Here's the P13,990 Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus

Or Samsung’s prized horse in the mid-end segment. Ace should ring a bell. The original Samsung Galaxy Ace (S5830) was one of the best-selling Androids in the Philippines last year because of its good peso-for-performance ratio. That said, the new Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus (S7500) has some big shoes to fill.

Specs-wise, this enters the smartphone race with all the basics covered. Samsung even went an extra mile to give the Ace Plus a bit more of screen real estate at 3.65 inches. At the heart of this device resides a Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset clocked at 1GHz. This processor bring support for Flash content, allowing users to enjoy the whole Android experience. The new Ace also brings a bit of RAM upgrade from its predecessor, upping the ante to a respectable 512MB. Internal memory also received a nice update, bumping it up to 3GB.

The Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus retains its 5-megapixel snapper, but because of other hardware overhauls, it can now record standard quality videos at 30fps. The original Ace can only shoot at 15fps, mind you.

One of my biggest problem with this device is its glossy, plastic back cover. It’s a real smudge-magnet. Samsung should have stuck to its roots and retained the textured back cover of the original Ace. In addition, the lack of a secondary, front-facing camera might be a deal breaker to some.

As for battery life, the Ace Plus posted a run-off-the-mill performance, lasting a day and some change before needing charging.

We’ll talk more about this phone after pitting it against the similarly priced Huawei Honor. (Read my Huawei Honor first impressions at InterAksyon tomorrow, March 26. — Alora Uy Guerrero. Update, March 26: Huawei Honor: first impressions is up now.)