Saw the new Star Trek film last night...... awesome!
Saw the new Star Trek film last night...... awesome!
Member since:14.10.2006
Reviews:125
Members who trust:181
Hello and welcome to my 47th review on Ciao. I though that it would be a good idea to move away from DVD's on this one and wanted to review a gadget that I recently acquired and something that makes using a mobile a far more enjoyable experience. It seems to me that every year after Christmas the phone companies seem to have a short circuit in the sense that they do some unbelievable deals. I'm with Orange and this year the bar seems to have been raised higher than ever when it comes to upgrading a phone.
Over Christmas I had a few problems with my Nokia 7610, the fact that the case was damaged and that the phone tended to reboot itself at the most inane opportunities mean that I had to get this issue addressed as soon as possible. To progress this I signed up to the Orange website on-line which allows me to not only view my bills on-line but to also make sure I am managing all the Orange products I have as an Orange customer regarding such issues as Text bundles, tariffs and so on. As I looked through I saw that I could do all the upgrading on-line without the hassle of going into an Orange shop and waiting around.
While I was signed on I just clicked 'upgrade' and was given a full list of phones that I could upgrade to without any cost involved in buying a new had set and so on. After about 20 minutes deliberating which one I was going to choose I went for the Samsung G600 in a colour called Ebony Black but is actually more as what I would describe as a gun metal black. Two days later the phone turned up at home, I was eager to get this sorted out quickly as I was losing calls, so I undid the packaging and switched the sim's over and away I went and after a sufficient charge turned the phone on.
For the next two hours I was discovering how different a Samsung was to a Nokia and the features on this phone are absolutely amazing. First up is the screen, it slides over the keyboard to hide the keys and half the time you don't need the pad unless you are actually sending a text as you can just use the direction keys. When the screen is slid over the pad then the contours of the phones give a very smooth and appealing look as it just looks right and appeals due to the size and the feel of the phone when it is being held. In fact until the phone is slid open it does look like any other phone of a Nokia breed but it is the other functions that this phone has that makes it excel above others and to give an example of how different I am going to start with the visual interface or as its more commonly known the screen.... the resolution on the screen is smooth from start-up when you have a title page showing a full range of colours to the animations when dialling gives enough detail to make you look at the screen. The animation itself is a quill pen going across the screen at an angle writing the digits of the number you're entering when dialling a number. Easy to read and to comprehend. I thought this was quite flash as it is a different medium of presentation and not just showing numbers at the bottom of the screen that are being pressed.
The screen
is able to produce true 24 bit colour in the same way as a standard PC screen that is something in the region of 16.7 million colours. The screen itself is slightly larger than other phones that I was looking at, with a resolution of 320 x 240 and whilst using the WAP facility you are able to change the direction of the screen which basically allows you to switch the view from vertical to horizontal and in turn the directional keys do the same so if you press up you do actually move up and not anywhere unexpected so the keys change in synchronisation as necessary, smart thing to have. So you are holding the phone long ways instead of straight up. The menu is set out in a logical and easy to select manner with Icons that you can easily relate as to what they mean, when the direction keys are used to move to them a one worded description appears underneath anyway such as 'settings' or 'Radio', but the good thing is that this is clear to use as there are shortcuts keys for the camera on the side of the handset and also an easily defined Icon showing a camera.
Moving on this leads me nicely to the main thing on the handset, which is the camera, I remember when the first camera phone went on the market. A few people laughed and said what use would it be having a camera on the phone. Well I don't think they are laughing now as this phone has a 5 mega pixel camera in it. Using this was absolutely astonishing as the quality of the pictures it gave for a phone was amazing. Okay I'm still getting to grips with it but it has given some good shots. With a 4x zoom built in and also a flash it will definitely affect battery life when used continuously but all in all you get all the functionality of something like a Sony/ Canon digital camera on your phone. For example you choose single shot, Multi shot and other various shooting functions that really does cover all the bases as well as taking the photo in five different resolutions from 1280x960 to a whopping 2580x1920. You can even decide what effects you want as you can choose Black and White, Sepia, Negative and Embos. Everything that you need to take a shot is here and with practice you are able to get some quality shots, even including a flash to assist when it is darker than expected. This can be set to Auto, and used as and when necessary and does come on at the right times.
Now we come to the problem I have with the camera, not necessarily a major one but one as a keen photographer is for me quite annoying. The time lag when taking a photo, I will explain further. On the side of the handset you have a camera button that not only activates the camera when the phone is slid open but also is the button you press when taking the actual photo. When you have your shot lined up and press the button, there is a pause while the camera auto focuses and adjusts to take the shot, this is called the time lag. Depending on what you are taking this can vary between 2 and as I found out 5 seconds. It is possible to take a photo where the action that you want capturing has already happened, which has happened to me a number of times already. So like I said above it will be case of practice, but that is not to say that you won't get anything at all out of using this. Therefore this camera is better at taking still photos than it would be off say a moving object such as a car or a plane.
Did I mention it's also got a camcorder facility as well? This takes a very sharp quality clip that you could easily upload to the net, although I suspect that sites like You Tube would be the main destination, whilst taking a clip you can zoom in and out as normal. No jerking is experienced with frame rate as and if the handset is moved smooth enough you shouldn't impact the focus too much. The format is saved automatically as MP4, so it is Windows compatible straight away. Of course if you do need to edit out or tart up a photo you just taken there is an Image Editor that allows you change the contrast, add a date/time stamp for anything you publish and even enhance the visualisation of your shot. By this I mean that you can soften sharpness or add a number of effects to the shot such as warp or crop the shot itself. Great to use but difficult to use whilst looking at the screen, I couldn't find a way of editing a clip on the phone at all, but I didn't need to worry as you get a CD with the phone that contains Samsung PC Studio that you install on your computer. From here you can edit to your hearts content and address any issues that you have with the photos and any clips you've taken by adding titles and so on to really jazz up what you've taken.
