The Samsung Galaxy R (Royal) (GT-I9103) is an Android

smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...

that was announced by

Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...

on August 10, 2011 as a variant to the

Samsung Galaxy S II The Samsung Galaxy S II (or Galaxy S2) is a touchscreen-enabled, slate-format Android smartphone designed, developed, and marketed by Samsung Electronics, as the second smartphone of the Samsung Galaxy S series. It has additional software featu ...

Launch

The Galaxy R was launched in September 2011 in

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

Issues

The phone has an issue wherein the phone will not be able to boot, even after a reset.

Hardware

Processor

Nvidia Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...

Tegra 2 Tegra is a system on a chip (SoC) series developed by Nvidia for mobile devices such as smartphones, personal digital assistants, and mobile Internet devices. The Tegra integrates an ARM architecture central processing unit (CPU), graphics proc ...

System on a chip A system on a chip or system-on-chip (SoC ; pl. ''SoCs'' ) is an integrated circuit that integrates most or all components of a computer or other electronic system. These components almost always include a central processing unit (CPU), memory ...

(SoC) uses Nvidia's own GeForce ultra-low power (ULP) for its GPU. Nvidia's Tegra 2 supports the ''Tegra Zone'' application and service which is intended to give Android users an enhanced gaming experience by allowing users to download games that have been well optimized for Tegra 2 powered devices. This has been marketed as "console-quality gaming" by Nvidia. Tegra 2 also features support for hardware acceleration for Flash and Javascript within websites, and is one of the first SoCs to be natively supported by Android 3.0 "Honeycomb".

Memory

The Galaxy R features 1 GB of dedicated RAM and 8 GB of internal mass storage. Within the battery compartment there is an external microSD card slot.

Display

The Samsung Galaxy R uses a WVGA Super CLEAR LCD (SC-LCD)

capacitive touchscreen A touchscreen or touch screen is the assembly of both an input ('touch panel') and output ('display') device. The touch panel is normally layered on the top of an electronic visual display of an information processing system. The display is often ...

. It has a 4.2" 16 million colours screen, without using the Pentile matrix.

Camera

On the back of the device is a 5-megapixel camera with single LED flash that can record videos in high-definition

720p 720p (1280×720 px; also called HD ready, standard HD or just HD) is a progressive HDTV signal format with 720 horizontal lines/1280 columns and an aspect ratio (AR) of 16:9, normally known as widescreen HDTV (1.78:1). All major HDTV broadcast ...

. There is also a fixed-focus front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera for

video calling Videotelephony, also known as videoconferencing and video teleconferencing, is the two-way or multipoint reception and transmission of audio signal, audio and video signals by people in different locations for Real-time, real time communication. ...

, taking photos as well as general video recording. The video recording has been criticized for the lack of focus.

Connectivity

GPRS: Class 33, EDGE: Class 33, HSDPA: 21 Mbit/s; HSUPA, 5.76 Mbit/s, WLAN: Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi hotspot, DLNA, Bluetooth: Yes, v3.0 with A2DP, EDR, USB: Yes, microUSB v2.0

Software

Android 2.3 and 4.0

The Galaxy R ships with Android 2.3.4 "Gingerbread" installed. An Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich" update for the Galaxy R was released in August 2012.

After-market development

;Android Jelly Bean 4.1, 4.2 and 4.3 Official

CyanogenMod CyanogenMod ( ; CM) is a discontinued open-source operating system for mobile devices, based on the Android mobile platform. It was developed as free and open-source software based on the official releases of Android by Google, with added origi ...

CM 10.1 (Android 4.2) and PAC man ROM (Android 4.2) firmware releases are available for Galaxy R. Unofficial CM 10 (Android 4.1) and CM 10.2 (Android 4.3) is available for download at xda-developers.com. Many other unofficial custom ROMs: Paranoid Android, AOSP,

MIUI MIUI (pronunciation: ''Me You I'') is an Android -based mobile operating system developed and maintained by Xiaomi independently of Google exclusively for its smartphones. MIUI includes various features such as theme support. It is the basis f ...

