Category Archives: ANDROID

Available from Clove for £528

More than 3 million Galaxy S 2′s have been pre-ordered to date in a very short space of time and that is remarkable given the number of different Android smartphones on the market. Something seems to be lifting the S 2 above the competition and it can’t surely be just those dual-core processors nestling within the super slim form? No, it can’t because people, on the whole, do not care if there is a billion gigabyte processor or an elastic band powering a phone so long as it works and can grab their attention.

The Galaxy S 2 grabbed my attention the first time I saw it and from the time I got one in my hands, it doesn’t seem to want to let me go. It isn’t, at first glance, radically different to the big screened Android competition, but there is something here that is different and I will try to understand what that is by the end.

I won’t be continually comparing it to the iPhone 4 or other Android competitors because I want to judge the S 2 on its own merits. A comparison against other devices will follow in a couple of days.

In the box

The box is standard Samsung; a black square affair that offers little indication of what is inside. When you open it the S 2 fills the entire top from left to right and top to bottom. This is not a small phone, but then again it sort of is. More on that later.

You get an AC microUSB charger, a microUSB sync cable, 1650mAh battery and a set of in-ear headphones with some extra buds. That’s your lot which seems a little tight considering the price of the phone. Would it have killed Samsung to bundle a screen protector like Sony Ericsson does? I guess the Gorilla Glass is a good reason not to, but it would still be nice to see.

First Impressions

Opinion is divided on the Galaxy S 2 and with good reason. On the one hand you have a phone that feels impossibly thin and which looks stunning in an understated way. On the other hand the backing has received criticism with some claiming that the phone is poorly built. There is without doubt an obsession with lightness going on here which is apparent when a 4.3″ screen comes in at only 116 grams. That is super light considering the specs and the form factor is one of those ‘How did they fit everything into this phone?’ moments.

To call it poorly built is disingenuous in my opinion. There are no rattles and it feels quite solid despite the lack of depth. The back plate is unbelievably bendy when you take it off, but once put in place again it fits like a glove. I think that some people expect metal and glass to make a phone look expensive, but are they the best materials for a smartphone? No they are not. Give me a good build quality and severe lightness and depth any day.

Care seems to have been taken to produce a phone that will survive the modern smartphone user. The Gorilla Glass is made from Gorillas (?) so must be tough and the back plate is easily replaced should it get scratched. Consider the minimal weight and much of the energy should be dissipated over what is a large area if the phone is dropped. It appears to be practically designed with minimal time taken on the aesthetics, but it still comes out the other side as a swan rather than an ugly duckling.

The S 2 is big, of that there is no doubt, and this offers many advantages. The large screen offers a mini-tablet experience for movies, games and complex apps and data entry is improved thanks to the larger than average keyboard. However, I have quite big hands which means I can usually hold a smartphone in one hand and use my thumb to interact with every area of the screen. On the S 2 it is a bit of a stretch to reach the top right hand corner which arguably shouldn’t happen on a ‘phone’. The problem is that we can’t have it both ways and the choice comes down to what is desired the most- a larger screen or complete one-handed use? I would go for the larger screen because, even at 4.3”, the S 2 feels good in the hand and the advantages are clear. It is the ultimate slab; so thin and light yet so large. We are one step closer to those devices Federation crew members used to walk around with on Star Trek and it is happening much quicker than the creators of the show probably expected.

There are few surprises in the button placements and the general form, but simplicity has been employed throughout. The on/off button is placed on the right hand side which takes some getting used to, but is absolutely perfect for right-handed people who hold a phone in their left hand. The positioning is ideal for the forefinger and soon becomes second nature in use. The headphone jack is at the top, the microUSB on the bottom side and the volume keys on the left so no real surprises there. The front buttons are slightly unusual in that there are just menu and back keys flanking the main home button. There is no search key, which I am guessing few people use anyway, and so making the main home button bigger makes a lot of sense. The menu and back keys are virtual and only light up when pressed which feels slightly strange at first. It all works well though and I have no real complaints, but I admit that I am someone who always prefers hardware keys if possible.

In use

So the hardware is pretty good in the hand and on the eye which is half the battle for many people, but how does it perform in the real world? I will go through each feature as normal, but not in huge detail. It’s all about the experience for me and I really do not care, or understand, if the camera struggles in specific areas or if the processors are pumping out a million tasks a second. It’s all about how it works for me.

