I originally bought this as a kind of "transfer-phone" before i bought an iphone. It was cheap considering the specs (i.e. 5.0 MP Camera with LED Flash and capacitive touch screen -http://www.samsung.com/galaxyace/ace_techspec.htm l). I was surprised when I started using it that I quite liked it. The fact that the phone was so easily customisable meant that I could put all of my favourite apps such as facebook, twitter or angry birds where I wanted. I found the inclusion of a 2 GB mini SD card with the phone to be a nice touch but the fact that the phone struggled to handle any memory card size over that was a major let down as I am a avid music fan and I like to keep almost my whole library with me.

The phone runs the gingerbread 2.3.3 and is all the better for it; by running a slightly older operating software, the phone is much quicker than it would have been if it ran the newest one. There is a wide range of applications available for this device both from the android market and Samsungs own app market. Much like apple's app store, it has almost every app imaginable and even though there aren't as many, there are some apps that are unique to android.

I also found that the back of the phone was relatively easy to scratch and was actually quite flimsy. This is easily remedied though; I bought a cheap leather case on eBay. The capacitive touch screen on the other hand was excellent and almost as good as apple touch screens. I did have some minor crashes when I had too many applications open at one time but that is to be expected.

In all, this is a cheap and long-lasting smart phone. This is not a phone for people who like to keep a lot of data such as music or lots of pictures with them but it is a cheaper model if you cannot afford the more expensive SII. It is also not an iphone but it is very good as a general all-rounder. Many people have actually got this phone after selling or scrapping iPhones that have broken down so this proves that this is a viable alternative.