Samsung U800 review

Following on from the Samsung Soul U900 and its Magical Touch touchpad control, the U800 incorporates much of the eye-catching design appeal of its big brother sliderphone in a ultra-slim candybar body that gives a nod to Samsung's thinline Ultra series. On the features front, though, the U800 is a few steps behind its Soul-mate, forgoing on-trend touch-sensitive control for a more conventional push-button layout, and delivering a more routine lineup of mid-tier 3G handset features.

The U800 plays its straight with much of its onboard gadgetry, aiming for mobile buyers who fancy a classy looking and effective phone with just enough rather than too much going on under the bonnet. It ticks the boxes for multimedia functionality with high-speed HSDPA 3G connectivity for fast downloads, streaming and browsing, plus onboard music and video player applications, with 1GB of onboard memory. In addition, track and video capacity can be expanded by memory cards up to 8GB, via a a side-mounted MicroSD card slot.

It's geared up for mid-range imaging too with a reasonable if unexciting 3-megapixel camera on the back, featuring an accompanying LED flash but no autofocus. And there's a secondary low res camera for face-to-face video calling up front. Anyone looking for more exciting gadgetry, like GPS Sat Nav capability, smartphone functionaity or Wi-Fi, will have to look a bit further up the range.

Design and handling
The U800 has understated style and sleek build that bears comparison to Nokia's 6500 classic - although there are plenty of Soul-style touches to stamp its Samsung identity. The subtle brushed metal casing is smoothly rounded and feels great to the touch; at 111(h) x 46(w) x 9.9(d)mm and 92g, it's nicely balanced but solid without being a pocket-dragger.

The flush numberpad is responsive enough for swift texting, and has Soul-like slivers separating the rows of numbers, making for finger-friendly key finding. It's well thought out and elegant. The navigation D-pad and control keys are similarly subtly detailed and user-friendly.

The screen is unexceptional - an average 2-inch QVGA (320x240 pixels), 16-milion colour number; there's no whizzy accelerometer to automatically switch screen orientation, nor any touch sensitive dabbling, but it is sharp and bright enough.

Menus are mostly conventionally laid out, with a default icon-based grid on the main menu, plus sub menu lists with numbered options (saving scrolling time), in typical Samsung fashion.

Features
The list of features and apps is safe, mid-tier territory. Tune playing is reasonable with the onboard music player, which offers a familiar choice of track categories for stored files and a straightforward user interface. The 1GB of memory gives you enough music space to get started, while expanding your tune library with memory cards is a relatively inexpensive upgrade path. Samsung PC Studio software and a USB cable is provided for copying over files from a PC, though you can also sync easily with Windows Media Player 11. Dragging and dropping tracks across is an option for PC users (though not for Macs), with Bluetooth another slower transfer option.

Samsung again trumpets the use of Bang & Olufsen ICEpower audio technology inside the U800, but the audio performance through the reasonable in-box headset is good rather than exceptional. Music is quite well presented, with a decent dynamic range, although it doesn't sound quite as rich as a top-of-the-range Walkman phone.

Although the earphones plug into an ungainly-positioned Samsung USB/charger/headphone socket on the side, the 2-part ear-bud set supplied do come with a 3.5mm standard headphone jack adapter lead, so you can upgrade your ear-wear. Wireless stereo Bluetooth is another option.

An FM radio provides some free to air music too to go with your loaded up tunes.

If you're into downloading tracks or video clips from your mobile network, high speed HSDPA data connectivity cranks up download speeds to mere seconds. It also gives a lift to browsing speeds; the NetFront full web browser in this phone delivers an average sort of 3G mobile internet experience that works relatively speedily and effectively, rendering pages in either full page or mobile optimised views, but is still typically limited as far as ease of use and smooth rendering of complicated pages is concerned. You can get RSS feeds on this phone, though, to keep tabs regularly on favourite sites or blogs.

Camera action
The camera Samsung has employed on the U800 isn't one of the top-notch 5-megapixel ones we've recently seen on the Soul, Tocco and Omnia. It's a middle-of-the-road 3-megapixel shooter, with no autofocus control to get accurately focused snaps. Images take are actually pretty good for the pixel count, looking well exposed with good contrast and colour detail when the lighting environment is acceptably bright.

For a 3-megapixel camera, detail is relatively good too. Indoors shots don't fare quite so well, and in low-light the flash is only moderately successful; it can overload close shots and isn't particularly powerful more than a metre away.

Although you can play downloaded or copied video clips in decent quality in full screen mode, video footage captured on the U800 is typically poor, grainy mobile quality, at 176x144 pixels top resolution. If you do want to share your imaging, both videos and camera snaps can be quickly uploaded over the air to a website or blog using the pre-loaded Shozu software.

As far as the rest of the main features go, Samsung covers the bases with a standard-issue set of organiser and clock functions, email support, document viewers, voice recorder, games, and so on. It does the job, but won't exactly get your jaw-dropping.

What does get some head-nodding approval though is the battery performance. Samsung's optimum figures reckon on standby times of 290 to 320 hours (the lower figure running in 3G coverage rather than on a GSM network), or talktime of 3.5 to 6 hours. The U800 managed to keep going for around 3-4 days between charges in our average usage tests, which is pretty good going in real-life conditions. Basic voice call performance was also commendably solid and reliable.

Conclusion
It may have inherited some of the family looks of the Soul, but the U800 is a very different proposition. Without the touchpad pizzazz and high-class camera sported on the Soul, the U800 is a more understated, elegant model. Rather than one for high-end gadget strokers, the U800 has plenty of reliable mid-tier 3G functionality, and will appeal to those looking for a classy handset with a decent though not cutting edge set of features. With its slimline design and solid performance it's easy to see why this could prove a popular choice.