Camera

I have been extremely impressed with the camera. The lack of a dedicated camera button is a shame because the camera itself works very well indeed, but the onscreen button is large enough to hit without thinking and it works well enough. The interface for the camera software is standard and access to taken photos, settings (which are high in number) and the zoom controls are logical enough for most to use them when a capture worthy moment arises. I was impressed with how quickly the camera starts up which is something that is often overlooked. The moment occurs and you want to catch it- there is nothing worse than a long delay starting the camera function up which is sadly something that happens on many smartphones.

I took my children out to a place called Nymans Gardens to test out the camera and a selection of photos is shown below. I played around with the effects, but on the whole left every setting at the maximum possible and the results were excellent. Photos were snapped in an instant and every single one was usable. I ended up taking 91, but won’t bore you with all of them. The photos below are scaled down, but should give a good idea of what the S 2 snapper is capable of. The last one shows how good the flash is as well (taken in complete darkness) which again is near the best, but not quite Nokia standards.

Video capture is rated at 1080p and 30fps and the results are pretty good. It is still obviously a smartphone video camera, but up there with the best available. Sound capture is quite good, but lacks the crispness found in some Nokia cameras. Again though, from a user experience point of view you are unlikely to be disappointed. A quick example is below-

As an aside, there is also a 2 Megapixel camera on the front for video calling which is a more generous specification that it may seem.

Screen

The dimensions will take most of the headlines because 4.3” is pretty big for any smartphone. Strangely this size is starting to become standard on high-end smartphones and all of the work is being done to reduce the depth rather than the footprint.

I do like this screen a lot for a variety of reasons. Size is a major factor for watching movies and navigating through the often muddled Android interface, but the colour presentation is just superb. It feels so alive and the viewing angles are as acute as you could hope for. Take it outdoors in the bright sunlight and you will still be able to see everything you need to and indoors it just shines. The touch side feels just right and is neither over sensitive or difficult to use and the resolution, at 480 x 800 pixels, looks crisp and clear for reading and every other activity.

It depends on your point of view regarding screen technology as to how you would rate this one. Do you need a Retina display (does anyone?) or do you need a large screen that is viewable in all conditions and one that reproduces colours vibrantly? Over the past few days I have used the S 2 to watch movies in preference to any other phone and I have to say that it makes mobile film watching feel much more real than on small screens thanks to the dimensions and colour reproduction.

General Performance

1.2GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) and 16GB of internal memory. It is an impressive set of pieces that make up the power puzzle here and you will not be found wanting with any standard task. Even video editing (editor app included) works without a glitch and I have not been able to find any problems here. Start up is quick from the powered off state although it can be frustrating; the screen pops up, but it continues to do stuff in the background and takes about 30 seconds all in all.

You may be asking why a smartphone needs a 1.2GHz dual-core processor. So am I. There are few smartphone processes that can take advantage of such power currently and so the performance enhancements are not too noticeable in normal use, but it’s a bit like buying a home computer. You don’t buy one that can just about cope with your needs- most people buy the best they can in the consideration that it will be able cope with more intensive tasks and those that have not even been invented yet. The S 2 is specced to cope with the future and this is hard to criticise particularly because it will only use what it needs to most of the time.

All in all I have pleased with the general speed of the S 2 and suffered no slowdowns at all. However, I can say that about many other high-end smartphones so you won’t necessarily see a huge jump in speed on the S 2 because so many other phones are so fast. This is not a criticism because its true worth will be shown in time and I fully expect some remarkably complex and clever apps to take advantage of the power here in the next few months.

Media

This is a strong area for the S2, very strong. The processor and large hi-definition screen ensure a smooth video playback experience. It really does feel like a small tablet when watching movies and again the colours seem to jump out of the screen. One very clever trick is the outdoor brightness option which reduces the quality of video output slightly in order to offer a super brightness settings thus enabling use in virtually every weather condition.

Music is also excellent and a decent set of headphones makes a world of difference. It is up there with the very best, but the software interface could be a little more intuitive. It takes longer to navigate through tracks than it should, but this being Android means that there is a wealth of alternatives available. There are also many options built into the software such as effects, some of which are highly realistic, and you will find yourself playing around with various aspects of music manipulation just because it is there.

