Described by Samsung as a ‘touch of brilliance’, the Samsung S8300 Tocco Ultra is a sleek and nice-looking phone. Weighing in at a very slight 105g and measuring 110 x 51.5 x 12.8mm in size, its selling features are a good design, GPS navigation (does this mean bye bye to TomTom sometime soon?), a music player and a ‘superb display’.
With its new 2.8″ (200 x 400) super bright AMOLED display with an anti-reflection coating, and up to 16 million colour WQVGA display, the anticipation is that we will be able to do our viewing in style and with far greater enjoyment than previously possible. The accelerometer landscape to profile to landscape viewing capability makes viewing images and maps far easier than the old way of doing things. This handset also supports finger touch input with an additional 3 x 4 keypad.
And now we get to the reason for the promotion of the features of this handset’s screen – the fact is – it carries in it’s sleek little trim an 8 megapixel camera complete with AF and a dual power LED flash, 4x digital zoom, autofocus, and in hot mode – it is able to do Face Detection, Wide Dynamic Range (WDR), Geo-Tagging and Smile Shot.
It has video capability – player, recording, streaming and video telephony. It plays music, poly ringtones and supports MP3 ringtones.
The handset comes with Java games and wallpaper embedded, and supports FM radio with RDS and Recording.
For those intent on surfing the net while out and about – it supports HSDPA at 7.2 Mbps, using WAP 2.0 browser, and Java MIDP 2.0.
Talk time of up to 3 hours is possible on the standard battery with standby time of up to 200 hours.
Under the covers, this sleek handset includes 80MB onboard storage, but this can be increased to 16GB by means of MicroSD card – a 1GB MicroSD card is included in the box. It supports up to 2000 USIM and up to 2000 phonebook contacts.
For office use, the Samsung s8300 Tocco Ultra has a document viewer, mobile printing capability and can work in offline mode. Messaging is via Email, with Bluetooth (v2.1), USB (2.0) and a PC Synch Application.
Other usefuls include calendar, scheduler, To Do list (who doesn’t need one of them?), clock, worldtime, alarm, currency converter, memo book, stop watch and count down timer. Call functions include speakerphone, and dialled, missed and received calls.
What we didn’t like:
Even Samsung doesn’t seem to agree with itself when it comes to possible talk and standby times possible on this phone. On one hand, they say it has up to 3 hours talk time and 200 hours standby (their tech sheet), but on the other, their announcement page states talk time up to max 4 hours and standby up to 350 hours. This is a difference of 25% on the numbers. I’d probably believe the tech sheet.
What we were unsure of:
More advanced than the industry standard when it comes to Bluetooth capability – we assume that this phone will talk to the rest of the world which still sits at v2.0.
What we did like:
As a long term fan of the Samsung, it was easy to like this phone. The sleek design appeals to some people, and is comfortable to use in the hand. The increased screen length helps when it comes to easier Web browsing, and the camera has to be one of the best, if not THE best on the market today. Outdoor LED Screen