Samsung Galaxy Young review

Battery life

Any smartphone, regardless of price, will need a battery to power it with the expectation that it should be able to last you a whole day. This is an area that the Galaxy Young seems to struggle.

Using the TechRadar battery test of a 90 minute HD video (which actually failed to show the picture, just the sound) drained the battery by 24%.

Thankfully this is one area that the Galaxy Young is unlikely to be used thanks to the smaller screen.

I found that during day to day use the Galaxy Young managed to get through sending text messages and taking some snaps, but really struggled when it had a little more thrown its way. I wouldn't feel overly comfortable out and about without knowing I had access to a charger nearby.

Samsung's quick toggles in the notification bar do go some way to help you eke the last few drops of juice; turning off things like Wi-Fi, mobile data or NFC will help maximise the amount of time you can go before running out.

The lack of auto-brightness is an area that really harmed the Galaxy Young though. It requires active management to make sure that the brightness is optimised to the lighting conditions, as such I just left it on maximum brightness pretty much all day.

Connectivity

In terms of connectivity the Galaxy Young doesn't come with 4G, but for the price tag that was something that I can forgive.

More interestingly the Young does come fitted with an NFC chip meaning access to Android Beam and S Beam.

This means sharing photos between friends is a lot easier, and super fast as it makes use of Wi-Fi Direct.

Samsung has also fitted the Galaxy Young with GPS and A-GPS support and Bluetooth 3.0.

The lack of inclusion of GLONASS was a little surprising given its inclusion in nigh on every handset that Samsung has produced, but given the accuracy of GPS satellites I'm not sad to see it excluded.