Samsung Galaxy Fame review

Apps

With the Google Play Store pushing Apple further than ever, and holding off the Windows app store too, apps are very easy to get hold of on the Samsung Galaxy Fame.

Usefully, games and apps in the Store are viewable by Top Free, Top Paid, Top Grossing, Top New Free and Top New Paid groups, helping to filter out the excess rubbish.

Pre-installed apps are kept to a minimum, with Samsung's Game and Apps hubs on offer alongside the standard Google offerings in the way of Google+, Hangouts, Gmail, Google Play, Play Music and YouTube, and alongside the Mapping apps such as Maps, Local and Navigation.

The Samsung Galaxy Fame comes with very little in the way of S-inspired apps that have made themselves famous on larger, more powerful Samsung Galaxy handsets. So there's no S Translate, S Travel, S Suggest or S Voice, but there is the S Planner, which is a fancy name for a calendar app.

Facebook also comes pre-installed, making it easier to set the Samsung Galaxy Fame up from the very start. Twitter, however, must be located and downloaded from the Google Play Store.

Dropbox is also included, in order to help relieve the stress on the tiny 1.95GB of storage available from the 4GB that is initially stated.

When it comes to gaming on the Samsung Galaxy Fame, we must again mention the smaller processor. With modern mobile gaming becoming increasingly popular, a theme has emerged, with graphics that compare with last generation consoles. This means that the Samsung Galaxy Fame struggles.

One of our games of choice is Temple Run 2, because it's highly popular, addictive and simple to play, coupled with half-decent graphics. We were pleased to see that we could download it, but the phone took a while to load it - we timed it at 24.6 seconds before it was playable.

In order to download and install apps, Samsung also offers its own app and games centres, creatively titled Games Hub and Samsung Apps. We've seen OEMs input their own stores onto phones before, but we have yet to see a massive point in any of them, because the Google Play Store is so well populated. We were also a little disheartened by the fact that there was no video or books store that we have seen on prior devices, though given the phone's tiny screen, we can see why.

We have no reason to suggest why you shouldn't or wouldn't use the Samsung offerings, since the apps are both clear and easy to use. We'd even go so far as to say that the app is better looking than its Play Store compatriots. Unfortunately it doesn't come as heavily populated, or with as many features.

Being less populated and less used also means that apps come with fewer - or in some cases no - user reviews, so you can't tell whether the app is going to be worth splashing your cash on or not.

Maps

As you have heard it all before, we won't go into much detail with regards to the Google Maps app. If you've used the desktop version, you'll have a fairly good understanding of how the app works and what it can do.

Being possibly the most well-known Google product, after its search function, Google Maps was always going to get a lot of love and attention. As with every iteration on every device, the application is absolutely superb, if hampered by the really poor processor.

GPS lock on was rather snappy, aided by the GLONASS system.

Google Maps also includes Navigation software. We've always been impressed by Google's effort here, not least because it's free. There are other sat nav apps available from the Google Play Store, of course, but when you're in a spot of bother, Google will easily sort you out.

One feature we are fond of is that it taps into traffic data, and can tell you how long your route is set to take in those conditions. This means if you pull to the side of the road - we're safe drivers - you can easily reroute. We'd have liked active rerouting, but for a free app we're not arguing.