As an upgrade to my Sony Ericsson w580, the U900 had a more business oriented yet stylish feel to it than the sporty SE W580.
The camera is one aspect I have always been disappointed with on Samsungs - their camera loading time is dire, the focus time is about 3 minutes and then shutter speed is slower than a Monday morning at work. HOWEVER, I was pleasantly surprised with the U900 - photo quality is absolutely fantastic and they look beautiful on the screen. That said, the issue exists that the Flash is only LED and thus isn't that great in low light. Photos are still high quality but nowhere near as good as they are in daylight. The video also exceeded expectations and provided me with the capacity to capture the most amazing fireworks display I have seen in my life onto my phone.
The flagship feature of this phone is the "Magic Touch Screen" that is located below the screen and changes according to the menu currently onscreen. This is a clever gimmick and has its uses although two soft key buttons could probably have served just as well. In certain applications it does come in handy though such as the camera and then music player. The touch screen has significant improvements to previous touch features of Samsungs. Noticeably the rubbish feature on the U600. Three level Vibration feeback and Three level sensitivity options have been added so that you can customise it to your preferences - I found level 2 was the best for both. Other than that, there isn't much to say about the touch screen except that one will definitely leave ample fingerprint marks on it as well as the screen.
The music player application is not very useful and could be more intuitive in its design and take a page out of SE walkman phones. Navigating the menu is difficult and the 20 locked ringtones that come with the phone annoyingly pop up when the player is set on shuffle. Further gripes include slow browsing speed of tracks and lack of search feature (moving down a list of 1000 songs to the one you want can get tedious after well...once). Good aspects of the music player include the B&O (look them up Bang and Olufsen) speakers and the clear quality that comes from the speakers. What's more is that headphone clarity is crystal (assuming you buy an adapter off ebay and use your own earphones). Radio comes as standard.
One extra thing to note is that if you use these applications frequently during the day as well as turning on bluetooth and making lots of phonecalls/sending texts...then you'll have to charge every night.
I won't list the features here as one can look them up anywhere else easily, however I have listed what I deem to be the most important few features of any phone and specific aspects relating to this particular phone. I hope it has been useful to you and it is my first Ciao review.
In summary:
Pros: -Stylish "head-turning" phone. -Excellent camera -Touch screen system handy in certain applications
Cons: -Battery life -No Xenon Flash -Easily scratchable back cover -Finger prints -Annoying music player navigation
To be honest, I'm happy with this phone and would recommend you buy it. Although consider reading up on the LG Secret and the Viewty as well.
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Advantages: super cool looks, 5 megapixel camera, high resolution display, excellent keypad and navigation Disadvantages: not quad band, screen hard to read in bright sunlight, camera flash is lacking
Reviewersaad 19.05.2008 (19.05.2008)
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