GerryGee

 View profile
 Send mail

Solid Phone - Great Music on The Go

Mar 21, 2008

Rating: 9 out of 10 (Spectacular)
Pros: Solid construction, Good Keypad, Very Good Sound thru Headphones
Cons: Camera not up to scratch for even for a 2MP, Poor Bundle on 1 GB card
Opinion:

Bought a black version from the recent ITShow 2008 at Suntec.

First, the interface is S60 and is very like the Nokia 6120 Classic which is the last S60 phone I used. If I were to scratch out the Samsung logo I would mistake it for a Nokia S60 phone. There is even an acknowledgement that the platform is developed by Nokia and licensed by Nokia.

The sound with a good pair of headphones is very good -- better than my SE w660i or w910i. The B&O (Bang & Olufsen) equalizer provides great flexibility without degrading the sound too much. However, the advertisements you see about blasting the i450 are greatly exaggerated. Unfortunately, it's nowhere that good -- through the headphones, sure, but through the small loudspeaker - sound is clear but very thin and there is no bass. I tried it at the very crowded IT Show -- the sound from the loudspeakers could still be heard even with all the noise around.

I love the i450 keypad -- very tactile and great for SMS texting, and better than my w910i in which my large fingers caused too many errors. Battery life varies from 1 - 2.5 days depending on how you use the phone - music through loudspeakers, radio, etc

Camera produces pictures which are fairly grainy, even in bright sunlight. But that's fine as I already have a digital camera and did not choose the i450 for its photo taking (or lack of it) capabilities.

Compared with Nokia or SE, the i450 is poorly equipped -- no MP3s, no video content, and even no games provided on the supplied 1GB microSD card !!

On the whole, I am pretty pleased with the i450.