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Features
At the time of writing, three Samsung HSDPA-enabled phones (SGH-Z560, Ultra Edition 13.8 and Ultra Messaging i600) were available in Singapore, with the i600 the Korean's first smart phone to tout high-speed data transfer faster than 3G. In short, faster data speeds would enhance the Web browsing experience, music streaming and reduce download times via the theoretical 1.8Mbps speed.

Connectivity features on the triband (900/1,800/1,900MHz) i600 are aplenty. Besides leveraging on HSDPA and 3G networks, the handheld is also Wi-Fi-enabled (802.11b/g)--sorely missed on the earlier i320n--and can connect wirelessly to a PC via Bluetooth 2.0 (with support for A2DP). The i600 is missing an infrared port, though.

	A breathe of fresh air is the "Card Wheel" user interface.

What bowled us over was the proprietary "Card Wheel" multi-layer user interface which is a breath of fresh air. Each of the various applications (Profile, Appointments, Message Center, Favorite Contacts, Now Playing, Recent Songs and My Photos) is denoted by individual cascading "cards", selected either with the thumbwheel or the directional toggle. For example, when we scroll to the Message Center, we'll see the Voicemail, Missed Calls, Text Messages and Outlook Email shortcuts. These shortcuts are lined in a row and the selected option pops up vertically, similar to the docking interface on a Macintosh. We could either hit the central OK button to go into the application, or press the right softkey to type a new text message. Appointments will show us the schedule we have for a particular day, while My Photos give us a preview of the pictures we have on the phone. Slightly more useful is the Favorite Contacts which allows us to store up to 10 frequently accessed numbers as a quick-dial list.

We also found other hidden gems on the i600. Holding down the Home key will bring up the Task Manager window where we can close programs running in the background. The same action on the thumbwheel activates the Quick launcher with more customizable shortcuts to various applications. The Back button below the thumbwheel is also configurable to open a specific program.

Unlike touchscreen PDAs, the i600 runs on the Smartphone edition of Windows Mobile 5.0, powered by a 220MHz TI OMAP 1710 processor, so you don't get the full-fledged editing capabilities of Office Mobile. Memory-wise, there's 128MB ROM and 64MB RAM.

The preinstalled Piscel Viewer allows us to read only Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF files and various image formats. The i600 also supports MS Direct Push Technology so you'd be able to have ready access to your email, calendar, contacts and tasks on Outlook. Synchronization with our PC was also a breeze except there wasn't an option to sync Notes on Outlook with the smart phone.

Multimedia-wise, the i600 supports formats such as MP3, AAC, AAC+, WMA and WAV for music, and MPEG-4, WMV, H.263 and H.264 for videos. There's also an RSS feed reader (a rather basic one) and podcast application for you to catch up on the latest news or gossip.

Frankly, when we saw that there wasn't a built-in LED flash for shooting in dimly lit environments, our expectations for the 1.3-megapixel shooter immediately halved. Fortunately, there's still a myriad of options from applying color effects to setting white balance to keep the average user happy. There're also various editing features to crop, flip, resize our snaps and adjust brightness and contrast. The only downside is that the camera lacks a protective cover so it could suffer from defacement if you keep the phone in a pocket with sharp objects like house keys. The same could happen with the LCD screen.

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