Where does Samsung's ground-breaking ace stand in 2022, with the release of the Galaxy Ace 2?

Even ten years ago, many Android modders were aware of Samsung's popular Galaxy Ace line of mid-range handsets. There you have it, a gadget from 2012: the Samsung Galaxy Ace 2. We want to play games on it and examine the capabilities of the extremely unusual SoC, the NovaThor U8500. The Sony Xperia U! shown in the prior Habré article was equipped with identical hardware.

Purchase

As is customary, the gadget made its way to me. One individual advertised the sale of cellphones one year ago for about 100 rubles each. He presumably discovered them in the trash, but that didn't concern me; a device is a device. He lived close to the city dump. You can always clean up the filth and grime. To begin, electronic waste is rarely disposed of in trash cans but rather in specially designed cardboard boxes or plastic bags. Second, I enjoy doing hygiene operations on "dirty" persons as well, provided that I dry them in a timely manner to prevent any oxidation of the board's components.

About 15 kilometres outside of the city, he offered some fascinating gadgets: two Lumias (alive and well), a galaxy "s5", an ace 2, and a "sony," all of which were, of course, fakes in quotation marks:). I got into my Lada seven and drove out to his property immediately after getting his call that night.

 We negotiated a transaction on the street, and I ended up with the gadgets I mentioned above. He let me pick out everything I wanted. One hundred rubles got me the gadget, a battery (and a working one), and a flash drive with a capacity of up to two gigabytes that belonged to someone else. The only real problem is a crack in the taskscreen, which doesn't really affect anything (but still, sometimes there are phantom clicks, although rarely).

Some time ago, on a forum dedicated to the commercial repair of mobile phones, they tried to brand me a huckster. And yet no, all devices are raised, an article is made on them and they are sent to my collection. I usually change mobile phones once a week or two, I even refused to support two sims in order to specially go with another device :) I just like doing this, and you like reading.Appearance

Galaxy Y, its younger sibling, is used for comparison (price 5k vs 9k)

The first Samsung Galaxy Ace was a runaway hit and "top for the money" in 2011, and its sequel, the Galaxy Ace 2, was the "nearly flagship" sibling of the Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini. Even if in 2012 the quantity of RAM practically increased, SGS Ace only had 278 MB, it's worth noting (part of it was bitten off by the GPU).

It's a Samsung Galaxy Ace

The ST Ericsson NovaThor U8500 is the same chipset used in both the Ace 2 and the S3 small.

Although ST Microelectronics and Ericsson worked together on this chipset, the company has likely been forgotten by now. However, it was utilised in multiple Samsung cellphones and one Sony smartphone. In addition, I believe they produced chipsets for push-buttons (their "remakes" of Samsung's push-button designs were successful).

After the introduction of these gadgets, ST Ericsson abandoned its platform, and no further gadgets were built for it. This was presumably done for financial reasons. Why produce two almost identical gadgets, the S3 Mini and the Ace 2, and charge 15 thousand rubles for the former and 9 thousand rubles for the latter? The S3 Mini had 1GB of RAM, and a high-quality SuperAMOLED display (which, unlike the PLS display of the Ace 2, cost absurd money if it needed to be updated) (which, unlike the PLS display of the Ace 2, cost unrealistic money if it needed to be changed). Everything else in the devices was + - comparable.

A MicroSD card slot is located on the gadget's side, allowing you to swap out "cold" flash drives for "hot" ones quickly and easily (paper clips were Samsung's constant problem; they always seemed to disappear). With its 768 MB of RAM, the Ace 2 can smoothly run any of the two official firmware versions (Android 2.3 or Android 4.1.2).

System

As I indicated, the output device ran Gingerbread(2.3) and later updated to Jelly Bean(4.1.2) (4.1.2). The gadget, both there and there, utilised my beloved TouchWiz shell - versions even before the "bulk" and other "Nature UX" chips. The user interface is not completely out of place in the present day; it is intuitive and easy to get the hang of.

touchwiz \stouchwiz

What's more, the shell has its own screenshot (on stock Android it didn't show up until version 4), which can be accessed by pressing the centre button followed by the power button. It's little, but it's wonderful that I didn't need to create my own ancillary software.

Well, the canon states that it was not devoid of a player; I find this trait particularly endearing in vintage robots.

An important caveat is that I did not give as much thought to multimedia capabilities back then (the essay was written in August) as I do today.

