Samsung

Samsung SGH-A777

admin | Samsung | December 12th, 2008 | No Comments »

In most respects the SGH-A777 doesn’t strike new ground in cell phone design. It offers a thin profile (4 inches tall by 1.9 inches wide by 0.5 inch deep), clean lines, and a sliding face that hides the alphanumeric keypad. Yet, unlike many of its silver Samsung counterparts, the SGH-A777 comes in red and blue versions. We reviewed the blue handset, but the features are the same on both models.

The SGH-A777 has an average weight for its size (3.4 ounces), but it has a solid, comfortable feeling in the hand, despite the plastic battery cover. The slider mechanism was sturdy, as well, but we didn’t like that the handset lacks a firm thumb grip for opening the phone. Unless we pushed on it in just the right place, our finger kept slipping to the navigation controls. We had issues with the SGH-A777’s navigation array.

The controls are tactile, but with just a toggle, a central OK button, and two soft keys on the front slider, there are far too few of them. We suppose such an arrangement has a minimalist appeal, but we don’t like having to open the phone to access a clear key and the Talk and End or power buttons. The toggle and OK button are large, but the soft keys are a tad thin. The keypad buttons are spacious, but they’re completely flush and somewhat slick.

We could dial and text with relative ease, but we would have appreciated some tactile definition between the individual keys. As such, dialing by feel is difficult. The bright backlighting helps in dim situations. On the right spine you’ll find the microSD card slot, a music player key, and a control that opens a pop up shortcut on the home screen. The toggle also gives one touch access to user defined functions.

A volume rocker and a proprietary headset jack or charger port sit on the left spine. The display measures 2 inches and supports 262,000 colors (220×176 pixels). It’s a bit small for the phone’s size but is serviceable in most respects. Colors are bright, and graphics and photos are sharp. You also can save MP3 files and voice clips as ringtones. You can change the brightness, the backlighting time, and dialing font size, type and color. The menus are available in grid or list styles.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Samsung to buy Sandisk, would become Flashzilla

admin | Samsung, accessories | September 6th, 2008 | No Comments »

MarketWatch is reporting that Samsung is seeking to acquire Sandisk, the maker of flash memory and multimedia players. That might be a good time: Sandisk lost 50% of its market capitalization since June 2008. Samsung is already a flash memory giant and with Sandisk, it would acquire a great brand, an awesome patents portfolio, additional revenues… and instantly become “Flashzilla”. At first view, it’s not a bad deal, at depressed price.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Samsung Yp-Q1 -Review

admin | Samsung | August 29th, 2008 | No Comments »

SAmsung Samsung maybe hard at work bringing out the next best cellphone, but that doesn’t mean the Koreans have stopped thinking about MP3 player. Planning to be unveiled at IFA, Samsung YP-Q1 has received a little design overhaul. It appears to be a mid-range DAP, and will use physical controls unlike the P2. The vertically-oriented Q1 accompanied by a 2.4″ screen has a diamond-shaped control that is reportedly touch-sensitive. The GUI is reminiscent of that of the P2 also.

The YP-Q1 will come in 4, 8 and 16GB with some excellent audio codec support, including the usual ones plus OGG and FLAC. We decide not to comment on the video playback capability as Samsung past DAPs are quite stubborn when it comes to bit-rate, resolution and supported wrapper. Battery life is rated at 30 hours for music and 4 hours for video. If the YP-Q1 skips with Bluetooth, it will go head to head with Sony E430-series Walkman, which has a better color variety.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Samsung i900 Omnia.. best of samsung

admin | Featured, Mobile, Samsung | August 24th, 2008 | No Comments »

Samsung’s phones are as widespread and popular as Nokias these days and that success has come as a result of consistently producing sleek, good-looking handsets with mass appeal. But Samsung also wants a slice of the iPhone action, it would seem, and has made a big effort to produce one of its very own.

The Omnia, like the HTC Touch Diamond, is based on Windows Mobile Professional 6.1 and like the Diamond it replaces large parts of Microsoft’s ugly and fiddly smartphone user interface with one of Samsung’s design in an attempt to provide an iPhone-style touch screen experience.

Physically, it’s very similar to the iPhone 3G, much more so than the Diamond, complete with slim, candybar form factor, a large screen dominating the front panel and minimalist controls. Compare the phones side by side and you’ll find that dimensions are remarkably similar too, though the Omnia is a little slimmer, narrower and shorter than the iPhone 3G, at 12.5 x 112 x 56.9mm compared to 12.3 x 115.5 x 62mm.

So how exactly does it stack up elsewhere? Well, as you’d expect from a modern Windows smartphone, there’s a pile of features and many of these appear to match or outstrip the iPhone 3G equivalent. It has a five-megapixel camera on the rear with an LED flash and a VGA video call camera on the front - the iPhone’s is three megapixels less and it has no video call feature. It also has HSDPA of up to 7.2Mb/sec, a 624MHz processor, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, a GPS receiver and an FM radio. Plus it comes with a decent helping of storage – either 8GB or 16GB with microSD expansion as well.

Its screen, however, at 3.2 inches isn’t quite as luxuriously spacious as the iPhone’s and its 400 x 280 resolution is also inferior. There’s also no 3.5mm headphone socket and though a conversion dongle is included in the box, we’d sooner not have to carry an adapter around just to listen to music and it seems a needless oversight given the capacious storage on offer.

The camera, however, is the main highlight here. Its resolution is the main headline: five megapixels is the highest resolution I’ve seen in a Windows Mobile device, but it also has image stabilisation, which means you don’t have to rely on the less-than-ideal LED ‘flash’ in difficult lighting. The results are impressive. Inevitably given the pinhole lens shots are a little noisy in low light and focus a touch soft, but they’re more than acceptable. You can use the Omnia for proper snaps - not just contact profile pictures

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!