Samsung U300 Ultra 9.6 Review

While the Samsung U700 and U100 are based on the idea of the RAZR (thin but well-packed phones), the phone we are currently testing is a direct rival of the RAZR, as it is in the same form-factor - clamshell. As part of the Ultra II series, it is very slim (9.6mm) phone with stylish look and 3-megapixel camera. The U300 is slimmer by both the U600 and U700 (the sliders) but way "thicker" than the U100 Ultra 5.9.

The U300 is very slim and very elegant phone, and in our opinion is the best looking device from the Ultra II series. Similar to the U100, it uses unsaturated dark blue color for its housing, but the front side is of brushed aluminum, which gives for the very stylish look. On this side are located the lens of the 3.2-megapixel camera, in the middle of the top, and the small landscape line-display, used for called ID and service infromation. It is only 24mm big and displays the reception, battery levels, time and date. Being of the OLED type, it is black like the surrounding surface and its content is illuminated in blue-green color.

Model	Dimension (Inches)	Dimension (MM)	Weight (OZ)	Weight (Gramms)
Samsung SGH-U300	3.9" x 2.0" x 0.37"	100 x 51 x 9.6	3,3	93
Samsung SGH-U700	4.03" x 1.96" x 0.47"	102.5 x 50 x 12.1	3,0	86
Motorola RAZR2 V8	4.05" x 2.08" x 0.46"	103 x 53 x 11.9	4,1	117
Nokia N76	4.19" x 2.04" x 0.53"	106.5 x 52 x 13.7	4,0	115

The Ultra 9.6 is slim, small and with reasonable weight, fitting easily into a pocket. Closed in the hand it feels solid but you will use it opened almost all of the time. Typically for a clamshell without automatic-opening mechanism, we used both hands in most situations, but using one hand only is also possible. The spring mechanism acts only after the two shells are at about 90 degrees, so its action is not very notable. The shell opens almost without a sound.


The greatest advantage of the clamshell form-factor is that when opened, it offers twice more space, which is used for the display and the keyboard. The size of an opened clamshell is also twice bigger, but in this case you are using it in the hand, or on the face (talking through the phone), not wearing it in your pocket. The main display has size of 2.3 inches, QVGA (240x320) resolution and the possibility to show up to 262 144 colors. The color representation is more accurate than the one of the U700, but when put next to the U100 is visible that it also has yellow nuance over all colors, although less-noticable than that of the U700.

The keyboard looks as if it is made of metal, but doesn't feel so. First we though it is touch-sensitive, activated by the electricity of the fingers, but shortly after that realized that it is a standard physically activated one. It is absolutely flat with no relief and looking at it is a must, when dialing a number or typing a message. This reminds us of the U100, which is also that flat. White backlight will illuminate the characters, in order to be visible even in the dark. When it comes to pressing the keys, it is obvious that the type of this keyboard is not like the one of the U100 - they press very hard and have zero tactile feedback. You should press with whole finger, to do it easier, pressing with only the edge of the finger will be very hard. If the key-volume is turned on, a vibration will accompany the presses, instead of the missing tactile feedback.



On the left, the U300 has small volume rocker and the Samsung' connector for charger/headset. It doesn't have any other external controls, like music-button found on most new clamshells, in order to keep the design clean.

Interface:

The Software found on the U300 is also very similar to the other models, of course coming with its personalizations. The home screen houses the standard information, and the only thing worth mentioning is the animated background that can be applied using the preloaded theme. The main menu is visualized as either 3x4 grid of list, in either black or white colors. As on the U100 and U700, it remembers the lastly used options and points it when it is opened. The same goes for the sub-menus, which are displayed as list with sub-lists when there are options.

Phonebook:

The Phonebook holds up to 1000 contacts and we are not happy that this phone uses the system like the U100 and not like the U700. Each contact can have 5 (predefined) types of numbers, personal ringer, image and note. In the U700 you can add additional fields, like in Symbian S60 operating system, which is way better. Browsing the saved contacts is done in vertical lists and the search is limited to by the first name only.

Organizer:

The organizer is exactly the same as the one of the U100. The calendar can be displayed in month/week/day view, you can set the start day of the week and the default view mode. With a few steps one can add an appointment/anniversary or task to a day. The Tasks are not a separate item in the Applications menu on this phone. Here like in the U700, you can find the World Clock, Calculator (but without scientific options), Unit Converter, Timer, Stopwatch and Memos. The latter don't have stupid limit of 100 characters as it is with the U700, but 10 times more - 1000.