The external speaker is pretty good as well and a welcome change from the recent HTC efforts. To create a decent noise from a phone so thin is not easy, but Samsung has just about achieved it. It is slightly tinny which is most noticeable when playing music however and could possibly be improved with software alone.

There is an FM Radio, AllShare for those of you with DLNA compatible equipment and a video and photo editor thrown in for good measure.

This phone is designed with entertainment high on the agenda and Samsung appears to have succeeded. The amount of content available is also improving all of the time on Android and Google Movies should be the icing on the cake for this particular phone.

Data Entry

As you may know I am no fan of touch screen keyboards and am still waiting for a large screened Android or iOS device to incorporate a proper font screened or slide out keyboard. Android does a good job though of giving the user a variety of options of which Swype is the most well known. Swype can suffer from the problem of a finger hiding the screen and thus reducing visibility of each letter, but the S 2 alleviates this thanks to the size of the screen. In fact, the screen size helps normal data entry a great deal as well and I found that I struggled less than I normally do on Android phones.

I don’t believe that the stock Android keyboard is better than the iOS keyboard, even with the bigger screen, but I do prefer Swype to both alternatives. Add handwriting recognition and even more options hidden in the settings and most users should be able to find a solution that works quite well for them.

Battery

I haven’t found a smartphone yet that does well in all areas and the battery is usually the biggest culprit on high-end phones, but even this area is relatively positive. It’s a mix of good and bad and in my unscientific tests I would say that it could go as far as 2 days under average usage, but easily down to one if you push it hard. I have read elsewhere that the battery is excellent and I understand why people say that, but I would say that it is about average for a high-end Android smartphone. Then again, most high-end Android smartphones don’t come with a 4.3″ screen hence why it is overall quite positive.

Call Quality

The Galaxy S shone in the call quality stakes and was way ahead of the competition at the time of its release. The Galaxy S 2 is pretty good, but doesn’t quite match the original S for richness and volume. Don’t be disheartened though because it is still up there with the best.

Strangely the speakerphone is rich and vibrant with only a hint of distortion when the volume is cranked all the way up.

Signal

No problems here at all. HSDPA in my house, even on Vodafone, and full signal everywhere on 3. Again I haven’t been scientific about this, but suspect the radios built-in are pretty good. GPS also latched on quickly which is not always the case on some Android phones so no complaints from me.

Software

It’s Android through and through, but with Samsung’s TouchWiz interface over the top. Highlights include Google Navigation (of course), various hubs and some nice tweaks to the way the home screens can be managed. The edit function works very similarly to iOS and you can even take a screenshot on the device by holding the power and home key, like iOS. I will come back to the iOS similarities tomorrow when I compare this phone to the iPhone 4, but so far I have been mightily impressed at how well the minimal buttons and large screen present the Android operating system.

Like the Sony Ericsson Arc, it makes Android a much more pleasant mobile OS to use thanks to the hardware and the extra software is both useful and at times worthy of immediate deletion.

Other Stuff

I like Samsung Klies which can be used to transfer media to and from the S 2 wirelessly. It is slightly clunky to set up the first time and not the easiest to use, but once I understood the quirks I enjoyed the experience of not having to directly connect to a desktop.

Polaris Office is installed for Office document handling and does a good job. I prefer it to Documents To Go primarily because it feels more like a part of the OS rather than a standalone solution.

There is so much more that I could cover, but I would be here all day and I don’t think more words about apps and tiny features would add much to my impressions of the S 2.

Conclusion

The Galaxy S 2 is good. It’s very good and has almost no failings at all. It is the flagship Android phone of the moment- if a fleet of Android phones were sailing across the Atlantic to fight a fleet of floating iPhone and BlackBerry’s, the S 2 would be leading the way. It is big, bold and very impressive in so many ways.

It is admittedly similar to the Sony Ericsson Arc, but from a design point of view I feel that the S 2 wins and the power under the hood is likely to keep it ahead of the pack for some time to come. The Arc is easier to hold, especially next to the ear, and minimises the effect of a large screen better than the S 2, but the camera and media quality are ‘just’ about better on the S 2.

I said at the start that this phone has already shipped more than 3 million units. I can now see what. It appeals on multiple levels; geeky Android users who get strangely excited when they look at a specs sheet and the man and women in the street who hold it and feel something special. It is special, of that there is no doubt.

