Samsung UltraTOUCH S8300 Review

Camera:

We have already mentioned that the phone is a real camera powerhouse, utilizing an 8-megapixel, autofocus sensor. Photographers will find out, however, that good things do not end here, as the camera interface has also got some advanced options, including exposure control, white balance, effects, ISO, Anti-Shake function and Wide Dynamic Range. Video recording is also present, though at only DVD resolution and not HD as on the new OMNIA. In terms of speed, the camera puts up a great performance. Starting it takes less than 2 seconds, focusing objects is about 2.5 seconds, while saving the actual image is done in another 2 seconds. The images we did in the open are somewhat noisy, but at least the colors are real and vivid. We are most satisfied with our nature-themed shots, as they turned out lively and artistic. Unfortunately, do not expect breathtaking results when taking pictures indoors. Snapshots in this case were quite reddish, noisy and blurred, especially in low light conditions.




Multimedia:

In terms of entertainment, the new handset offers pretty much the standard stuff. Its music player puts the touch screen to good use. Being fully optimized for finger input, it has large, easy to press keys and an equalizer with quite a few presets. The loudspeaker sounds really good, although it´s not as loud as we would like. Overall, you won´t have any troubles hearing the phone as long as you keep away from too noisy environments. In case you’re tired of listening to the same songs, you can also rely on the FM radio that looks really nice and upbeat, or you can even watch full-length movies thanks to the DivX and Xvid support. Luckily, the phone managed to play our test videos smoothly and we were pleasantly surprised to see them running in high resolutions (especially DivX and Xvid), so you should be able to play most of the videos you download from the Internet.



Internet:

Speaking of the Internet, the Samsung UltraTOUCH has a decent web browser. It doesn’t offer an overview layout, but at least panning around is somewhat better than scrolling menus up and down for example. Fortunately, we did not encounter any issues during our tests and complex pages rendered almost perfectly. Depending on font size, you may find it hard to read the text on some pages, in case you have fully zoomed out on a page (which you would probably do in an attempt to see a larger portion of the site).



GPS:

The Samsung UltraTOUCH S8300 comes in two versions: with or without GPS package. The former includes a GPS license and special GPS interface submenu, along with a Route66 PC Sync CD, 1GB microSD card, preloaded with maps and a Navigation Quick Start Guide. On the other hand, you still get a Google Maps submenu with the non-GPS package.