Two years ago, after repeated trips to the repair shop, my friend swore she would never buy a Samsung mobile phone again. Looking at her plain-looking Samsung, I had to agree. Fast forward to present day however, and Samsung has turned their mobiles from plain vanilla into some of the sexiest flavors in town.
If there's any reason to hate Samsung's latest smartphone, the Ultra Messaging i600, it's how it trumps its older sibling—the i320n—in almost every way. Only 0.3mm thicker and 6mm shorter, it packs a lot more: Wi-Fi, 3.5G, an extra VGA camera, a jog-wheel, hot-swappable microSD, and a ton of proprietary software features.
The i600 is slim, at 11.8mm thick; it's half the diameter of a Singapore fifty-cent coin. The back is soft plastic that feels like rubber, and makes for a tight grip even for the sweaty-palmed among us. The camera on the back bulges out; it's the only part of the flush surface that protrudes. People complained about the keypad on the i320n being too small and ‘knobbly', on the i600 the buttons have been raised higher and made bigger. It looks less attractive than the i320n's elegant keypad but is easier and more comfortable to use.
A welcome addition is the scroll-wheel on the top right between the hot-swappable microSD slot and the back button. When the scroll-wheel is held it opens up a unique shortcut menu along the right of the i600's screen with links to an edit menu, alarm, calendar, contents and task manager. The charging, USB and audio jack have been integrated into one slot on the top left, below the volume toggle. Unfortunately Samsung continues its trends of using proprietary ports for its audio jacks, locking you into their headsets. The headset supplied produced good sound, but the attached microphone made it bulky to wear.
Photos taken by the 1.3MP camera were adequate. Subjects in the foreground were crisp and clear, but from mid-ground onwards details started to blur. The i600 has no flash attached, but it performed well under low-light conditions with still subjects and low noise. Camcorder picture quality was clear at 320 x 240 but there was a strange warping effect when we moved the camera about.
The most exciting feature in the i600 must be the Card Wheel home screen layout, which was specially designed for Samsung by Microsoft. With it you almost never use the Start button again. There are seven cards to scroll through to view your appointments, switch profiles, view your photos, see your recent songs, view and control media player, quick call your ten set favorite contacts and ready your messages. It's a convenient and elegant system every smartphone should have; and we give Samsung due credit for this smart solution.
Although the i600 comes close to being the perfect smartphone, there's a reason why Samsung packs two batteries with the box: battery life is notoriously short (this was a known problem for the i320n too). On average one charge would last about 1.5 days, although we've maxed it out in a day as well. We've also experienced glitches with the i600, reminder alarms that couldn't be turned off, vibration alerts that wouldn't stop and calls that connected but seemed like they didn't. The i600 also lacks an infrared port, and even though they thought to add so many software features, PocketMSN does not come included—a big minus point. You have to log-on to Mobile MSN through IE favorites and log-on to the extremely limited Messenger Beta, or buy PocketMSN at US$19.95 (S$30) from mobile.msn.com.
On the other hand, the Card Wheel and the shortcut menu are brilliant—Samsung has nailed an intuitive interface with the i600. It's slim, stylish, light and packs the latest connectivity options for faster downloads. As far as Windows Mobile 5 smartphones go, the Samsung i600 is amongst the best of the pack.
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Singapore / English
