Design/ Hardware
On first impressions, the Galaxy Grand Duos bears striking resemblance to the Note II mainly due to its huge display. But Samsung has managed to keep the Galaxy S III essence alive in the device. We reviewed the Elegant White unit, and the device is also available in Metallic Blue.
At 9.6mm, the Galaxy Grand Duos is pretty thick and feels quite bulky as well weighing 162 grams. Those blessed with little hands will find it tiring to carry the device around. But the overall build quality of the device is quite sturdy, though the back does feel cheap, just like the Galaxy S III. The back has a miniscule-chequered pattern that manages to cover your fingerprints very well. It is prone to attract scratches very fast and we'd suggest you to be careful while using it. A chromium strip runs along the device's perimeter that is sure to wear off overtime.
The 5-inch display takes up most of the space in the front with a thin bezel on either side and like the other Galaxy handsets, we have the sensors lined up on top alongside the earpiece and the front-facing 2-megapixel camera. The bottom has the physical home button in the centre with the capacitive menu and back buttons on either side. The rear of the device features an 8-megapixel camera with LED flash and the loudspeaker sitting adjacent to it.
Samsung has allocated a port/button on each side of the device. The right side houses the power/wake button, the left has the volume rocker, the bottom has the Micro-USB/charging port and the headphone jack is situated at the top.
Some users may find it difficult to open the rear cover at first, since the trick is to open from the top left side, as opposed to most devices that need to be opened either from the top or the bottom, including the Galaxy S III.
Once you're through, you'll find the 2, 100mAh battery, two GSM SIM card slots ( one on the top left and other on the bottom right) and a microSD card slot adjacent to the bottom SIM slot.
A scratch guard for the Galaxy Grand Duos isn't available in the market yet, but our retail box came with a white navigator flip cover. Not just that, the company has also thrown in a spare rear cover for the device.
Performance
The Galaxy Grand Duos is powered by a 1.2GHz dual core processor coupled with 1GB RAM. It offers 8GB of internal storage with additional expansion support up to 64GB. As part of the company offer, users can also avail 50GB of free Dropbox storage along with Rs. 8, 000 worth of movies and music from the myServices app.
The device runs pretty smoothly without any lags, especially while playing games like Temple Run 2, Jetpack Joyride or even multi-tasking for that matter. The browsing experience on the device was pleasant as image heavy websites rendered flawlessly with panning and zooming being smooth and lag free.
The stock keyboard works well and offers a floating keyboard in split-screen mode that can be positioned anywhere on the screen while using two opened apps simultaneously.
That said, typing messages on the device could be tedious for someone with small hands, especially in the landscape mode due to the device's size and weight. It does get tiring after a while. An alternate solution is to use the handwriting prediction mode, where you can write the words with your finger. This works pretty well.
Apart from display, the other feature that is really disappointing is the battery life. The device has standard Li-ion 2, 100mAh battery that has just enough juice to last about 6 hours or so on a single charge. Wi-Fi connectivity, web browsing, playing games or watching videos at decent brightness levels, totally take a toll on the device's health and you'll find yourself reaching for the charger in no time.
The smartphone performs well over both Wi-Fi and 3G cellular networks. The device offers quad-band GSM support and tri-band 3G support, dual-band Wi-Fi with hotspot capabilities and Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth 4.0 and GLONASS. Samsung has tied up with Vodafone and is offering 2GB of data download free per month for the first two months. You can choose to configure which SIM should use 3G packet data.
Samsung Galaxy Grand offers dual-SIM ( dual-standby) functionality, though it claims to use software to forward calls from one number to the other if users have call-forwarding on one SIM and call-waiting on the other. However, it didn't work for us with default settings, with users calling SIM 2 getting the 'unreachable' message typical of dual-standby phones. The phone also makes use of the 'Smart Dual SIM' feature that allows the flexibility of selecting different mobile billing plans for either SIM to enable switching between them and make the most of competitive call and data plans. The call quality is pretty good too, even in low network areas.
The audio quality of the device is pretty good with the bundled headphones as well as the rear speaker. Higher volume levels aren't jarring and movies and music are enjoyable on the big screen. The video watching experience is a bit disappointing, especially YouTube videos that get pixelated even when watching in High Quality ( HQ) .
The video player supports most formats including AVI and MKV and offers a decent experience and 1080p playback also seemed flawless. You even get a screenshot feature along with the option to tag your friends in the video, edit and also set a timer to switch it off automatically.
In short
there are many problem which are follow: -
heavy in weight
hanging problem
heating problem
acc. to specification it is not perfect
