

The most important aspect of all three generations of TouchWiz is the widget interface. The most prominent widgets that come with the Galaxy S are the Daily Briefing, weather clock and the Buddies Now widget. In addition to Samsung widgets, standard Android widgets can be added and removed from the homescreens.

Bundled applications

Other provided software includes the Layar Reality Browser, a program that visualizes GPS direction, and Aldiko, an ebook reader. The phone also comes with various upgraded versions of software that came with Samsung's previous generation of smartphones (such as i8910HD and i8000 Omnia II).

Media support

The Galaxy S comes with support for many multimedia file formats, including audio codecs (FLAC, WAV, Vorbis, MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, MID, AC3, XMF), video codecs (mpeg4, H.264, H.263, Sorenson codec, DivX HD/ XviD, VC-1) and video formats (3GP (MPEG-4), WMV (Advanced Systems Format), AVI (divx), MKV, FLV).

Updates

Android 2.2 upgrade

At the time of launch, the Galaxy S had Android 2.1 ("Eclair") installed. An official upgrade to Android 2.2 ("Froyo") began rolling out worldwide in November 2010.^[30]

Canada received the 2.2 upgrade for select carriers on December 10, 2010.^[31]

According to Samsung the 2.2 upgrade has come to the United States in 2011 for most versions of the handset (AT&T Captivate, Verizon Fascinate, T-mobile Vibrant, Sprint Epic).^[32] The 2.2 upgrade was released for T-Mobile on January 20, 2011.^[33] It enabled stock Android features that had previously been disabled such as Wi-Fi calling and mobile AP.

Verizon's Fascinate was upgraded to Android 2.2 in April 2011. Verizon's Continuum variant was upgraded to 2.2 in February 2012.^{[citation needed]}

Android 2.3 upgrade

An Android 2.3 ("Gingerbread") update became available for Nordic countries, The Netherlands and Germany on April 16, 2011. The update reached UK, India and Hong Kong by the start of Nov, 2011. Singapore received the update in June. Australia received the update in August. The Samsung Epic for Sprint started receiving the Gingerbread update on November 9, 2011 and the update was released for the Samsung Galaxy S 4G on November 15. As of December 1, 2011, the Samsung Fascinate on Verizon has been updated to Gingerbread 2.3 (Droid-Life).

T-Mobile in the United States made the 2.3 upgrade available on November 15, 2011. Currently, this update is only available on T-Mobile's 4G model (SGH-T959V). T-Mobile USA never produced a 2.3 update for its original Samsung Galaxy S (SGH-T959). The SGH-T959V update is available at their website.^[34] On January 10, 2012, AT&T provided an update to Gingerbread (2.3.5) to the owners of the Captivate (SGH-I897). The update was possible through a manual update using Kies Mini.

Android 4.0 and later

An official update to Android 4.0 was never released, as Samsung felt that the Galaxy S did not have enough memory (RAM) to run the TouchWiz interface on top of Android 4.0.^[35] In lieu of Android 4.0, Samsung released a "Value Pack" update for the Galaxy S in March 2012 in South Korea, which maintains the 2.3 (Gingerbread) -based operating system, but includes new features from TouchWiz 4.0 (some of which are backported from 4.0) such as Face Unlock, improvements to the launcher, the ability to take still photographs while recording video, and a redesigned photo editor.^[36]

However, unaffiliated developers associated with CyanogenMod produced unofficial updates based on Android 4.0, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3 and 4.4 for the Galaxy S and its variants. These updates are developed from Android Open Source Project code.^[37] LineageOS 14.1, based on Android 7.1, has also been ported to the device.^[38]

Unofficial

The device was popular with the software modification community due to the popularity of the handset and supported by CyanogenMod until the demise of the project. The Galaxy S is currently supported by the Replicant Operating System, which, at the moment of writing gives Android 4.2.2 capability. In 2017, LineageOS v14.1 (which is CyanogenMod's successor) based on Android 7.1.2 Nougat, was unofficially ported to the phone, and uploaded to XDA.^[39]

Variants

International

International versions of the Galaxy S closely resemble the 'GT-I9000' reference version.

GT-I9000B

The Brazilian "GT-I9000B" includes an ISDB-T 1seg digital television tuner with program guide, closed caption and recording support. The units are manufactured locally by Samsung to take advantage of tax cuts associated with local production.

GT-I9000M

The Canadian "GT-I9000M" drops UMTS band VIII support for UMTS band V support. Bell, Virgin Mobile and SaskTel offer the model.

GT-I9000T

The "GT-I9000T" changes UMTS band VIII support for UMTS band V support. It is offered by Telcel in Mexico, Telstra in Australia and numerous other carriers throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.

GT-I9000/M8

The "GT-I9000/M8" is the only model to include a quad-band 3G UMTS radio. It is offered primarily in Australia and New Zealand.

GT-I9003edit

The "GT-I9003" is a late-model, reduced-cost version of the Galaxy S. It substitutes the 4-inch Super AMOLED screen with a cheaper 4-inch SuperClear-LCD screen. It also swaps the Hummingbird SoC with a Texas Instruments OMAP 3630 SoC, which includes the slower PowerVR SGX530 graphics processor^[53] and TWL5030 DAC. To compensate for the increased power draw of the SC-LCD screen, battery capacity is increased from 1,500 to 1,650 mAh.

North Americaedit