[Desire General] Whiterin:
Alright. I got the chance to mess around with a Galaxy S today for a while. I must say, I think much of what is being said about it is purely a placebo from the hype of the device. Some things I found in a side by side comparison. Did the comparison with my wife there and a sales rep for Optus.

The screen is a little brighter on SOME things then the Desire at MAX brightness. That being said, when both were set to auto brightness the Desire was noticeably brighter. The Galaxy S was a good deal brighter when on the basic home screen when both devices were on maximum brightness. The Desire seemed to be more vibrant and slightly brighter when viewing web pages. Not sure why the difference. The screen on the Galaxy S is quite nice, and it is noticeably larger which the device is about the same size as the Desire.

When viewing the same things through the cameras, the image was quite a bit brighter then the one on the Desire. I was not able to compare the actual photo quality though because the Galaxy S kept crashing when I tried to take a picture. :x

Both phones are using an Optus SIM and should be running on the same data network. The Desire seemed to render pages slightly faster then the Galaxy S. However I am using Dolphin browser on the Desire and the Galaxy S was using the basic browser which could have an effect.

This also brings me to another point. I tried to compare speeds, but I don't think it was a fair test at all. I am pretty sure someone had put a home replacement on the Galaxy S. It wasn't running the customized Samsung UI and it was VERY sluggish and laggy at some points. Either there was something wrong with the device or there was a home replacement running poorly on the device causing a massive slow down. This could have also caused the Galaxy S to render slower then the Desire while loading web pages.

For more...

The Galaxy S on the home screen was pretty responsive, but not really noticeably that much better then the Desire. While scrolling through the icons in the drawer the Galaxy S was more sluggish then the Desire, but again, probably because of whatever was going on with it. I see many people saying the typing on the Galaxy S is more accurate then on the Desire. I didn't type any books or anything, but that did NOT seem to be the case when I was using the Galaxy S. Again, the issues with the device may have caused this though.

While this kinda killed some of the comparisons I was trying to make, it gave me an answer for an argument I had with someone on Youtube the other day. Custom home replacements DO IN FACT cause a slowdown on the Galaxy S and DO NOT MAKE IT FASTER. I tried to explain this to the person, and even how they work... but he just argued.

I found the touch buttons on the Galaxy S to be absolute ****. I don't like touch only buttons in the first place... then on top of that they were sometimes over sensitive and other times didn't respond at all. Sometimes I would tap one, and it would do the function of the other one. The buttons were not responsive at all. Not sure how much the issues with it could have affected this though.

I was rather surprised by how light the Galaxy S was. It seems very comfortable in hand and the screen was nice to use, although a bit sluggish. It was on par and maybe even a bit better then the Desire when it comes to screen quality, but it's not as huge a difference as everyone claims...not by a long shot. I have seen people say the Galaxy S feels like a toy, or that it seems flimsy. I personally didn't get that from using it. It was light, and it was obvious it was plastic, but it felt tight and sturdy despite that. It's weight may be a positive or a negative depending on your tastes.

I found the power/sleep button to be decently usable and easy to reach... something I didn't think would be the case before using it.

I am still kind of shocked at the lack of camera flash on the Galaxy S. It is beyond me why a company would release possibly the highest end device on the market, and exclude a feature that is now standard on any high or even mid range device.

I can get the Galaxy S and I may or may not; I am not sure yet. It would at the very least give me at least a few days to mess around with it and make better comparisons between the two devices. Then I may sell which ever one I decide not to use.

So...

tl;dr / Summary

The Galaxy S I got to try out wasn't as good as my Desire, but it's likely it wasn't operating at it's full capacity. It's also so ****in ugly... wtf...

I would like to try out the Galaxy S again to make a better comparison soon. Hopefully the people at the store I tried it out at will fix/change out the device they had or I will just get one and compare them for a few days. This is what I have found so far though.