If you are a person who likes to input data and communicate on a smartphone using a real keyboard your choices are limited. RIM is the king of keyboarded smartphones and has built its hardware, software and everything else BlackBerry related around this setup. For all of the problems RIM is suffering, data entry and sheer speed of use are unquestionably at the peak of the smartphone market at this time, and a lesson for some others to learn from. The smartphone world is dominated by slabs of screen and finger touch phones that bring with them the kind of data entry that cannot keep up with the specifications powering them. What is the point of a 1.2GHz dual-core processor if it takes too long to type a simple email reply? There is a massive drive towards faster processors, clever screen technology and all sorts of other bits and pieces that let you do almost anything with your smartphone, but data entry has been left behind by most hardware manufacturers and software developers. To be fair to Apple, the iPhone keyboard is very good, but people like me still hanker for a hardware keyboard for the simple reason they are quicker and easier to use.

Nokia, HTC and others use hardware keyboards from time to time and the results have been mixed. The landscape HTC keyboards on Android phones have been less useable that they should be given their size. Windows Phone isn’t optimised for landscape yet, which hasn’t stopped some manufacturers releasing phones anyway, and the Nokia phones often have excellent keyboards fronting Symbian, which is the main problem for me. Hardware and software should complement each other and every part of the operating system should fit every feature of the hardware, and vice versa.

There are countless examples where this does not happen and they all have one thing in common; the HTC 7 Pro home screen does not switch orientation when the keyboard is pulled out which is unforgiveable in a +£400 smartphone. Yes, Windows Phone 7 does not support landscape, but that is no excuse for making such a device. The HTC Desire Z supports Android more fully, but the keyboard itself can be tricky to use and is extremely flat when pulled out. The commonality they share is that one company makes the software and another makes the hardware, and this is all too obvious.

Software and hardware only work seamlessly in iOS and BlackBerry. The iPhone has no physical keyboard of course, but the software is designed to blend perfectly with the hardware it is running on. There is of course far too much written about Apple software, to the point that every aspect of the interfaces is drooled over, but you can’t deny how well it works with the single home button and touch screen. It’s also hard to deny how well BlackBerry OS works on a front-keyboarded smartphone, but it hasn’t been as successful on touch devices like the Storm and Torch. BlackBerry smartphones like the Curve and Bold remain the only phones that take full advantage of the front-keyboarded form factor.

And then the Samsung Galaxy Pro arrived.

The Galaxy Pro is on average priced at £249 from the likes of Carphone Warehouse, but 3 is currently offering it for just £149 + top-up which puts it in direct competition with the Curve 8520. At first glance it looks like a pure business-centric unit, but that does not mean that teenagers won’t be buying this phone like they have so much of the BlackBerry range. The combination of a keyboard and an emphasis on social networking alone is likely enough to turn the heads of many and we could see this phone selling very well if the current price point becomes the standard.

It is a curious mix of a professional form factor married to relatively cheap materials, but somehow it retains a likeability factor in use. It looks metallic, but is covered from head to toe in plastic and is extremely light which offers a sense of the budget sector it is aimed at. It is quite odd, but follows the current trend for Android handsets to use fairly cheap outer materials to create lightness. It seems that lightness is becoming a fascination with Samsung, Sony Ericsson and others and while this is beneficial, it can make a phone feel slightly cheap.

Keyboard

The keyboard benefits from the wide form factor and the keys are larger than on most competing front-keyboarded devices. Looking at it, it is easy to expect a clunky and difficult experience, but it works very well indeed. There are some quirks such as the @ key being located on the left and a small space bar, but the build of the keys and the mechanical action of each overcomes these quite easily. The space bar is a mere two keys wide, but I have yet to miss it so a small thumbs up for creating a smaller space bar that actually works.

Overall, this is one of the best keyboards I have used on a smartphone and there are significant advantages to having one built in. The QuickLaunch feature makes opening apps super quick. For example, press the search key and ‘C’ and the calculator opens immediately and you can also define different apps for each key. It reminds me of the BlackBerry method and this is far from a bad thing. The only other addition is the use of 4 arrows keys which you can use to navigate in the home screens and in web pages etc. There are times when this is useful, but I did find myself using the touch screen quite a lot which is surprising because on the BlackBerry Torch I hated jumping between the keyboard, the trackpad and the touch screen.