Even before Android 4, there existed a full-fledged task manager. It's rather rare to use Android 2.3 today without a full-fledged task manager, as the operating system made significant efforts in that release to eliminate features it deemed unnecessary. And it wasn't always successful, so I had to manually nail the loading programme by entering the parameters while waiting through the delays. Or, if that doesn't work, you could always try sending your smartphone to a hardset.

Although I have never placed a high value on a smartphone's camera, I find that the results are passable even in low light.

The quality of the soldering is not inspected. These repairs solder terribly:( However, the iPhone performs admirably.

You may still access the internet with a browser (although most have fallen off due to certificates).

Furthermore, the hardware for Android 2.3 is superfluous, so the scrolling is as silky smooth as on an iPhone 4. In addition, GPS is functional and can locate satellites in under 30 seconds, however outdated Google Maps cannot be loaded. The map wouldn't load on Yandex either, but JB's map functionality is still good to go otherwise. Samsung's Siri is the solution to the problem of voice control.

The drive trailer played smoothly in 720p for me, too. In this case, the frame does not fit inside the snapshot since the hardware decoder shows the video instantly on the screen.

The gadget still has some game options. For instance, there appear to be no hiccups in the operation of Fruit Ninja (because screenshot is unable to capture full-screen applications):

You can "port" CS: Critical Strike and play it on your local machine. Playing the game is a smooth experience, with a framerate that is almost consistently above 60(!).

Minecraft Pocket Edition is also thriving, and it's not even the earliest edition (0.10). Clearly, the kid had stuff to play with, and if it were appropriate for a junior high schooler right now, I don't think he'd turn it down.

Emulators, huh? Did you really think I'd settle with just a few of 2012 arcades? I'm not looking to replace my existing Samsung 410 Snapdragon handset, but I am curious about how it stacks up against the competition.

We're going all-in on PPSSPP, so it's NFS: MW 5-1-0 at 25-30 FPS with a gradually decelerating soundtrack (snap cries on the sidelines with its 10-15 frames). As a result of my non-buffered rendering settings (I didn't include post-effects because they are so resource intensive), I got:

I also attempted to play TDU, however the emulator PPSSPP only recently began supporting it, and I'm still using a 2015 version of the programme despite having installed the latest updates. But in general, if you fiddle with the parameters, you'll be able to play something like Loco Roco or a year old.

Test Drive 6 on the PSX operates at around 40 frames per second, and the audio is fine. It's true that this PSX title isn't exactly kid stuff.

A guaranteed 60 frames per second in Crash Bandicoot. The PS1 emulator is cherished by the phone like a seed. Make sure you turn on hardware acceleration.

The gadget can compete with the Sega Dreamcast in terms of gaming performance. We obtain 40-60 FPS in Rayman 2, and you may play Shenmue and other games under certain conditions. Contrary to popular belief, the Dreamcast is an alternative to the GameCube and PS2.

If you want to demonstrate how well GBA or NES emulators work in this region, I don't see why you'd need a Sega device at all; they run like a dream on this phone.

When it comes to social media, Android 4.1.2 is still supported, for some reason. VK (kate mobile), Telegram, Viber (even on crutches! ), and Playing Cards. By installing a third-party operating system such as Android 5, you may make popular apps like Whatsapp and YouTube available on your device.

Conclusion

This device's price-to-quality ratio was excellent for early 2012 (it was introduced in March, roughly competing with the Galaxy S3). He sucked up all the innovations of the time in optimal configurations, had great room for system upgrades, and included a small screen with relatively low resolution (a feature that is appreciated in gaming).

 Putting high-definition on a little screen like that seems pointless. Additionally, top-notch hardware. And several modifications have been made available for the gadget; Android 8 is among them (which does not work very well here).

I still prefer using the original and most stable system version, though. Operating System Version 2.3.3 for Android. It can be modified into a nice video player (FHD / 30FPS it should pull), or even a backup machine for backups on MicroSD, in addition to being a retro mobile for emulators / old mobile games. to help with social and calling duties. He still administers networks, but not as efficiently as he did in 2012.

The Galaxy Ace 3 followed, which was an improvement because to its bigger screen while still being a portable device, and the Galaxy Ace 4 was introduced in 2014, marking the end of the Ace series with a downgrade (512 MB RAM, Broadcom chipset).

The A series has now superseded the Ace series, and it is manufactured entirely in China without the addition of any Samsung branding or original design manufacturing (odm) stamping. Can you tell if I'm describing something you like? To me, that's not the case.

Furthermore, what do you think?