Samsung SGH-G810 Review

Introduction:

Nowadays, choosing a cameraphone has become a difficult task, as there are many offerings on the market. One of them is the 5-megapixel Samsung G810 with 3x optical zoom and Xenon flash, successor of the G800. In contrast to the old model, the new entry is not only a cameraphone, but also uses the Symbian S60 3rd Edition operating system with Feature Pack 1, which gives it a lot more functionality and versatility. It also has built-in Wi-Fi and GPS, for connecting to the Internet when in the range of a wireless hotspot and to help you navigate through the city jungle.

In addition to all this, G810’s creators claim that the phone should also perform well as a multimedia device for listening to music and watching videos. With this combination of features, it appears to be a direct competitor to the all-in-one Nokia N95.

Design:

While G800 used the metal on its body to help it be stylish, G810 has the design of a business model intended for work. The photos of G810 on Samsung’s website showed a completely gray device, but our test unit has a shade of purple on the metal parts, which is a bit odd.

Just like N95, due to its size and weight of 4.9 oz (139 grams), the phone is not comfortable to carry in a pocket.



You can compare the Samsung SGH-G810 with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

The display measures up to the notable 2.6” inches, just like N95’s and is smaller than the 2.8” one in the N95 8GB. The resolution is again QVGA, 240x320 pixels, but unusually for a Samsung model, it supports only 65k colors. G810’s picture in low lighting conditions showed a slightly reduced saturation, but you’ll hardly notice it unless you make a side-by-side comparison. However, when exposed to direct sunlight, unlike its Nokia rival, the screen was useless.  

We were disappointed by the slider. Although it is very stable, it lacks a dedicated spot where to put your finger when opening the phone. While you’re doing that, you’ll hardly feel the assistance of the spring mechanism and you’d think that you have to push it all the way. The lid hiding and protecting the 5-megapixel camera with Xenon flash was even worse and must be pushed manually, which isn’t as easy as it should be. It would have been better if the cover wasn’t there at all, because either way the camera lenses are bound to get dirty – during the time that we were using it, we found dust on day two.


We don’t have such serious complaints about the buttons and only the D-pad wasn’t very pleasant to use, because of the short stroke and hard to press directional keys, but you’ll get used to it. We can say only good things about the functional keys and the keyboard. You shouldn’t have any problems with them as they are big, comfortable and pressing them is clearly felt.

Almost all of the side buttons are easy to use as well. Only the camera shutter one, which is on the right side, can cause trouble. On the same side is the microSD memory card slot and the opposite one houses the power button, 3.5mm stereo jack and the microUSB port.

Interface:

Samsung G810 utilizes the same software as the one in Nokia N95 8GB, Symbian S60 3rd Edition with Feature Pack 1. This operating system is also used in the 5-megapixel Nokia N82 and the multimedia N81. There are some minor differences in the Samsung’s interface, but they don’t change its overall look.


A multimedia menu has been added with shortcuts for quick access. Unlike the one found in Nokia, it doesn’t have an attractive interface and is simply a list with three options: music player, RealPlayer for watching videos and FM radio.

Phonebook:

The number of contacts that can be saved in the phonebook is limited only by the phone’s free memory. For each one can be added several numbers, email, address, assistant and others. In this aspect you’ll have plenty of options. Typically for the Symbian OS, searching through the phonebook is done simultaneously by first and second name, but when dialing a number you can’t search for matches.




Organizer:

Inside this menu you’ll find the standard Symbian S60 organizer functions like calculator, clock, file manager, notes, unit converter, Adobe Reader LiteEdition 1.5, Quickoffice and calendar.

The latter offers a choice between four types of events (Meeting/Memo/Anniversary/To-do), location, start and end times, alarm, recurrence and sync. You can view the calendar by day, week, or to display only the entered events.


Quickoffice is an office package, which can open Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents. Unfortunately only ones made with Office 2003 are displayed and for Office 2007 support you’ll have to pay $70 for the full version. With Adobe Reader you can view PDF files, but it takes a while to load the pictures in the larger ones.

Messaging:

Here are the text, MMS and e-mail messages. For the last one you can add more than one account, but unfortunately, it doesn’t include automated settings for the most popular web mail servers like Yahoo! or Google.



Connectivity:

Samsung G810 is a tri-band GSM (900/1800/1900 MHz) and single UMTS (2100 MHz). This means that you can fully use it only in Europe and Asia.

Just like other Symbian S60 phones, you’ll have a very good browser at your disposal. WebPages load quickly, without lag and navigation through them is quick and pleasant. You also have the handy Page overview (Pan View), zooming in and out, text shrink and history of visited websites. Overall, the browser is very useful and effective.



