A wish to buy a touchscreen cellphone, took me a little longer than expected. Right from the day I saw an iPhone, I wanted one something like that. The basic features I looked for were:
Touch screen (preferably without a stylus)
A good camera
Multimedia device
An easy to operate GUI
3G enabled
Basic data transfer techniques like Bluetooth and USB connectivity
Looks that speak of its style statement
With all the above features something within 20K
I did a detailed market survey of all the available options. Let me discuss them one by one in brief.
- Nokia 5800 -- Lots of features at a very reasonable market price. A very good device in fact, but
the phone structure is very slim and is very difficult to handle it
with one hand. Also browsing through most options of the
phone a stylus is required.
- Motorola Rokr E6 - A tried and tested phone over the years.
Pros : One of the cheapest touchscreens in the market, very good features, Linux OS
Cons : GUI of Motorola has always been a turn off. I dont understand why they dont change it also. Somehow the outer physical look of the gadget is also somewhat traditional.
HTC FAMILY -- HTC undoubtedly is the best in its class, be it design or performance or features. But somehow a stylus is always required to browse through the phone and for me Windows OS is always a headache. My brother uses an HTC and he never faced any issue with the same. His recommendations for an HTC was 10/10.
IPhone 3G, Samsung Omnia, Sony Ericsson Xperia, etc: Awesome series of gadgets but somehow too expensive on my pocket and Budget limitations said a firm NO NO.
LG Prada/ LG Viewty --
Pros : excellent design, excellent features, but all on the papers
Cons : Reviews claimed the camera sucks, the multimedia core of the device has bugs and limitations, LG new in the cellphone market, very feeble device, scratch prone screen, and the list of negative points just piled up and up.
- And then came Samsung F480 --
I have been using this device for over 2 months now. Just too much satisfied with this beauty.
Pros : 1. Outstanding style statement with the leather cover on.
The GUI is too user friendly and a dream to browse.
Samsung has done a good job in building its own efficient OS.
The multimedia(audio + video) quality is a pleasure to experience
The playlist options are easy to browse and select.
The image sharpness is too good
5MP camera in daylight is impeccable.
The options in Camera are as good as any stand alone Digital Camera
All options are very well placed and I can browse through using my thumb.
Messaging is a breeze
Shortcuts of all necessary options is present as Widgets on Main screen
Wallpaper settings are very easy
Browsing through the images is very smooth and fast
Single port acts as the charging unit, and also as data transfer and also for Audio output
An 8GB Micro SD card support available
Vibration and volume controllers placed at very appropriate place and its easy to operate while holding the cellphone in one hand
The lock/unlock key is very intelligently put on the top of the device
An additional short cut key is present in the bottom part of the device for fast access to applications.
Video and Image editor present
Voice recorder is also present
Handles Multitasking efficiently
3G device
Excellent and loud sharp sound quality while phone calls and also while playing multimedia options
Cons : 1. Camera picture quality is a bit hazy in night shots
As claimed the device doesnt support .264/mpeg4 streams. 3rd party Softwares required
In Memo (notepad kind of stuff) the maximum alloted characters is 100
Music goes off as soon as Camera is switched On in the parallel
If the phone is locked, switching off an ALARM requires to unlock the phone first
Birthday reminder options doesn’t work in spite of the option being projected
Image editing options like Auto-rotate and zoom in and out with finger touch( IPhone fame) are absent
One cannot charge the set while playing songs in the parallel on headphones
Video captures are only for a few seconds based on the generated bit stream size.
There is no option to delete the video from phone. It needs a connection to the computer to do the same.
Calls can be received only through hardware keys and no option present in touch screen.
Wi-fi missing