Samsung D600 review

Alistair Warmington

The knock on effect of the high-quality screen is that pictures taken with the camera, movie files and webpages are far more viewable than on most competing handsets

The D600's enduring popularity is a testament to the quality of the slider handset

Published on Mar 12, 2007

Even though the Samsung SGH-D600 has now been succeeded by a new ultra slim edition, it is testament to the quality of the D600 that it is still one of the most feature packed handsets on the market.

You’ll also find that the sliding mechanism is one of the smoothest around. Despite being over a year old at the time of writing, it offers a 2.0 megapixel camera, MP3 player, MPEG-4 video player, MicroSD card slot and WAP browser.

Stylistically, this phone has once again withstood the test of time and although it may appear a little on the plump side nowadays, especially compared to the newer D900, it is still a very sexy handset.

This is helped considerably by the clear, bright screen. It offers a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels – not a spec that jumps out at you immediately perhaps, but when you consider that is on an ordinary 2” screen, it makes for one of the sharpest LCDs you can get on a mobile phone.

The knock on effect of the high-quality screen is that pictures taken with the camera, movie files and webpages are far more viewable than on most competing handsets. Although it isn’t exactly a substitute for smart phone capabilities or a PC, you can use the D600 to look at Acrobat, Word, Excel and PowerPoint files. The small screen still limits it slightly, but it is definitely better than nothing.

The D600 comes packaged with a range of goodies too, including USB connector cable, headphones and, uniquely, an RCA output cable. This allows you to hook your phone up to an ordinary TV or projector and will display anything you see on you handset including recorded footage or compatible .3GP video files.

Of course, it’s unlikely any of your own digital content is going to be saved in this format, so you’ll be pleased to discover that Samsung has included a handy converter in its PC Studio software suite.

The PC Studio can also be used to manage and transfer music, synchronise contacts and so on. Like most of other handset manufacturer’s software, this is a clunky affair compared to iTunes or Media Player for example and it doesn’t support the removable memory card at all well, but some credit should go to Samsung because it is one of the more user-friendly programs of its kind.

There are only a few obvious blemishes on the otherwise excellent design. The camera is often woefully slow to start up, meaning that you can lose the spontaneity that usually makes for the best shots and you may even miss a fast paced event completely while you stare at a loading screen. That said though, the camera does come with a wealth of adjustable settings, as well as an impressive array of editing options and the ability to print pictures directly using a PictBridge compatible printer.

Samsung has gone some way towards improving the menu design compared to earlier models, but although it is a vast improvement, it could still benefit from some fine tuning.

This is reflected in the text messaging system as it seems to require an unnecessary number of button presses to get a message ready and sent – something that may turn off ardent texters. I also find it annoying that it doesn’t always remember to automatically capitalise the start of sentences.

On the whole, the positives far outweigh these pretty superficial negatives and the result is a really stylish, useable handset. Excellent call quality and a business-orientated feature set that still makes space for decent entertainment functions, means that despite its age, it still has plenty offer professionals and casual users alike.