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	Samsung G600 pink (O2) Carphone Warehouse £45.00
	Samsung G600 black (Orange) Carphone Warehouse £35.00

RATING:

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SUMMARY:

Quad-band 5 MP camera slider phone. Good features, solid performance. No 3G. Consider the Samsung G800 instead. It's better.

Samsung G600 Review

The Samsung SGH-G600 is a stylish quad-band slider phone with a decent 5 MP camera, video capture, FM radio, media players and 2.2-inch 16-million colour screen.

Design

The G600 is well-built - the battery cover and plastic covers for the multi-function jack and memory card slot are all very easy to open and close. The battery is easy to insert/remove, as is the SIM card which easily slides into the slot. Take note Sony Ericsson.

Slider: Very good. Slide the front up to answer a call, slide it back down to end a call. You can change slide settings in the 'slide settings' menu.

Keypad and navigation keys: Good. The keys are nice and wide and we had no problems with either the keypad of the navigation keys on the front. The navigation keys are well-spaced and easy to press.

Speaker volume: OK. Not as loud as many of the mobile phones we've tested (perhaps that's a good thing), and if you whack the volume right up to maximum, it can get crackly - depends on the audio you're playing.

Features

5 MP camera: Good. Slide the front up to reveal the 5 MP camera and photo light. Use the viewfinder in landscape view. Options include shooting mode, image size, macro mode, flash, timer, effects, frames, white balance, ISO and viewfinder mode. Image quality is very good - compared to most other mobile phones on the market.

There's 4x digital zoom and auto focus - exert light pressure on the camera key to get focus - the rectangle in the centre of the screen will turn green or red (if no focus achievable). The confirm key can also be used as the camera key. Use the navigation keys to zoom in or out and to change exposure.

There's LED flash (no Xenon flash) - set it to on, off or auto. The G600 LED low-current flash is weak compared to a good Xenon flash, so taking good photos in low-light is a problem. The upcoming Samsung G800 will have Xenon flash, optical zoom and 3G - available 2008. Sony Ericsson K800i, K810i and K850i all have Xenon flash units.

If you want a bright flash, get a camera phone with Xenon flash or one with a high-current LED flash (not yet used in mobile phones).

Does the G600 have image stabilization? We don't know. No mention of it in the tiny manual, nor on the Samsung Web site. The images look pretty decent, so there could well be.

There's a big shutter lag - autofocus lag and shutter release lag. In good light conditions, it took 3 seconds to get focus and take the photo. 2.5 seconds of that was the shutter release lag (the time between pressing the camera button fully down (after getting focus) and the shot being taken).

Getting focus in low light or on moving objects takes longer (same with all cameras). You could use a higher ISO setting, but the photo quality won't be as good.

Taking photos of moving objects can therefore be a problem. The Samsung G600 does have a multi-shot mode - 6 to 15 shots.

Samsung G600 vs Sony Ericsson K810i, K800i, K850i cameras? The CyberShot range are the winners. Shutter release lag time was better on the K810i and it has a Xenon flash (better in low light). Image quality is similar in good light. The Samsung G800 (due for release in 2008) will have Xenon flash, optical zoom and hopefully a better shutter release lag time.

Video capture: Fine. Record up to 640 x 480 pixel resolution. 352 x 288 resolution records at 30 fps.

Instruction manual: Very basic.

Web browsing: The Netfront Web browser is OK. There's EDGE but no 3G - so Web browsing is not very fast. If you want a better Internet browsing experience, buy a mobile phone with a larger screen, 3G, Wi-Fi and a QWERTY keyboard.

Voice features: There's a voice recorder, but no voice dialling.

Profiles: You might want to turn off the sound effects for keypad presses and menu item changes. Go to menu > settings > phone settings > phone profiles. We selected 'normal', then select options > edit > phone sounds (scroll through to the last top tab) > keypad tone. Press the centre key and select 'off'.

WEP 210 Bluetooth Headset: The Samsung G600 comes with a nifty Bluetooth handsfree headset. A separate WEP210 instruction manual comes in the package.

The Bluetooth headset features a multi-function button, volume up button, earpiece, indicator light, adapter jack, microphone and volume down button. It's just 4 cm tall.

The headset uses a rechargeable battery - plug the travel adapter into the jack. The manual says it take 2.5 hours to fully charge.

Making a call: Use the keypad to dial a number. Big numbers are written on the screen using a pen graphic. Use the navigation keys to move the cursor position back should mistype any numbers.

FM Radio: Does the job.

Music player: Fine. Options include last played, recently played, most played, artists, genres, albums, composers, podcasts and playlists. There's shuffle, repeat modes, sound effects, animation and other settings.

You can play music through the speaker, the included earphones, or through a Bluetooth stereo headset. A 1 GB microSD memory card is included in the box.

Summary

The Samsung G600 is a very good phone. It's well-built, has a good number of features and its 5 MP camera is good. The LED flash isn't very bright and the lack of 3G means Internet browsing can be slow.

TAGS: 5.0 MP camera, slider phones

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