The Samsung Soul U900, which is the latest phone offerings from Samsung, Samsung is sticking to its slider guns with the Soul U900, which incorporates modern technology into a classic design. I thought on first impressions this was just another slide phone that looked good but lacked functionality, I WAS WRONG!!
The Samsung U900 Soul
Samsung U900 Soul Specification:
- Size: 105 x 49.5 x 12.9 mm
- Weight: 112 grams
- Camera: 5 MP, 2592?1944 pixels, autofocus, image stabiliser, video(QVGA), flash
- Battery life: 400 hours standby & 6.5 hours talk time
- Display size: 240 x 320 pixels, 2.2 inches
- OS: Custom flash UI on S60 OS
- Bluetooth: 2.0 with A2DP
- Memory: 240MB shared memory & MicroSDHC
- Networks: GSM 900 / 1800 / 1900
- HSDPA, 7.2 Mbps
- FM radio with RDS
- MP3/AAC/AAC+ player
- AC Charger: Output 9VDC, 2.5A
What’s in the box?
- The Samsung Soul handset
- Battery
- Mains Charger
- Hands-free wired headset
- USB Data Cable
- CD-ROM
- User’s Guide
GENERAL
The Samsung U900 Soul is an attractive looking candy-bar style slider phone with a funky touch window below the main 2.2" TFT colour display. Either side of the touch controls are a couple of physical buttons or selection keys along with call send and end keys. Above the main screen you find a single VGA camera for video calls as well as the loudspeaker.
The Samsung U900 Soul
Looking to the right hand side of the U900 you’ll find a plastic cover over the MicroSD card slot as well as a dedicated camera button.
Samsung Soul right side
Left hand side is home to the volume controls, USB/Audio/power connector and finally a eyelet for a lanyard or phone charm.
Samsung Soul left side
Slide the screen up to reveal a 15 key numeric pad. The keys have a brushed metal finish to them that looks pretty cool, it looks even better in the dark when the numbers are illuminated from behind.
Samsung Soul Keypad
If you turn the phone over with the screen open you’ll see the excellent 5.0 Megapixel camera with LED ‘flash’ and self portrait mirror.
Samsung Soul Camera
Highlights and Lowlights
+ Attractive Design
+ FM Radio with RDS
+ Decent Digital Camera
– Only Tri-band
– Battery life not as good as promised
REVIEW
To be honest, I didn’t understand what all the fuss was about when this phone was first introduced to me, but when I took this out of the box I soon came to realise that all the fuss was about something rather stylish and attractive.
When I was out using this it felt right, sitting there in my hand, the solid look and feel that you get from the metal casing, the way the keypad and screen are laid out it just feels right, some people might think its chunky or oversized but I think that Samsung might have made a phone that could just be right.
When I reviewed the KF600 I was not struck on the split/dual screen but with the Soul it just goes together perfectly, the navigation touch screen at the bottom is very responsive and provides an adequate amount of vibrating feedback.
Fortunately, all the heavily-used keys such as cancel and soft keys are mechanical. You can avoid the irritation of deleting a whole text message as you could on the Samsung E900 when you mistakenly brushed the touch-sensitive cancel key.
The Samsung Soul U900 is built in a way that kind of puts across that Samsung acknowledges its past mistakes and has cleverly engineered the Soul. The 5-megapixel camera, for example, is protected behind the slide mechanism similar to the Nokia N95, which is a small detail that adds to the overall user experience.
The aim of having a navigation touch screen seemed redundant at first, but starts to make sense when you use the Soul. When you access an app such as the camera, it offers a series of camera keys making it easier to change all the settings.
LG tried to achieve a similar thing on the KF600 but the often unresponsive touchpad left me frustrated. Samsung’s Soul reacts well to touch and you can even adjust the sensitivity of the touchpad to be higher or lower.
Fortunately, the touchpad isn’t the only thing on offer. HSPDA (3.5G) allows for high-speed browsing, which is made better when you download one of our favourite programs.
