Samsung I8910HD Review

This week the people who do Samsung’s PR in the UK were kind enough to send me Samsung’s latest phone to test out! Despite having warned them that I’m an avid fan of Apple’s revolutionary handset and that I would be unlikely to warm to an iPhone wannabe they were keen for me to take a look, so I did.

Samsung I8910

Review

I’ve been carrying the Samsung I8910HD around with me for 48 hours now. My initial impression on first use was how sleek it looks, albeit a bit chunky. Upon power up you’re treated to a bright, clear and impressively high-definition screen. After a year of iPhone usage the user interface seems slow and clunky, but that’s just Symbian I guess. I also didn’t find it too easy to find what I wanted, particularly the elusive web browser. I started to feel that the hardware was very 2009 yet the software very 2003. Everything needs to be cleaned up, made more practical. My low point came when I found the games included with the phone. There are a few 3D offerings which run at about 5 frames per second and are frankly unplayable, making the phone look awful. Ah well, I persevered round the feature set and as I did the controls and menu system slowly grew on me, as did the short, subtle vibration every time you touch the screen. Nice touch.

Put simply, whilst this is a decent phone it just doesn’t come up to the level of the iPhone. That is until you find the camera.

Video

One of the main focuses of this phone’s marketing campaign is it’s ability to shoot video at full, yes full, HD. Hard to believe I know but I’ve shot a very short bit of video in a well lit tube station and a few seconds in a dim recording studio and I am utterly amazed that this was shot on a phone. I’ll post something shot in daylight later today but check the below video (or click here to see it in YouTube’s ‘HD’ mode)

Photos

Ruth and I

Ruth With Flash

Russ in the Studio

The London Tube

Macro Shot

Mosaic Mode

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As you can see it does a great job of shooting HD and the phone’s bulk helps it be more stable (any lighter and it would be hard to avoid severe shake). I could rave about this all week but the Samsung I8910HD is worth carrying round for the camera alone. It shoots still photos at 8.0 megapixels which along with a good macro mode and various manual adjustments would allow it to sit quite proudly in the digital camera section of any electrical outlet, although the downsides when compared to real cameras are the lack of optical zoom, the absence of a proper flash and a just-about-discernible inferior quality of image when compared with 8 MP digital cameras. Pretty good going considering this is primarily a telephone. Click here to see some shots I’ve taken (and enhanced using iPhoto if they were indoor shots).

I think Symbian, Samsung, Nokia and everyone else making phones and their operating systems need to come up with something very special to knock Apple off their throne. If you’re all about apps and are a voracious consumer of online content you should find your nearest Apple Store. If however you’re an avid producer of photo and video content the Samsung I8910HD could well be the phone for you. It’s also worth mentioning that if you like to watch video on the move the screen is as sharp and bright as they come and when held in landscape position the left and right stereo sound comes at you from the left and right end of the phone so you get that true mini-cinema experience!

As always stay in touch and let me know how your summer is going

Will x