Phone Review: Samsung Galaxy Ace vs Huawei IDEOS X5

I have been looking at two great smartphones for the last two weeks. The two smartphones, Samsung Galaxy Ace and Huawei IDEOS X5 are all powered by the Google Android OS. First look will reveal to you that Huawei IDEOS X5 has a larger touch screen, 3.8-inches displaying 480 x 800 pixels, than Samsung Galaxy Ace (3.5-inch screen displaying 320 x 480 pixels). However, the Ace’s screen is protected by the scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass.

Both phones comes with Android 2.2 (Froyo) operating system (I later upgraded the X5 to 2.3.5). The Galaxy Ace has a smooth software them/skin courtesy of the installed Samsung TouchWiz 3.0 UI. The Galaxy Ace comes with some free 158MB internal memory to start you up while the X5 has 4GB worth of internal memory. Both devices have a microSD slot that can support up to 32GB.

Both devices comes equipped with a 5-megapixel camera as well. The Huawei IDEOS X5’s camera much better since it is capable of recording up to 720p in videos quality.

After upgrading to Android 2.3.5 on the Huawei X5, I found out that the phone became sluggish. The 800MHz processor is similar in both phones, though you will notice that the Huawei Ideos X5 has a bit more performance in terms of RAM ( 512MB  as opposed to 278MB RAM on the Galaxy Ace).

Physically, both smartphones have almost the same size and weight (IDEOS X5 at 120 x 62 x 11.6 mm and 130 g while the Galaxy Ace measures 112.4 x 59.9 x 11.5 mm and weighs 113g) . The phones cost almost the same at Safaricom outlets with the IDEOS X5 going for Ksh 24,490 while the Galaxy Ace goes for Ksh 26,999. Both phones are a very good deal for their category. They both have HSDPA, WiFi, WiFi Hotspot, Bluetooth and GPS.

Reasons why you should consider the Samsung Galaxy Ace;

• It supports up to Bluetooth 3.0 while the IDEOS X5 supports Bluetooth 2.1
• It is slightly smaller than the IDEOS X5 – both in dimensions and weight.

Reasons why you should consider the Huawei IDEOS X5;

• The Huawei IDEOS X5 is having crispier screen – 245 vs Galaxy Ace’s 164.
• Higher resolution movies – 720 @ 30fps vs Galaxy Ace’s 320 x 240 @20fps.
• Higher resolution screen – 800×480 vs 480×320.
• Faster Data speeds – HSDPA (14.4mbps) vs HSDPA (7.2mbps).
• More internal storage – 4GB vs 158MB on Galaxy Ace.
• Larger Screen – 3.8″ vs 3.5″ on the Galaxy Ace
• Better battery – 1500mAh vs 1350 mAh on the Galaxy Ace

Son in this whole analysis, the Huawei IDEOS X5 offers better specifications than the Galaxy Ace. Samsung recently released the upgrade of Galaxy Ace called Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus which is expected to be better and cost much higher.