Local connectivity can be established via cable or wirelessly with Bluetooth 2.0 or Wi-Fi. In addition, the phone supports A2DP profile, which allows it to wirelessly send stereo music.

GPS:

Samsung G810 is equipped with A-GPS, but comes with no navigation software, so to use this function, you need to install such on your own. The phone has preloaded a simple application, which displays only your current coordinates and speed or time and distance passed since the beginning of the trip.

We were very disappointed, by the time it took the GPS to get a lock on our position. Even with pre-downloaded satellite position data, the cold start took several 15-minute attempts. The worst part is that we were able to get lock once, which only confirmed our assumption that the function is useless.

Camera:

The Samsung should perform well as a cameraphone, with its 5-megapixel autofocus camera with Xenon flash and optical zoom.

When you open the camera’s protective lid, you’ll have to wait around five second before being able to take a photo. No matter what the conditions are, the phone needs no more than a second to focus (impressive) and additional four seconds to save the image. The interface is the same as the one in G800 and all of the most frequently used settings found in a bar at the top of the screen, the rest are in a separate menu (Settings). Unfortunately, this is the last one of our good impressions.



Quality of the photos taken in natural lighting conditions was average in comparison to the other 5-megapixel phones. The colors are realistic, but when viewed in their original size, it becomes clear that the noise has “killed” the details. This is a significant improvement in comparison to the G800, but even the budget LG KC550 performs better.


When shooting indoors the colors are still realistic, but the amount of noise increases and the detail level is significantly reduced. The Xenon flash, which should be one of the phone’s main advantages, cannot illuminate the objects very well.


In the end, we are not pleased with G810’s camera performance as a camera: the interface is OK, it’s fast, but the pictures are mediocre and the flash doesn’t do a proper job.

Despite the VGA resolution, the recorded videos disappointed us. When watching them on a computer we experienced slight skipping with the audio being unclear and sounding like a background noise.

Samsung SGH-G810 Sample video at 640x480 pixels resolution
* Note that due to codecs support, you may not be able to play the file.

Multimedia:

The music player typical for the S60 OS is also present. It can filter your music by several criteria and sports an easy to use interface. Unfortunately, it lacks equalizer and sound effects. You also have an FM radio (the headphones are used for antenna), which can store up to fifty stations. The weird thing is that it doesn’t support RDS.

The built-in speaker isn’t loud enough and won’t impress you with quality if you are planning to use it for listening to music. The Nokia N95 offers much better sound quality through its stereo speakers, than the one provided by G810. Our test unit arrived without bundled handsfree, so we were unable to test it. Luckily the device sports a standard 3.5mm jack, which allows you to easily plug in any headphones. This way the sound quality can be pretty high, depending on the headphones.

For watching videos you have the standard for Symbian S60, RealPlayer. We were unable to play MP4 files encoded in H.263, which is no big deal, because we didn’t have any problems with H.264 encoded ones. Even videos in VGA resolution played smoothly and in good quality.

Performance:

G810 may not be the fastest Symbian S60 phone, but it felt quick when navigating through the menus and opening applications.

We were disappointed from the sound quality during calls, which is just a bit above average. The voices in both directions were monotonous and at times sharp, but loud and overall, you’ll not have any problems understanding. Like in other Samsung phones, the G810 also has the Whisper option. When activated and you start to whisper, even very quietly, the people on the other side will hear and understand you very clearly. We don’t recommend using the speaker, as it is too quiet and has bad sound quality, which makes it difficult to understand what you collocutor is saying.

The official data about the phone’s battery life is quite good. It should “survive” around six hours of calls and sixteen days of standby. In reality, even without Wi-Fi we had to charge the devices every two or three days, which isn’t bad at all.

Conclusion:

If we look at the G810 only as a successor to the G800, the folks at Samsung have definitely done a great job. Not only does the camera take better photos, but you also have increased functionality (thanks to the Symbian S60 operating system) and good multimedia capabilities. That’s why the G810 is not only a cameraphone, but an all-in-one device.

Though as such, the Samsung doesn’t offer anything new and for quite some time the market has been having a similar offering in the face of Nokia N95. It offers almost identical functionality with the only thing it lacks being an optical zoom. This is the reason we can’t see the point in buying the G810.

If the Symbian S60 operating is a must, you should also consider the recently released Samsung INNOV8, which sports an 8-megapixel camera and can play DivX videos, or the N96, with which you can watch mobile TV.