Is it a phone, or is it a camera? Until recently, cameraphones were unquestionably still just phones with chintzy cams tacked on, but it looks like we're finally getting to the point where the lines are truly blurred. Samsung's new
G800 slider is now official, packing a 5 megapixel autofocus camera in a rather attractive metallic form; that in itself isn't terribly notable, considering we already have a handful of 5 megapixel handsets on the market. What
is notable, though, is the added bonus of a xenon flash and 3x optical (yes, optical) zoom. Heck, from the back, you can barely tell it's a phone at all. Add in the usual goodies like Bluetooth, HSDPA, and a generously sized QVGA display, and Samsung has a winner on its hands -- or at least it would have a winner if only it'd launch stateside. Our far luckier European brethren, meanwhile, can lay their hands on this sucker starting in November for a to-be-determined price.
[Via
Unwired View]
posted Oct 22nd 2007 12:03PM
They don't want to piss any US carriers off by selling unlocked phones in the US.
Samsung does make some good phones, but their cameras are... I am not sure if it is a good news or not to say they have made a phone that's so much like a cameras.
Where's the F700? That's what I want to know. :P
Awesome design.
http://g4-g5.notlong.com/
As of yesterday I have a SGH-G800. So far I am quite happy with it.
My Sharp 770SH (with which I was very happy too) has to go through some complicated repairs which will take weeks and I can't afford to be stranded without a mobile phone. I am working as system administrator and IT consultant ... if people can't reach me on the phone or if I can't presto remote connect to my networks to subito fix their problems all hell will break loose.
So I called my boss and he agreed he'll pay whatever phone I buy if only it means I am reachable when people need me. So I handed over my Sharp 770SH for repairs and there it was: a shiny new Samsung SGH-G800 ...
Touch & Feel:
Large parts of the phone's case are made of metal. To use an analogy here: It's the "MacBook Pro" of mobile phones, almost all the case is made of metal and not plastic. It just looks and feels very polished and professional ... the metal look makes it look more expensive then it really is. Excellent :->
The "GUI" is very easy to use, I never bothered to read the manual. All the menu points are pretty much where I'd expect them to be. My only complaint is that the somewhat odd "geekish" color scheme (plenty of orange and neon-green icons and letters on black background ... feels like working with a terminal) of the menus can't be adjusted (or else I have yet to find the menu where themes can be configured?) and that the font used on the menus is too huge for my taste. I'd prefer a smaller font there ... but OK, then again given the fact that I sometimes have to work late in the night when I am already very very tired this maybe isn't so bad, that color scheme and those huge letters will make sure I hit the right menus and buttons no matter how tired I am ;-)
Network-related Features:
Accessing the Internet using the phone's own browser is very easy, the speed is tip top. Google Search and Google Mail are pre-configured (e.g. there is a "Google" option in the main menu). As browser the phone has the "NetFront Browser v3.4" ... never heard of it before but it does its job well. The phone supports SMTP, POP3 and IMAP4 + SSL encryption + multiple accounts. Perfect, I am in heaven :-) So now I can read my mails and respond to them without having to get onto my laptop every time.
Multimedia Features:
Photographs look tip top, nothing to complain there. Only the camera doesn't seem to like it when there is too much movement going on. I tried to photograph my 1.5 year old baby-daughter as she was running towards me ... and some of the pictures where too much action was going on didn't turn out that well. Still pictures (where there isn't too much movement) however look absolutely brilliant. Oh, and there is a blogging function so the phone would upload your photos to your blog ... Haven't tested that yet, but I assume this is a nice feature. You photograph something, put the phone back into your pocket ... and while you carry on with your daily duties the phone uploads your snapshots to your blog. Or something like that ... as I said, I haven't tested that yet.
Video mode: The camera can record video too, unfortunately only at 320x240 pixels. As format you can choose 3GP or MPEG-4 (MP4). Picture and sound quality is tip top, but the resolution should have been better.
MP3 Player: Works tip top, nothing to complain here. Sound quality both on the speaker and the headphones is brilliant.