Using the music player is straightforward and it supports a variety of formats including MP3 and AAC, but the lack of a 3.5mm headphone jack or adaptor means that you have to use the provided headphones.
Battery life lasted for over two days with moderate use. It started to drop when I used more of its features, particularly while browsing the Web over HSDPA and listening to music for a prolonged period.
Conclusion
The Samsung Soul is fairly straightforward, but that’s what impressed me. It’s by no means a do-all phone: there’s no GPS and no Wi-Fi, for starters. It just works well and provides an enjoyable user experience.
Review by: Phillip
[Post tag(s): smartphone news, Pocket PC news, Tracy & Matt, Samsung, U900, Samsung Soul]
Vodafone UK and Telmap, the world leader in advanced mobile mapping and navigation solutions, have teamed up with Multimap, the UK’s specialist online mapping service, to introduce Find & Go. The launch of Find & Go conveniently converges PC location based services with the mobile phone. Vodafone customers can for the first time search for a destination on their PCs on the Multimap website and send the search result to their mobile phone free of charge.
Over at Phone Report v2.0 they have taken a look at the Nokia n810’s connectivity features and its potential for GPS. This device looks to be a great home gadget, I’m not sure about the implementation of GPS, seem like every portable device is to have GPS dumped into it.
Tracy and Matt have an unboxing of the rather attractive MWg Zinc II. It has obvious let downs on an initial glance at the spec list but its a very good looking and simplistic style that might appeal to those who just can’t get behind the E-Ten or Tytn II.
The MWg Zinc II is a feature-rich Windows Mobile 6.0 pro device with a built in sliding QWERTY keyboard. On the face of it the Zinc II looks like a decent alternative to the HTC TyTN II.
Take a look at my unbox video below to discover a little more about it and come back soon to read the full review.
MWg Zinc II Specification
Posted by: Matt
[Post tag(s): smartphone blog, Pocket PC blog, Tracy & Matt, MWg, MWg Atom Life, Zinc II]
When I received the HTC Advantage 7510 for review I was a bit confused, was it a phone or was it a UMPC type device, I am still somewhat confused as to where it fits in to everyday life but having said that what a great piece of technology.
It is basically a large screened Pocket PC Professional device just too big to use as a phone but a brilliant Internet tablet and GPS alternative. Read on for the full review.
I was again invited to join the team at msmobiles this Saturday and talk Windows Mobile with Edward form msmobiles, Alli from MyTreo.net and Mickey from The Cell Phone Junkie. Edward also does a segment with Tadd again from MyTreo.net. We had a good time this week discussing Alli’s experience with the Treo 800W, Twitter and Opera Mobile 9.5. You can download the podcast here or visit msmobiles for all the podcasts here. Show notes after the break.
Ok so if the built in PIM is not enough for you with iPhone 2.0 then here is some great news. If you have converted like me from Windows Mobile you will already be well aware of the quality software that is Pocket informant. Well the good news is they will be releasing a version for the iPhone, the bad news is it is still a few months out from release. Alpha screen shots and details after the break.
The iPhone-Dev Team has officially released version 2.0 of their PwnageTool. This software pwns the iPhone’s firmware which allows unsigned software and firmware to be restored to the iPhone. This gives the ability to jailbreak and unlock your iPhone for use on other networks.
Currently the iPhone-Dev Team has a working jailbreak for both the original and 3G iPhones. Additionally, first generation iPhones can be sim unlocked using this version of pwnage, with a solution for iPhone 3G coming soon.
available from the iPhone-Dev-Team but be patient as their servers are a bit busy.
Following on from the E61,E61i and E62 Nokia have released a largely updated model E71 with new form factor with some exciting new innards. I’ve only been using the Nokia E71 for a few days now and it is my first experience of the Nokia Symbian operating system. My experience is limited to a couple of years on Sony Ericsson, Palm and for the last two years Windows Mobile. Here is an idea of what to expect from Nokia’s business class phone.
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