Here also are the voice recorder which can record notes up to 1 hour. We played the test memo immediately and noticed that the voices are very quiet even from minimal distance, which makes the recorder not good. The most interesting applications in this menu the ones we will explain below:

Smart Search is application that can search through: the whole phone/menu/my files/messages/calendar/games/phonebook/log/. This reminds us of the search application found in Nokia's Enterprise phones (E-series) and on Windows Mobile Pocket PC phones. Unfortunately it doesn't search through the messages' text.

The Image Editor has color effects, filters, and other tools to manipulate an image directly on the phone.

Image Stamp should be able to put logo over your images - puts the one image as a stamp to the other.

The slim phone comes with a few megabytes of built in memory, which is the main limitation for using it as a music player. The 70MBs built-in memory is shared between images, files, videos and songs, so you won't be able to store a whole album even in MP3 format, if you have some videos or images saved. It is strange that microSD slot for memory expansion is lacking. We may look the other way if the phone has 512MB or more, as the new Motorola RAZR2 V8, but that is not the case with the U300.

Messaging:

In the messaging menu one can find the text/multimedia messages and the email client. Predefined are multimedia templates, but you cannot manipulate them or add new ones. The text templates are empty and one can add them on his own. As on all other Samsung phones, T9 is the system for predictive text input.

For the email client, you can set up to 5 POP3/IMAP4 email accounts. For keeping the data down, one can set downloading limit of 100/300/500KB but there also is an option for automatic polling of emails at interval of 0.5/1/3/6/12/24 hours.!

Camera :

The phone packs 3.2-megapixel camera on the top of the front shell, so you can save the memory in a picture with large resolution. The interface is like the one of the U100, but in portrait orientation instead of landscape. We like that one can manually set the ISO, and we chose the minimum value - ISO 100.


The images are not a miracle, but could do the job. Best results are obtained outdoors in strong light, but even in this case there are problems with the white balance (the colors often have purple dominating) and noise which greatly reduces the detail quality. The photos are sharp, which helps to easily see some artifacts due to the noise, when you preview them in full size.


The camcorder is also has the same options as the U100’s, and the biggest resolutions it offers are CIF (352x288) and QVGA (320x240), which is large enough for posting the video on the internet. The time limit is set only by the available memory. Its videos also has problems with the color representation, but are usable on the web.

Samsung U300 sample video at 352x288 pixels resolution
* Note that due to codecs support, you may not be able to play the file.

Music Player:

The music player is another thing, identical to the U100. It is absolutely the same, but this one is in portrait mode, like the U700. Still, there are some minor differences with the U700. One can browse the library filtering by the following criteria: all/recently played/most played/artists/genres/albums/composers/playlists like on most modern advanced music players found on phones and other pocket devices. Creating playlists on the phone itself is easy and it is not a problem to re-arrange the songs in it.

During a playback the interface is almost exactly the same as the on of the U700, but optimised for landscape display. On the top is displayed the album cover and below follow the file name, the Artist, rating, settings , duration and keys function. In the menus you can rate the track, set the repeat/shuffle on or off and use options like Equaliser (Normal/Classical/Jazz/Rock) and 3D sound. The last two are missing in the U700.

Performance:

In the signal reception test, the Ultra II phones performed correspondingly to their size – the smaller the phone is, the poorer the reception is. U300 has better reception than the U100, but the U700 is the winner among the three. Still, it has average reception and the U300 one is below the average (3.5 out of 10). It seems that Samsung is not winner in this aspect.

The sound quality is overall good, but both the U100 and U700 are better. The outgoing sound sounds muffled, with weak high-frequencies, which changes the way a voice is reproduced. The volume is slightly above the average. You are hearing with way better quality, clear and realistic. The volume is also higher, at good level (7.5 out of 10).

Conclusion:

If you are looking for a stylish and thin clamshell, this may be the phone for you. It definitely looks sexy and fashionable, thanks to the metal housing, but we cannot really live with the keyboard and the way it presses and would prefer to look at competitive models like the RAZR2, which also come as more advanced functionality.

If you are on the market, looking for slim phone and not particularly a clamshell, the slimmer Ultra 5.9 candybar has way better keyboard although it is the slimmest phone. Its dimensions are smaller in every aspect, but the features are almost exactly the same.