The MWC 2008 - Live Report

Just as LG, Samsung also announced a slew of new models from various classes: slim candybars, mid-level sliders, music oriented devices and high-end cameraphones and phones with touch displays.



Samsung Soul is the flagship model, the successor of the U600. It is part of the Ultra Edition phones, the third edition and is what Samsung will advertise mostly. This can already be noted here in Barcelona – the posters are all over the city. The new phone has the same design language as its predecessor, but more attention to detail is paid, resulting in overall better device. Example for that is the lower part of the upper slider, which is curved so it is easily slid open with just one finger.



The standard D-pad is now replaced by “Magical Touch” field, which is a small touch sensitive display. Instead of constant hardware 5 buttons, it changes the functions depending on the available options (on the homescreen, in the menu, calculator, camera, music player) but that is it. In our opinion, the similar solution used in the LG KF600 is much better. That’s why:



• LG’s touch replaces not only the D-pad functions but also the soft and the send/end keys, so has larger area for the buttons.
• As in the Samsung there are hardware non-touch buttons, it is confusing – you touch the “d-pad” but have to press the softkey, etc. It would have been better, if Samsung used at least capacitive buttons (reacting to touch of the skin) to avoid this problem.
• LG’s touch display interface is very colorful, making it easier to use. On the Soul, only color of the icons or orbiting effect can be adjusted.

With its limited functionality, we don’t really see any idea of of this touch, but the ‘wow factor’.

The U900 soul also improves the features of its predecessor. It is now capable of 3G HSDPA 7.2 Mbps, has 5-megapixel camera and is still only half-inch thick. Its software reminds us of the G600 (read its review) one, with options to manually create themes, set menu transition types and others. If it is the same or better, it would be great, as G600’s is the best Samsung one we’ve used in non-touch sensitive phones.

Samsung SGH-U900 Soul Preview




Talking about touch displays, here we have the Samsung F490 and F480. The first was announced last year, together with the P720 DuoS, and was expected to be slimmer variant of the F700 trading the full QWERTY keyboard for 5-megapixel camera instead of 3. It was shown with the same Croix interface found on the F700 and Giorgio Armani phone which didn’t really excited us, as it is monochrome and neither user friendly nor really pretty looking. However, we now have information that all 2008’s Samsung phones (including the F490) with touch sensitive displays (well, not all but those for Europe) will run the new TouchWiz interface, which can be considered as the replacement of the Croix.



Yes, the logical question is “What is TouchWiz ?” – this is what we have here with the Samsung F480. Its lower model shouldn’t mislead you, it is not below the F490 in the line. Both will be targeted to similar consumer group, offering just different options: the 480 has standard 2.8” QVGA display while the 490 is with 3.2” wide screen. So back to the interface – it is colorful! Yeah, everything is in color (instead of shades of the Blue as in F700) which gives very contemporary look. These few pictures should be enough to grab your attention: proceed to our Samsung SGH-F480 Preview by clicking here!




As some rumors pointed last week, Samsung announced the G810, its converged device, replacing the G800. The high-end camera (5-megapixels, 3x zoom, Xenon, Face Recognition) and the slider form-factor is kept, but the feature set is improved. It is now a smartphone, running on Symbian OS with S60 interface, putting it in direct competition with Nokia’s 5-megapixel phones. Unlike the newly announced N96, this one uses the old Feature Pack 1 (found on N95, N82) and doesn’t have DVB-H for TV. The screen is 2.6” which is a step below the 2.8” found on the N96/N95 8GB and one above the 2.4” of the G800.



Untypical for an S60 phone, the “Menu” button is not labeled with specific sign but just with a dash; it is positioned below the left soft key and symmetrically on the other side is another shortcut. As these together with the D-pad are the only on the front, when the phone is closed, we were really confused they are Send/End buttons, which is what most users would expect. The latter are actually together with the numeric keypad, available after the phone is slid open. On the left are situated a dedicated power key, 3.5mm headphone jack (hinting us for the music-orientation) and finally a standard microUSB instead of Samsung’s proprietary connector for charger. On the right are the volume keys, the camera shutter and the microSD slot for memory. As G800, both the front and the back have brushed aluminum finish.

The camera interface is coming directly from the G800 (with just minor changes) and the user experience is the same. The options menu is a horizontal list with small monochrome icons at the top of the viewfinder, which is not really what we are fans of.

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