Pre-launch Preview - Samsung M8800

Samsung has been very ambitious recently with their high megapixel, PDA-like phones.

Following the hyped up Omnia, they are introducing a new phone, positioned to thwart off the new range of smarter and more powerful mobile phones from the more established names such as HTC, iPhone and the likes, this phone is named M8800 or codenamed : Bresson or Pixon.

M8800 is the second 8 megapixel camera that is spawned out by Samsung after the newly launched symbian based iNNOV8.

However, unlike Omnia and iNNOV8 that uses Windows Mobile and Symbian Operating system, M8800 is using running Samsung's proprietary operating system which has its appeal and drawbacks at the same time.

Let me share the physical exterior outlook in the first segment.

Here are some snapshots of the phone :



The basic keyless candy bar design packs a powerful camera and some decent applications.



The phone is slim and rather lightweight.



There is a similarity of an actual camera feel to the back design of the phone.

Have a look at it again...

Seems like Samsung had placed some thoughts on the adding of a more user friendly feel to the phone by having the non-slip rubber pad on the back to have the camera function usage more practical.

From the physical factor, we move on to the operating system.

To have the navigation feel of the phone, I have the following video taken :

This video is approximately 3 minutes, a guided tour for the menu navigation, the screen widget, dialing a number, typing an sms and photo viewing with the accelerometer feature.



Sample image from this 8 megapixel device


In comparison to my Nokia E90's 3.2 megapixel image



Having the phone with me for a couple of days, this is what I feel about it.

a) The feel of the phone is good
b) This proprietary OS device meets basic to average "smart" device expectations (refer to technical specs below)
c) Camera has the megapixels but its still not perfect. Blurring while focusing, delay in photo snapping
d) I got bored with the navigation after 2 hours. It takes more steps to perform each function i.e sms typing, dialing, camera activation
e) It has interesting widget feature on the home screen. You can select some key functions or applications that can be accessed through sliding panel on the left side of the screen
f) The sound from the speakers are excellent
g) Personally, its a good second phone for me. Some features like HSDPA, a-GPS, camera with high megapixel, divx video player... in a way, this phone feels more like a multimedia player with internet connection and the phone is an added feature (as opposed to a phone with the multimedia features). This will not be my main phone as the use of the touch-screen feature is difficult whilst driving, word entry into the phone is taxing (i do a lot of mails and document editing on the move) and I cannot add more application to personalize the phone like most Windows Mobile or Symbian operated phones.
h) Cost factor for this? Well.. we'll probably find out once its out in the market maybe next year

I am finishing off this entry with a brief technical specs for M8800 :

* Quad-band GSM, tri-band HSDPA
* 107.9x54.6x14.9mm, 110 g
* 3.2-inch touch screen display (240 x 400 pixels)
* 8 megapixel camera, auto focus, face recognition with smile detection and
blink detection, WDR (wide dynamic range), ASR (advanced shake reduction),
GPS geotagging, ISO 1600, WVGA (720x480 pixels) and VGA (640 x 480 pixels)
@30fps video recording
* Built-in GPS receiver (Using google maps)
* Accelerometer
* DivX playback
* FM radio with RDS
* microSD card slot
* Bluetooth
* Landscape virtual QWERTY keyboard
* Handwriting recognition
* ShoZu integration - direct image and video upload
* Office document viewer