Samsung U900 Soul Review

Samsung U900 Soul Review

The Samsung U900 Soul is Samsung's flagship phone for 2008. Is it a triumph of marketing, or can the Soul really live up to the mega hype?

At first glance, you can tell that the Soul is something different from the usual Samsung slide design. We've watched the slide phone evolve over the past 4 years from the compact but definitely-not-thin D500 to the superslim D900 to the wow-that-really-is-thin U600 with its touchscreen controls that left some users unimpressed. More recently the Samsung G600 has been top of the bestseller lists. The reason why we're waffling on about the history of the slide phone is because it's obvious that the Soul is something quite different. Let's call it the next-generation slide phone. The photos here do it no justice at all - trust us, it looks much better in the flesh. The body is made from metal, giving it a high quality feel, like one of Nokia's premium handsets. We absolutely love the sleek, minimalist design and the way that the thumb rests securely on the base of the slide. The slide moves smoothly up to reveal a flat keypad. OK, so the keypad won't be to everyone's taste, but if you can handle a Motorola RAZR, you'll have no problems with this. The U900 is ultra-slim at 12.9mm thick, and is almost exactly the same size as the old Samsung D900.

The feature that truly sets the U900 apart from previous slide phones from Samsung is the touch-sensitive navigation keypad. Samsung's marketing blurb tell us that this is a "Magical touch interface". They were clearly out to lunch on that day. Folks, we'll let you into a secret: there's no such thing as magic. What we have here is a small touch-sensitive screen placed below the main LCD display. The touchscreen is icon-driven and the icons change according to the menu selected. It's very similar to the one used in the LG Venus and the Samsung E950. Like all touch-sensitive controls, this is a love-it or hate-it thing.

If the U900 is a flagship phone, you'd expect it to have top-end features and you wouldn't be wrong. It's the first Samsung phone to incorporate a 16 million colour display. It has fast 3G with download speeds of up to 7.2 Mbps. It has a powerful camera, similar in quality to the G600's. Let's be clear about the camera. It isn't the best (try the Nokia N95 or Sony Ericsson K850i for the best camera phones), but it's a very good runner-up. We always get people complaining that their Samsung camera phones are rubbish, and our advice is: read the manual, and make sure that the settings are set to maximum resolution, because by default they aren't. The camera on the U900 is very good - so there! There's also a music player that can handle a wide range of formats, plus an FM radio.

Features of the Samsung U900 include:

• 5 megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom, face-detection autofocus, image stabiliser and Power LED flash
• Video camera (MPEG4 / 3GPP) / 3G video calling
• Display: TFT, 16 million colours, 320 x 240 pixels
• Music player (MP3, WMA, AAC, AAC+, e-AAC+ formats, OMA, WM digital rights management)
• FM radio
• Bang & Olufsen power amp
• Ringtones: MP3 ringtones / 72-voice polyphonic tones
• Messaging: SMS, MMS, email
• Voice memo & voice mail
• Speakerphone
• Java games
• Document viewer
• Offline mode
• WAP 2.0, GPRS, EDGE, 3.5G (HSDPA 7.2 Mbps), web browser
• Connectivity: Bluetooth, USB 2.0
• Memory: 100 Mbytes plus MicroSD memory card slot
• Personal organiser functions
• Triband GSM (900/1800/1900 MHz) plus 3G
• Size: 106 x 50 x 12.9 mm
• Weight: 112g
• Web Browser
• Ringtone melody
• Interfaces
• High Resulation