Samsung Galaxy S Review: Web Browsing

Android 2.1 handles Web browsing pretty well on the Samsung Galaxy S.

And here’s a little bit about it.

The browser that’s bundled with Android 2.1 is a Google Chrome-like Web-kit based browser. And while it’s not as good as the Browser on the N900 (that still holds the throne in this department), it is pretty fast and renders the full web flawlessly (aside from the lack of Flash support). Like most mobile browsers, if a website has a mobile-version, it is served up instead of the full version. Keeping in mind network data plans and all that.

It also does a great job of re-flowing text when you zoom in on a specific part of a web page, therefore eliminating the need for horizontal scrolling. There are also all the basic controls you’d expect from a browser these days.

Websites load fullscreen, but you can get to the controls using the “Edit” hardware key that’s present on most Android devices.

The main reason browsing the web on the Galaxy S is excellent, is really due to the 4 inch Super AMOLED display. That thing is huge, and definitely makes it less stressful to read. However, if the 480×800 pixels resolution screen is too much for you, there’s “Pinch to zoom” present along with a few other gestures, so navigating around a web page is as easy and nice as it could be.

The experience is even better with the device in landscape mode. You can also open up multiple windows and then (within the options) see the currently opened pages. You can even change the default size of the text in the browser settings. Or change the default zoom, as well as a couple more options to help load pages quicker such as blocking pictures or advertisements. If the website has an RSS feed, you can even subscribe to it from the browser.

All in all web browsing on the Galaxy S is a very enjoyable experience. Shame about the lack of Flash though. Unfortunately, there also isnt any way to sync your bookmarks between the android browser and a desktop browser (like Google Chrome or Firefox, etc) currently.

Here’s a video on Web browsing on the Samsung Galaxy S. Just to give you a better idea.

Ofcourse, this is just with the default web browser. There are alternative browsers for Android, like Opera Mobile 10 and Skyfire.

Have any questions about Internet browsing on the Galaxy S? Something we missed? Do let us know in the comments below y’all.