Samsung Galaxy SL i9003 is now available
The Samsung Galaxy SL i9003, the slightly lower end replacement of the Samsung Galaxy S, is now available in the Philippines. CMK Cellphones has Samsung Galaxy SL i9003 available for a price of Php19,200. This is a very good price when you consider that it undercuts the price of the HTC Desire HD by more than 5K, and is even priced lower than the HTC Desire and Nokia N8.
Like the Galaxy S, the Galaxy SL has a 4-inch capacitative touchscreen with 480 x 800 pixel resolution screen. However, instead of the AMOLED unit on the Galaxy S, you the Galaxy SL has a S-LCD unit. Another downgrade is the graphics processing unit. Instead of the The PowerVR SGX540 GPU found in the Galaxy S and Galaxy Tab, a lower end PowerVR SGX530 GPU is used instead. Still, this should makes for a competent gaming platform. Other than that, the Galaxy S and Galaxy SL have similar specifications, for better of for worse.
The good. Galaxy SL i9003 has the same 1GHz Cortex A8 CPU which powers the Galaxy S and Galaxy Tab and the screen is still made of the near scratch proof Gorilla Glass. The bad. It still comes installed with Froyo (Android 2.2) instead of Gingerbread. The ugly. The Galaxy SL 5MP camera is decent and can take 720p video, but still has no flash and the case is still made of plastic.
In the end, the missing flash and all plastic case, will not stop it from taking a spot as best mid level Android beside the HTC Desire.