The keys just above the keyboard are real keys as well which also work well; menu, home, return and search are standard although the placement would benefit from swapping home and menu in my opinion. As with most things though, a short period of time makes them feel perfectly natural and you will soon get used to them. The on/off button is strangely placed on the right-hand side and there are no call start / end keys which makes sense when space is considered- how many people will make and receive enough calls to justify using space for two keys that rarely get used?

This is a very good keyboard and care has been taken to make sure that the space available has been used effectively. It is one of the highlights of the Pro and I don’t think many people will be disappointed with the data input mechanism available here.

Screen

The screen is potentially the Achilles heel of the Galaxy Pro when you consider the specs; at 320 x 240 pixels and measuring only 2.8” you would be forgiven for believing that it will make for a poor Android experience. There are of course compromises to be made, but over time I have managed to get around most of them. Don’t get me wrong- this phone needs a higher resolution to offer a better general experience, but I liken it to the Curve 8520 which works brilliantly with the same type of screen. The Bold 9700 feels nicer with a higher resolution, but what you achieve with both is ultimately the same.

This may sound bizarre, but I kind of like the fuzzy text look of a lower resolution screen because it makes text feel more real. I am not trying to drag an advantage out of the lower resolution here because it needs to be higher, but it does just work on the busy Android interface and the way the keys can be used to manipulate and access the system speeds everything up.

The touch aspect of the screen is excellent and I hit the right spot every time and the marriage of keyboard and touch screen works well here. Brightness is good with some washout in bright sunlight. However, I haven’t struggled to use the phone yet in any conditions and this is surprising when you consider the overall price and screen technology used. You will need to spend time working out what works best because on some third party apps such as K-9 Mail the default text display is too small to tap easily. I like K-9 Mail and so upped the text a little, but also use the arrow keys to navigate through messages, sort of like a BlackBerry. Hooray!

There is one other aspect to this screen and that is the unusual landscape 320 x 240 resolution. This offers some challenges in terms of compatibility with apps and I have noticed some, games in particular, that work on the Galaxy Pro, but in portrait mode. This means that you have to use the phone on its side to play the game with the touch screen.

That all sounds dreadful and I can already hear the sniggers from some readers. However, this still leaves Galaxy Pro users with thousands upon thousands of apps available to them and a large number have already been coded to support the landscape form. On the first day I downloaded the following-

Angry Birds (all 3 versions)
K-9 Mail
Twitter
Evernote
iPaper
Dropbox
Chess Free
BBC News
Drag Racing
Wikipedia
Pool Master
Retro Camera

All of the above worked perfectly with the exception of Chess which, as I said earlier, was turned 90 degrees. This is an example though of random apps downloaded and installed, and they all worked. I suspect some high-end games will struggle with the resolution, but at 2.8” I am not convinced many users will consider gaming as part of their buying decision.

General Performance

The 800Mhz processor will send a shiver down the spine of those whose minds can only comprehend a smartphone with ‘GHz’ somewhere in the specs. However, it all works perfectly well in normal use. When I installed the apps mentioned earlier I had them all running at once and not a blip in performance occurred.

This is not a powerhouse smartphone and will not be able to cope with multiple high-end processes running at the same time, but it will cope with almost everything any normal person throws at it. A device like this does not need a 1GHz processor, actually I can’t think of any smartphone that needs one, and the power built in appears to be perfectly adequate for this particular phone.

Camera

This is a turn up for the books. This phone makes no pretentions to offer a decent photography experience, as the specs highlight, but it isn’t bad at all. Video capture is limited to VGA (320×240) and 30 frames per second. I expected appalling results, but was surprised at how smooth the videos were. You won’t be doing much with the results, but for catching a moment it works better than expected. Example below featuring a beautiful princess…

The still camera has no flash and is limited to 3 Megapixels, but Auto focus, Face detection, Smile detection, Digital zoom, Effects and Panorama are thrown in to make the experience more usable. The camera interface is quick and easy to use and ‘quick and easy’ is how I would describe the photo taking process. It all works well and the results are not bad at all, even close-ups. Check out the examples below.