FM Radio: Works tip top. The headphones serve as antenna, the radio application refuses to work otherwise. So with the headphones plugged in you can listen to your favourite radio stations. You can also tell your phone to play the radio via the speaker, in that case the headphones would only serve as antenna (cool!). If the station you're listening to supports "RDS" the phone will display the station's name and the artist's name / song's name of the music currently being played. Nice.
Interoperability:
Bluetooth works tip top. I had no troubles connecting the phone to my car or to my Linux systems (I don't use Windows here). So at least on Linux I can drag & drop files from and to the phone (this didn't work too well with my Sharp 770SH where I had to use "obexftp" and its cryptic command line to do the same things ...)
USB: Veeeeeery nice features there. The Samsung SGH-G800 can be configured as to what sort of device it should appear as when it is connected to a PC via USB. There are four modes:
1.) "PC Studio" which means you can remote control most of the phone with the Windows-only software the phone ships with (you can up- and download pictures, videos, sounds, music, you can send SMS, MMS, e-mails, and so on). On Linux the phone gets detected as a modem (I get a "/dev/ttyACM0" ) when in this mode, so I guess establishing PPP connections should work. Haven't tested that yet.
2.) "USB Mass Storage": Brilliant. When I select this mode both Windows and Linux see the 2 GB MicroSD card inserted into the phone and I can directly drag & drop stuff from and to the memory card.
3.) "Media Player": Not tested yet. When in this mode the phone would appear as a media player device to the computer, so I assume that programs such as Windows Media Player, iTunes or Amarok would be able to deal with it and copy music files to it.
4.) "Ask the user": When in this mode the phone will simply ask what you want when a USB connection is detected. Very sweet. Why can't other manufacturers come up with this?? This is so uber-sweet. So with this option activated I can plugin my phone when and where I want and it will work.
Only complaints I can come up as of now:
1.) NO GAMES. Yes. Strange. But there are no games here ... but never mind. The very good MP3 player and the FM Radio are an OK compensation for that.
2.) Either you recharge or you use the headphones, but not both! Yes. Strange too. The headphones, the USB cable and the AC jack use the very very same connector. While your phone will be slowly recharged when it connects via USB you can't recharge your phone and use the headphones. It's just a minor design flaw IMHO, but nontheless a strange one.
Would I recommend the phone ...
- to hobby photographers? Yes, with this phone you'd always have a very nice 5MP camera with you. While you may still want to keep your real cameras this phone gives you a chance of producing decent photographs when you don't have any of your cameras with you. With other phones and their inferior resolutions and only digital zoom you don't have this possibility.
- to business-oriented people? Yes, the phone looks and feels brilliant (no cheap plastic, it's almost completely made of metal!) and there are enough functions (e.g. Calendar, calculator, unit conversion, synchronisation, notes, voice memo, etc.) to keep you happy; a PDA would be overkill for me but this phone is "just right", so if you also fit into this "I don't really need a PDA and for WLAN and serious work I'd use my laptop anyway" category like myself then you should give this phone a closer look.
- to IT folks? Yes, but checkout other phones too, e.g. the SGH-G800 has no WLAN, but other than that it is OK. As a matter of fact: I used the phone to record a tutorial and then mailed the video to the user who was in trouble :-) ... For stuff like that it's perfect. If you don't need WLAN but would love to have a top-quality camera on your mobile phone (you never know when you need to photograph something and be it only for your blog....) then you should really give this phone a closer look.
- music enthusiasts: Yes, the FM radio and the MP3 player are OK and do what they are expected to do. If you want "bells and whistles" though you probably want an Apple iPhone ... BUT: The iPhone's camera can't record video, it can't do MMS, the iPhone's camera is way inferior to the G800's 5MP camera which has a 3x optical zoom. So with the G800 you won't have the iPhone's awesome user interface but you'd nontheless get a decent phone here. Also: the G800 is quite a bit smaller than an iPhone, so even though it's a little thick it still fits into a pocket.
Would I buy the G800 again? Yes!
Hope this helped .....