By Damian Koh
11/03/2009
URL: http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/mobilephones/0,39051199,44085206p,00.htm

Following in the footsteps of the Innov8 and Omnia, the Pixon heralds a new label for Samsung camera-phones. Unlike the Omnia marquee which has high-end devices like the Windows Mobile-based SGH-i900 and the Omnia HD, the M8800 is the only model in the Pixon portfolio now. Like its immediate competitor the LG Renoir, the 8-megapixel Pixon (M8800) trades a physical keypad for a full touchscreen display.

Design

One look at the Pixon and you'd probably recall Samsung's other touchscreen outings, the F480 or the Omnia. The 3.2-inch 240 x 400-pixel screen (similar to the Omnia) is flush with the entire front surface, with only three mechanical keys at the bottom. The resistive display requires a little pressure to press, rather than just tapping as with capacitive screens, but it'll respond to both finger and stylus inputs.

The Pixon is noticeably shorter than the Omnia due to the missing "chin" at the bottom. On the Omnia, the center key is an optical directional pad. As you move your thumb around the area, the additional length helps to prevent your digit from slipping off the edge. On the Pixon, the center button brings you back to the previous menu. So the extra space needed for the thumb to move around the optical pad is no longer needed.

Although the Pixon has a smaller footprint (and weighs 122g), the top half of the phone is thicker than the Omnia due to the slightly protruding camera module at the back. It is also worth mentioning that the blue rim which surrounds the camera lens is similar to the design approach on the Korean chaebol's own NV-series of digital cameras. Whether this similarity is intentional remains to be seen. As a matter of fact, the 8-megapixel Innov8 was probably the first Samsung camera-phone to sport the blue rim design.

In our hands, the Pixon didn't deliver the solid feeling of the Omnia but is still reasonably well-built. We like the grooved strips that run along the sides of the phone, which breaks the monotony of the design. There's a Hold button along with a Shortcut key and microSD expansion card slot on the left. On the other side of the device, you can find imaging-related controls such as shutter, playback and digital zoom. Lastly, on the front is a shooter which you can use for video calls.

Features

As an imaging phone, the Pixon has a lot to offer. Besides an 8-megapixel autofocus camera, it comes with a suite of other imaging features commonly found in dedicated point-and-shoot cameras. These include a dual-power LED flash, shake reduction, wide dynamic range capability, face detection, smile shot mode, geotagging and an auto panorama setting.

There's also Face Link which lets you tag faces in a picture and hotlink them to an entry in the phonebook. Once tagged, you can make calls or send text messages to the person directly from the photo.

Aside from the standard crop, transform, level and effects options, there are two additional image-editing functions on the Pixon. The first is Live Pix, a scrapbook tool that lets you doodle on images and playback the actions as a Flash file. The limitation is that you'll have to crop the photo to the size of the screen (240 x 400), instead of using the entire image as your canvas. The second function turns your photo into a Polaroid with a strip of white space below for memos.

The onboard accelerometer lets you scroll photos in the media browser simply by tilting the phone. Pictures are sorted by file names, folders, dominant color in the snaps, time and face tags. It's a pity the sensitivity of the motion sensor cannot be configured, a tiny point that would have made us like this feature even more. Alternatively, you can also browse pictures by "flicking" your finger across the screen.

Besides browsing pictures, the built-in motion sensor also switches the screen between portrait and landscape modes. When you do that, the onscreen alphanumeric keypad morphes into a full QWERTY keyboard for text input. There's also haptic feedback which vibrates when you punch the keys.

As for videos, the Pixon records motion images with a maximum resolution of 720 x 480 pixels at 30fps. If you lower the resolution to QVGA, you can shoot at a faster frame rate of 120fps, typically used for slow-motion effects. File formats that are supported include MPEG-4, WMV, DivX and XviD.

On the user interface, the Pixon is based on TouchWiz which was first seen on the F480 and subsequently as a skin on the Windows Mobile-based Omnia. Widgets are docked onto a column on the left and can be dragged and dropped onto the screen. Previously, the numbers and types of widgets were predetermined and that limited the usefulness of the software. Things have improved greatly since the F480 days. The Pixon now has 21 widgets out-of-the-box, including weather apps, calendar, photo browser, music player and basic PIM functions.

The only limitation with this interface is the size of the screen. Each widget takes up quite a bit of space and don't fit together like a jigsaw, so you'd run out of screen estate very fast if you have more than a couple of apps on the display. Samsung has already addressed this issue with an upgraded TouchWiz that enables scrolling on the Home screen on the Ultra Touch model that it recently announced at the Mobile World Congress. LG, too, has enabled that on its Renoir. But, unfortunately, Samsung currently doesn't have any plans to have a software upgrade for the Pixon to enable this feature.

Samsung has also managed to integrate the scrolling in the entire software, including the menu lists, Web browser, contacts and photo browser. Like the Renoir, scrolling on the Pixon felt a little finicky and less polished than the iPhone, but it was definitely usable.

The Pixon is a quad-band GSM handset with Bluetooth, GPS with A-GPS and TV-out connectivity. It has 200MB of onboard memory and is bundled with an 8GB microSD card slot for added capacity. However, it lacks a built-in 3.5mm audio jack for third-party headsets and Wi-Fi connectivity, which for some people could be deal-breakers. Samsung's answers to these shortcomings are a standard headset fitted with a 3.5mm port extension and HSDPA.

We would also have rooted for a multitasking manager on the Pixon so that we could switch between apps more easily. Besides the usual fare of applications like Web browser, FM radio, video editor, voice recorder, the Pixon is preinstalled with Google Search, Mail and Maps.

Performance

We'll begin with the image quality from the 8-megapixel camera on the Pixon. In a nutshell, we were impressed with what we saw in our test shots. We liked the punchy colors and the sensor was capable of handling both the highlights and shadow regions, retaining a good amount of details in the darker areas. The macro mode was also a feature which we found ourselves liking a lot.

The Pixon is equipped with an LED flash, unlike the Renoir with a Xenon module. While LEDs have the dual benefit of illuminating both still and video captures, we found the latter rather useless as the beam wasn't able to light up subjects to a decent level anywhere further than our arms. That said, it's better to have that option than not at all. As to whether LEDs perform better than their Xenon counterparts, and how the onboard flash on the Pixon stacks up against other camera-phones, see our comparison feature here.

Shutter lag was measured at 0.3 second which is respectable for a camera-phone though not stellar. We did notice the camera interface to be rather sluggish, especially in the Settings option, and switching from playback to recording mode. It took about 2 seconds for an 8-megapixel image at Superfine quality to be recorded.

Both audio quality and video playback worked fine in our tests, though the onboard speakers could do better with more bass. Audio pickup on the Pixon was also good as the party on the other end of the video line could hear us clearly and video image transmission had few drops.

The Pixon is rated for up to 7 hours of talktime and approximately 13 days on standby.

Conclusion

The Samsung Pixon and the LG Renoir are like peas in a pod. When we were writing this review, it seemed as if we were looking at the Renoir for a second time. The two handsets have nearly identical features, although in terms of design, we felt the Pixon has a slight edge with a more conventional look.

A lot has been said about camera-phones replacing dedicated digital cameras. One thing that's clearly evident with the new crop of imaging handsets like the Pixon and LG Renoir, is that they have proven their worth when it comes to daytime shoots. Actual shot-to-shot performance and image quality in dim-light environments still need to be worked on though.

If you are in the market for an 8-megapixel touchscreen camera-phone, the Pixon is an excellent choice. At the same time, you may want to swing by to check out the Renoir, too.