Samsung i8910 HD

By Damian Koh, CNET Asia
Aug 17, 2009

The i8910 HD is Samsung's first Symbian S60 5th Edition smartphone and it seems the Korean chaebol has gone all out to impress with a laundry list of features including 1,280 x 720-pixel (720p) video capture on this device.

Design

In the hands, the i8910 HD (123 x 58mm) has about the same footprint as the iPhone 3GS (116 x 62mm). Although it doesn't share the curves of the latter, the Samsung device remains relatively slim at 12.9mm. A silver metallic frame wraps around the 3.7-inch 360 x 480-pixel touchscreen, giving the smartphone a unique look despite a rather standard glossy black plastic chassis.

Even though the AMOLED screen looks brilliant, it washes out in sunlight, so framing pictures/videos requires some squinting and a lot of guesswork on where the subject is in a bright outdoor setting. The display is also different from the ones on the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, N97 and 5530 XpressMusic which run on the same S60 5th Edition software as the Samsung sports a capacitive screen, so a stylus wouldn't work on the i8910 HD.

There are only three hardware keys--call, end and menu--on the front. A 3.5mm audio jack, protected by a plastic cover, sits at the top of the phone beside a pair of onboard speakers (the other one is at the bottom edge). The zoom lever/volume control and camera shutter are on opposite sides of the device, even though we'd have preferred them to be on the same edge. This is so we can rest the device on a level surface without activating the zoom during long video exposures.

Features

The TouchWiz interface is Samsung's way of putting customized widgets on the Home screen of its touchscreen devices. This has improved over several iterations with more widgets to choose from, but its usefulness is still limited. For example, the Facebook widget is only a Web link to the site rather than an integrated app ticker like the one on the N97.

You can pick two other themes, one with a row of four shortcuts to applications (similar to the 5800 XpressMusic and 5530 XpressMusic), and another with basically nothing on the display. Pulling out the widgets bar activates the tabbed Home screen feature with three panels. While it's useful to have multiple apps for quick access, the bar partially blocks out the screen estate. Once you are done arranging the widgets, you can fix their positions by tapping on the lock icon at the bottom right of the screen. Swiping left or right brings you to the main menu and photo contacts, respectively, and this is accompanied by a fancy transition effect that resembles the inner walls of a cube. You can turn this off, although we didn't find a significant difference in the speed. Along the bottom edge is a row of four contextual shortcuts to the dial pad, contacts, messaging and main menu.

Once you leave the Home screen, you're back to the familiar S60 touchscreen user interface peppered with fresh icons that are different from those on Nokia devices. However, this also means that the underlying inconsistencies in scrolling and single/double taps have been inherited. In the menus, you scroll down a list by sliding your finger down the display, but in the Web browser, you "push" the page up to scroll down. Fortunately, the generous screen on the i8910 HD means there's less need to scroll in the menus.

We like the Media browser, an alternative to the standard Gallery application, which uses the onboard accelerometer to browse media files. Tilting the device left and right isn't the most precise method to get to the different pictures/videos, but it's a novel approach nonetheless. The motion sensor detects changes in the phone's orientation and automatically switches the display to portrait or landscape modes. It can also be used to silence calls and snooze alarms.

The i8910 HD doesn't have a physical keypad, so text input relies entirely on the onscreen alphanumeric, full QWERTY (no T9 option) and handwriting pads. Typing messages on the handset was a breeze and we were most comfortable with the alphanumeric pad, although the handwriting option was also rather interesting. We could scribble letters on top of each other, and once each letter is registered it would be wiped out in a left-to-right motion without affecting the others. The only features missing are smart and voice dial. Granted we don't use the latter often, finding a contact by tapping on the corresponding letters on the keypad is more convenient than having to go through the phonebook.

Where Nokia has Mail for Exchange on its smartphones, Samsung has RoadSync. This is a fully licensed application that lets you synchronize your office Outlook contacts, calendar, email and tasks via the Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync protocol. Setting up an account is a hassle-free process as long as you know the server address and domain, the same information you'd need on any device. The only difference is with common, public email accounts such as Gmail. Nokia has made it easy to set up an email account directly on its devices and all that is required are your email address and password. On the i8910 HD, you'll still need to walk through the entire process manually, selecting the mailbox type, incoming and outgoing mail servers via the setup wizard. For Office documents, Quickoffice and an Adobe PDF reader are preinstalled, but the former is a read-only version. To create new Word documents, spreadsheets and presentation slides, you'll have to upgrade to a paid version of the program.

For navigation, the i8910 HD is bundled with the NavFone program and location-based service SpaceMe from GyPSii that lets you know where your friends are. The installation file for NavFone, along with Singapore and West Malaysia maps, are found on the 1GB microSD card that comes with the handset. Do note that the application and maps must be installed in the same memory space and we'd recommend using the Mass Memory (8GB or 16GB depending on your phone model) since the phone's memory is too small to install additional maps. Although the software isn't as advanced as Nokia Maps which now includes 3D landmarks, it still works for basic navigation purposes such as getting directions from one place to another. There's also a digital compass onboard, but this isn't integrated with the mapping solution.

The Web browser supports Flash and is able to render most Web pages correctly. What's interesting is the zoom function. Tapping and holding down any point on the screen activates the feature that lets you zoom in or out by swiping your finger up or down, respectively.

Tags: Smart Phone, E-mail, Device, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Web Browser

User Discussion

 

• Most Popular

• Upcoming

What's Hot