Battery

Good again. The prediction of 11 hours talk time and 620 hours standby is high, but it seems as though Samsung has decided to aim for the corporate market and produce a phone that is capable of easily delivering a full day of use. Voice calls obviously cut the battery life, but not the extent that I have seen others and I could see this phone managing two days of my normal usage which is quite intense at times. It is another area that makes me wonder if Samsung looked quite closely at the BlackBerry’s before designing the Galaxy Pro.

Software

Android 2.2.2 (Froyo) is installed and works as efficiently as would be expected. I’m not sure of this is standard or an addition by 3, but 4 icons are static on the right-hand side which makes sense given the landscape orientation of the display. It does, however, limit how much space you have to play with widgets and icons and so I quickly installed LauncherPro which worked perfectly.

The keyboard makes using many of the apps a much more productive experience than on a touch screen; messaging, the calendar and any apps requiring data entry are greatly improved and the touch screen is still there for apps that need touch to work well.

Samsung has, for no good reason it seems, bundled in quite a lot of extra software which is mostly not worth keeping. Here is a list of the extras I found-

• Memo (quite good for a very basic notes app)

• FM Radio (this has a sweet interface, but requires using the supplied headphones- they are not good at all)

• News and Weather (provides basic weather forecasting and some new feeds- not bad)

• Crazy Penguins, The Sims 3, Win Cash! And Bejeweled (not sure why these are here when the Android Market offers so much more, but shouldn’t complain)

• Samsung IM / Social Hub (these work to provide an integrated social networking experience which is useful, but could be slightly more professionally presented)

The usual goodies are here of course including Google Navigation, Maps and everything else you expect in Android and it all works as it should, but with the consideration that the low resolution screen makes some of the apps slightly more difficult to use than would normally be the case. Like most things, a few days adjustment makes a world of difference.

Call quality

The call quality to the ear is unusual, but very clear and will suffice for the majority of people. Even at high volumes there is almost no distortion and the speaker phone is not too bad either. There is a slight tinny tone to voice, but it verges on acceptable.

Signal

3G and 2G are fine and I had no problems at all. Full signal everywhere for me, but the Wi-Fi seemed a little weak. It all worked OK, but I was showing 2 bars compared to the iPhone 4′s 4 bars. To be fair it isn’t easy to believe just the bard so some more testing will be required.

Media

Don’t expect great things here because it simply isn’t designed as a pure media smartphone. Then again the music quality isn’t too bad, but you will of course have to use your own headphones because none are supplied. Video playback was acceptable, but only just because of the QVGA screen.

Conclusion

I must emphasise that when I first used the Galaxy pro I was disappointed by what I saw. It felt a little cheap and the design somewhat old fashioned, but over the following days it all started to click into place. The keyboard, screen (to a point), processor, form factor, camera and almost everything else worked as well together as I have seen in any other smartphone.

There is more than a hint of BlackBerry in how the Pro feels to use and the number of shortcuts available helps a lot. This phone is potentially very important because it proves that Android can work on a keyboarded landscape phone. Actually it does work, and it works very well, but the low resolution of the screen hampers the experience just a little and is the one area that feels lacking in a phone that offers a huge amount for the price. At £150 it is an absolute steal and puts many other budget Android smartphones to shame, but if the Orange San Francisco can sport a high resolution screen I see little reason why the Galaxy pro cannot.

The HTC ChaChaChaChaChaChaChaCha is soon to be released and benefits from a 480 x 320 pixel screen which should look much cleaner. The 600Mhz processor, 2.6” screen size and the potential for HTC to once again screw up vital areas mean that it may be a lost opportunity though. At some point a manufacturer will release an Android handset that feels as good to use as a BlackBerry Bold 9700 (they could do it today if they wanted to), and at that moment Android will gain a huge advantage over the competition. RIM will suffer greatly because the Galaxy Pro proves that Android works in this format and that means Android will find a place in the hands of those who require a hardware keyboard for quick communication and the entertainment that Android will potentially bring.

The Galaxy Pro is a very good smartphone, and particularly good value at just £150, but more than anything it shows that an even better version will be brilliant. It does what most people will need particularly well and makes for a decent alternative to the BlackBerry Curve 8520. Make it an alternative to the Bold 9700 and Google, Android and whoever makes it will be laughing. I am keeping the Galaxy Pro and can see myself using it quite often, and not many phones end up in my ‘keep’ category.

Available from 3 for £149 + top-up

UPDATE: It appears that the Galaxy Pro is already unlocked when bought from 3 on PAYG.