Unlike some other brands that very kindly give you the 'opportunity' of buying a phone to PC connector lead for about a tenner, one is included in the box, which makes life easier for clearing the phone out or basically performing some housekeeping to manage your contacts.
In the box that the phone comes in you get a set of headphones that can be used with the built in FM Radio. The quality is very clear as I do use this on the train in the mornings, but I have found that you do lose the station when the train goes through a cutting. Programming the stations is easy as you find the station using the direction keys and press save when you need to or you can allow the phone to find a store the stations for itself. The headphones that are supplied with the phone act as the aerial for the radio itself. Also if you decide that you want to listen with just a singular earpiece in then the phone can cater for this as well as there is a setting that can be selected as necessary. I find that as the phone also contains a Music Player as well that if I lose the reception on the radio I just transfer across to the player and listen to some more tunes which will be stored on the 1 gigabyte memory chip that is also given with the phone and conveniently slides into the bottom of the handset. Okay I knew that this would be for storage but was glad to find out that this was also for music storage as well. Basically what you do is load your music through the Samsung PC Studio software and that compresses the music down to store in the chip itself. Simple. Playback via is great and does show what the phone is capable off, even through the internal speaker of the phone it is clear and was surprised as to how clear this was when I received my first call on it from my other half. I had already downloaded a true ring tone of the Dr Who theme and to hear this on the phone coming through the speaker as clear as a bell was something else. On my previous phone it sounded distorted but on this the quality was the one thing that caught my attention. If you need to download the chip separately to the phone then a transfer cartridge that the chip sits in has been supplied as well. That is not to say that the chip could be used in other compatible products as you could then transfer the photos direct to phone via this chip.
Other features that are here are the standard Bluetooth connections as well as calendar, alarms, stopwatch and so on which you can find elsewhere also as standard. What I found interesting with the alarms is that you don't have a repeater at all, for example if you silence the alarm when it goes of at 6.30 in the morning then you have an option for it to go off again at 6.35 and so on. On this you don't, so if you don't realise it's going off you'll miss it completely. To get round this if you want then you can set a secondary alarm after the first one has passed, job done.
So that is all the functions on the phone, so coming back to Earth with a bump there is a price to be paid for all the additions on this phone and that is with the battery time. Talk time on the phone is around 3.5 hours. With the daily use of the Radio and Music Player that can be reduced to the extent that you'll need to recharge every three days on average. It only takes between 1.5 and 2 hours to fully charge, when completed you do here a nice but not loud tone alerting you that this has been completed.
With a depth of just 15mm, the handset for my size of hands was just right and is not at all hard to hold and doesn't produce any difficulties when holding for an amount of time as it is comfortable to hold and thankfully at 85g is heavy enough to be noticed that you have it in your pocket of your jeans or jacket without actually thinking where you've put it due to it being lightweight.
Texting is easy to use and the standard T9 software is on the phones that enables predictive texting. I am only just getting the hang of this and prefer to use the non-predictive data entry at the moment. Initially I found it harder to use the buttons on the keypad as I felt they were slightly smaller and the buttons are far more sensitive than my old Nokia which led to some strange spelling of some really simple words. Again the entry screen is attractive and simple to use. When sending the text to your designated assignee the phone tells you on screen that it is sending and also confirms that it has been sent and received. If it doesn't send for whatever reason a flashing symbol in the bar at the top of the screen appears and advises you as necessary.
So to sum up with all the functions that this phone can do you can take a picture, edit it and pass it on in a relatively short amount of time which can be useful to have. But at the end of the day it is just a phone and a very effective and attractive piece of kit that is primarily used as a communication device and that is what I wanted this for and have the use the camera and radio if I need to. Personally speaking as good as the functions on the phone are I don't think that phones of these varieties will ever fully replace things such as Ipod's and digital camera as a whole as I prefer to use things on an individual basis, I know I could be very wrong on this as the IPhone might well be the future of the 'all in one multi functional devices' like this, but for me if I want to take a picture I use a camera, one that does not necessarily have a phone with it. But I think that the function of something like this will be at places like concerts where cameras are not allowed in, and yet people still get photos on their phones throughout the concert itself, I know they did at Prince at the 02 as I saw them doing it!
Price wise I have seen this phone retailing between £200 and £279. In fact I didn't pay that at all, in fact I got this as part of a free upgrade with Orange! I upgraded my old Nokia 7610 and received this just 2 days later by registered courier. Oh and don't worry about buying a separate hands free as you do get one with the phone. You receive a Samsung earpiece. Yes, one is already packaged in the box that it arrives in. With all the necessary charging tools as well for both the phone and the handset as well. I would recommend the phone just for the looks alone, naturally with the what this can do, it does place the phone above the rest and it is a pleasure to use and take calls on, but just be prepared with regards to the battery life as this caught me out when I went to use the phone and found that I had no charge, which was mainly due to the fact that I was playing about with the camera in the first place and to think that I only went to the website to have a look and ended with a free phone and a host of extras with it as well. So I think it's safe to say that this is very, very good value for money.
If you want to find out more please go to www.orange.co.uk. If you are an existing Orange subscriber then all you need is some information from your monthly bill to become fully signed up to access your account on line.
Thanks for reading and until next time… take care.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Advantages: Easy to use ,great mp3 player ,nice camera ,nice themes and menus. Disadvantages: No 3G or WIFI ,very delicate and relatively moderate memory .
Feb 2nd, 2008
exceptional by (30%):
very helpful by (70%):