, JellyBAM, Carbon ROM, Vanilla Rootbox, JellyBeer, Avatar, Resurrection Remix, LiquidSmooth, to name a few, are also available for download. ;Android KitKat 4.4 Official OmniROM 4.4 was released for the Samsung Galaxy R and is available for download in the

OmniROM OmniROM is an Open-source software, open-source operating system for smartphones and tablet computers, based on the Android (operating system), Android mobile platform. It involves a number of prominent developers from other projects. Developme ...

website. Unofficial builds of

CM 11 and CarbonRom 4.4 are also available for download.

User interface

The phone employs the latest proprietary Samsung

TouchWiz TouchWiz was a user interface developed by Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd with partners, featuring a full touch user interface. It is sometimes incorrectly referred to as an operating system. TouchWiz is used internally by Samsung for smartphones, ...

4.0 user interface.

Bundled applications

Four new Samsung 'Hub' applications were revealed at the 2011

Mobile World Congress MWC Barcelona (formerly but still commonly referred to as Mobile World Congress) is an annual trade show organised by GSMA, dedicated primarily to the mobile communications industry. The event is held in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain at the Fir ...

for the

Galaxy S II The Samsung Galaxy S II (or Galaxy S2) is a touchscreen-enabled, Slate phone, slate-format Android (operating system), Android smartphone designed, developed, and marketed by Samsung Electronics, as the second smartphone of the Samsung Galaxy S ...

and the Galaxy R includes the same: ;Social Hub: Which integrates popular social networking services like

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

and

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

into one place rather than in separate applications. ;Readers Hub: This hub provides the ability to access, read and download online newspapers, ebooks and magazines from a worldwide selection. ;Music Hub: An application store for downloading and purchasing music tracks on the device. Samsung has teamed up with

7digital 7digital Group Plc is a British publicly listed company that offers access to music, tracking and reporting for clients. London-based, 7digital provides end-to-end music services for the fitness, social media, DSPs, and gaming industries with b ...

to offer this service. ;Game Hub: An application store for downloading and purchasing games. Samsung has teamed up with partners including

Gameloft Gameloft SE is a French video game publisher based in Paris, founded in December 1999 by Ubisoft co-founder Michel Guillemot. The company operates 18 development studios worldwide, and publishes games with a special focus on the mobile games m ...

to offer this service. ;Other applications: More applications include Kies 2.0, Kies Air, AllShare (for

DLNA Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA; originally named Digital Home Working Group, DHWG) was founded by a group of PC and consumer electronics companies in June 2003 (with Intel in the lead role) to develop and promote a set of interoperability ...

), Voice Recognition, Google Voice Translation,YouTube – Samsung Galaxy SII – Voice Translator Demo
/ref>

Google Maps Google Maps is a web mapping platform and consumer application offered by Google. It offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° interactive panoramic views of streets ( Street View), real-time traffic conditions, and rou ...

with Latitude, Places, Navigation (beta) and Lost Phone Management,

Adobe Flash Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a multimedia Computing platform, software platform used for production of Flash animation, animations, rich web applications, application software, desktop applications, mobile apps, mo ...

10.2,

Polaris Office Polaris Office is a paid office suite that runs on platforms such as Android, iOS, Windows and macOS, a product of Korea-based software firm Infraware, Inc. It allows the editing of Microsoft Office file-formats (doc/docx, hwp, ppt/pptx, txt, xl ...

application and 'QuickType' by SWYPE.

Media support

The Galaxy R supports various audio formats including MP3, OGG, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, WMA, WAV, MID, AC3, IMY, FLAC, XMF audio formats and video formats support for MPEG4, H.264, H.263, WMV, DivX, Xvid, VC-1. Recording & Playback in up to

HD video files. Unlike the Exynos 4210 found in the Galaxy S II, the Tegra 2 has been found to not support 'high profile' encoded h.264 video. A recent kernel for ICS (developed by a xda developer) also enabled the mobile to support HDMI output support via micro USB to MHL cable..

References

External links

Samsung Galaxy R officially announced for Europe and Asia, nobody surprised -- Engadget
{{DEFAULTSORT:Samsung Galaxy R Android (operating system) devices Samsung smartphones Galaxy R Galaxy R Mobile phones introduced in 2011 Mobile phones with user-replaceable battery