Samsung SGH-G800 Preview

Camera:

Samsung advertises the G800 as high-end cameraphone not only because of its hardware, but also because of its enhanced camera interface with lots of options. The easiest way to start it is by opening the lens cover and then the landscape viewfinder will occupy the whole 2.4 inch display. By default the interface is almost empty and on the right are the icons for the two soft keys and the four directions of the D-pad. The latter acts as shortcuts to often used options:

• Camera interface

  Up- Viewfinder mode
• No icons
• Icons
• Guidelines
  

• Right – Flash
• Off
• Automatic
• On
• Red-eye reduction
  

• Down – Self-Timer
• 3 sec
• 5 sec
• 10 sec
  

• Left – Macro
• Off
• On
  

The left (bottom) soft key is shortcut to the gallery and the right (top) one opens the options list. In a long horizontal list there are lots of fields with different options including Scenes, Resolution, White Balance, Effects and other. We aren’t impressed by the interface look: its icons are small and as are monochrome, it will be hard to get the idea of each. We think that the interface of Sony Ericsson K850 looks way more advanced, with better icons and even color images.

The rather unique option here is “Face Detection” which when turned on should detect the human faces in the viewfinder. Once you focus on one, the focus will lock to it and even when the person moves, they will stay in focus. If they get out of the viewing area, the system will try to focus on somebody else.

The last field here is link to the Settings menu. Here in addition to the standard options like quality (compression) for the images, the ISO level (Auto/50/100/200/400), digital anti-shake system (on/off) and digital zoom (on/off) there are a few other settings. The phone supports Wide dynamic range which can be turend on or off. It isn’t anything special and actually increases the brightness in the dark areas of the images – this can be done with better results with many programs, once the photos are on a computer. Additionally there are a few level settings for the Contrast, Saturation and Sharpness of the photos.




As always, we will not comment on the image quality as our test unit is not final!




Media player:

As we’ve mentioned above, similar to other Samsungs, the software of the G800 uses modules we’ve seen in other models of the manufacturer. The Media Player is not an exception, and is like the one of the U700. A few filters can be applied and during the playback the interface displays album art cover and information on the track.