My opinion on the Samsung Galaxy i7500

OK, here is my opinion so far ...  [Note: I will not discuss detailed technical specs as you can Google them yourself.]

• Screen : I absolutely loved the screen, just stunning and the colors so vivid. Alas but ONLY indoors.  Outdoors I found it to be dim and needed to change brightness to the max. So not recommended for some of us who spend most of their time out.  Solid screen and I believe it is scratch proof. 
• Form: I personally like it's form and chose it over the HTC Hero for that reason. I don't like HTC Hero's chin.  Well designed and feels solid in your hand.  I prefer the Galaxy's D Pad over HTC Hero's track ball.   A warning though,  you might not appreciate D Pad when you are playing games. 
• Performance:  Can be somewhat laggy when you have multiple apps running or lurking in the background.   This is the case with most smart phones.  Android operating system is very capable and will release memory as needed.  I found my memory (RAM) drops to as low as 15Mb and still performs well.   
• Samsung Software:  Rubbish!!!!  Doesn't recognize the phone and if you google enough you will find out a lot of people are fuming about it.  Samsung is admitting they do not software support the Samsung Galaxy i7500.
  
• Stock Rom:  As I said earlier this phone was bought with software re-badged to Optus.  I don't like phones displaying carrier intro splash screens especially when the phone was bought outright and I use with another network.  In Summary I used odin to update the rom from II3 to II5 and in the process losing the CSC file (intentionally!!). The CSC file is the signature file to the Carrier which is used by Samsung update software to update the rom. Later I updated to GalaxHero1.0 then 1.1.   These modified roms are much lighter with memory foot print than the stock Galaxy rom. They are also rooted meaning you have more control with certain applications.  So far the newer Rom 1.6 is not supported on the Galaxy and only on the HTC Hero using modified roms.  Pls note this could be because of Samsung's internal architecture having 8GB rom when other Android devices don't. 
  

Any regrets yet.  No not really,  my only gripe is that Samsung bundles software that doesn't support the device. I can live with that because you can use Google apps to sync your emails, contacts and calendar over Wifi or 3G.  However I believe I invalidated my warranty as I had to flash the phone with another Rom. Again I can live with that :)