Samsung’s Galaxy Portal comes to UK with AR browser

Samsung has released its second Android phone, in its Galaxy range, in the UK. A cutdown version of the i5700 Galaxy, the product is called the Galaxy Portal, rather than the Spica or Lite, as it will be in other markets. It starts its UK life as a T-Mobile exclusive.

As a user of the original Galaxy, we’d say the Portal is likely to be a good introduction to Android, and indeed, seems to enhance the user experience of the original. That was a fairly vanilla Google UI. While Portal has the full array of Google apps on the homescreen too, it also sports Layer, a new augmented reality (AR) browser. This shows how Samsung, like LG, plans to stamp its own mark on the Android experience. Layer lets users access visual guides to what's around them by pointing their handset at their surroundings.

The T-Mobile launch device comes in a black colour scheme and this will be exclusive until the end of April, though the standard color scheme could go to other carriers before March. The product sports a 3.2-inch resistive touchscreen with 320 x 480 resolution, the same as the iPhone. This removes one of the key attractions of the first Galaxy, the capacitive, bright AMOLED (and larger) display.

The main downside of the grown-up Galaxy is appalling battery life, so hopefully its younger brother will address that. The Portal comes with 1500mAh battery like its stablemate (theoretically quite large, but in the Galaxy hopelessly inadequate even with Wi-Fi and GPS turned off). If Samsung has addressed that problem, though, the Portal has many of the qualities that make the Galaxy strong, and promises 1.18Gb of storage by default, expandable to 16Gb with microSD cards; plus 3.2-megapixel camera,

The operating system, so far at least, is only the current 1.5 release, rather than 2.0 or 2.1 as seen in higher end devices like Droid or Nexus One. It comes with the usual connectivity options – Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth 2.1 - plus DivX support as well.

The phone is available now from T-Mobile from £23 a month, which includes unlimited internet, 200 minutes and 200 texts on an 18-month contract. A two-year deal brings free unlimited texts for £25 a month. More casual users can pay £70 for the handset and get  100 minutes, 100 texts and unlimited internet for £18.50 per month on a 18-month contract.