Low end smartphones tend to be somewhat a mixed bag, particularly in the past, being based on propriety software which leads to limited functionality (the death of any smartphone). So the first encouraging aspect of Samsung's low end offering is that, much like the rest in the Galaxy series, it uses Google's Android smartphone standard, which grants the phone access to the comprehensive Android app Market. So on paper, the phone already impresses. but what is it like to live with? Having made the less than brilliant move to buy it from a bricks and mortar

Form:

The Samsung is a rather thin but bulky phone, probably about the right weight, and unlike bigger offerings like the original HTC Wildfire, isn't too big for tiny hands. Slips in the pocket just fine and is amazingly tough for a smartphone. It managed to survive my clumsiness after all with only a couple of war wounds to show for it! The three buttons (context menu, centre button and back button) are comfortable and feel distinctive blind, so accidents like hitting the centre button instead of the context menu are few and far between

Style:

Physically the Galaxy Apollo is a rather pretty phone, with the screen in particular being surprisingly bright (though that could be chalked down to my relative inexperience with smart phones). The screen is relatively high-resolution and the standard interface is is bright and colourful to demonstrate this chromatic superiority.

Functionality:

Well, it uses Android 2.1, so pretty much anything you could want to do on it (with the exception of running flash natively) is available on the system. Along with that, it has a GPS, Wi-Fi, 3G capability as standard, a relatively sensitive tilt sensor and a camera that while nothing special will actually do the job. The standard apps are your usual fare for Android, and to their credit all work.

What's it like to use:

Rather impressive. It chugs like nothing else if you run more than a few apps at once on it but with the interface being both simple and somewhat comprehensive after a little bit of tinkering around, leaving programs running in the background won't be much of an issue. Flash was a sticking issue if you plan on using as your primary web browser but outside of that, there's little wrong with it. The battery life initially seems incredibly poor (4 hours from a full charge) but once one stops playing with the apps the battery tends to average around 36 hours with just 3G on, so clearly the issue was just with the extra features. Speaking of communication, the call quality was fantastic, although the interface to hang up is less than stellar.

Overall, this is a rather cool phone for the price you pay. For less than 90 quid (even at hiked up Carphone Warehouse prices and including minimum top-up) it's somewhat of a bargain, but of course shop around. The niggling problem s