Samsung Galaxy Portal i5700: Step into Android

By Rich Trenholm on 22 January 2010, 5:05pm

The Galaxy Portal isn't the latest Stargate spin-off, it's Samsung's new Android phone. Here is the first picture of the phone, available now from T-Mobile.

We're glad the Galaxy Portal gets a proper name -- Galaxy Spica if you're foreign -- because it's also called the i5700. That's a reversal of the last Android phone the company made, the Samsung Galaxy i7500, which could get confusing.

The Galaxy Portal is a quad-band phone packing HSDPA, GPS, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. There's 180MB of internal memory and a 1GB microSD card in the box. Samsung claims a very specific 5 hours and 5 minutes of talk time.

The handset is a mere 13.2mm thick, with a 81mm (3.2-inch) screen and 3.5mm headphone jack for your choons. There's a 3.2-megapixel camera, and video support for MPEG4, H.263, H.264, WMV, and DivX.

Augmented-reality browser Layar is built-in, allowing you to point the phone at the world around you and see information overlaid on the image on your screen. Samsung has created a handy Layar layer that helps you find pubs showing the football match you want to watch. Incidentally, over in iPhone world, Layar is still mysteriously missing from the iTunes App Store.

T-Mobile will be the only operator selling the Galaxy Portal for the next month. If you want a black model, it's exclusive to T-Mobile for the next three months. Sign up to an 18-month combi tariff and you'll get the phone for £70, plus 100 minutes and texts for £13.50 per month. An £18 monthly payment nets you the phone for free, plus 200 minutes and texts.

The Portal runs Android 1.5, but Samsung promises an update is imminent for all Galaxy handsets.

Comments 9

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anonymous 19 May, 2010 19:35

i really want this phone ! i just hope i wouldnt be wasting my money

anonymous 30 May, 2010 15:00

I've had this phone for a day and i turned it off before i went to bed and then i woke up in the morning and i turned it on and then it turns on but it just stays on the page where it says samsung so i dont knwo what to doand i have charged it and its battery is fully charged, can anyone help me??

anonymous 5 June, 2010 08:46

It now comes with Android 2.1 on Three Mobile

anonymous 6 June, 2010 13:28

i have this phone and love it!!!!!!!

anonymous 15 June, 2010 15:54

i have this phone and wouldnt swap it for the world

anonymous 1 July, 2010 15:37

Can any1 tell me how i save my contacts onto the sim card and not the phone as for some reason I cant seem to do it....Also can you set a ringtone for your message tone???

anonymous 5 July, 2010 16:37

battery goes down very soon, can some one help i am just using it from last week. And how can i get skppe.

suzzz1 20 July, 2010 16:21

To save contacts to sim download app from android market......called....contact2sim....hope that helps.
Does anyone know of upgrade to android 2.1 yet?????