Samsung D880 Duos review: Pure-bred dual SIM

Image quality is nice

The Samsung D880 Duos comes with a 3 megapixel autofocus camera with a maximum image resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels. It doesn't have a LED flash though.

The camera interface is intuitive and follows the current trend of displaying settings with icons in a toolbar at the bottom of the screen, while options appear as popup menus. The settings are extensive and include picture size, shooting mode (single, multi-shot, mosaic shot and panorama), color effects (black and white, negative, sepia, etc.), white balance, and ISO (up to 400).

Unfortunately, the camera sensor is orientated so that the camera should be used in portrait mode only. That means you can't go fullscreen without cropping some of the visible area of your viewfinder. No matter if you choose portrait or landscape mode - when you select the fullscreen mode for the viewfinder it crops the live feed from the camera lens so that it fits the display. Not to worry though, the actual photos taken by the camera are not cropped. Samsung D900 had the same issues by the way and that didn't stop it from becoming a bestseller.

Camera viewfinder • camera settings on toolbar

The camera key is useless for focusing since it's not a two-step one. The auto focus system is relatively reliable but photos of still objects turn out best due to the comparatively long shutter lag.

We were pleasantly surprised by the image quality it's able to achieve - the colors are true to the original and the dynamic range is sufficient. Noise is kept under control and photos are fine with the sparing sharpening applied.

Here are some camera samples produced by the 3 megapixel camera of Samsung D880:

Finally, we come to the video recording capabilities of the camera. Samsung D880 shoots video in the so-called Camcorder mode. The user interface of the camcorder doesn't differ from the one of the still camera except for some of the available options.

Camcorder viewfinder • camcorder settings on toolbar

When it comes to video recording the Samsung D880 Duos offers CIF video at 15fps. Videos at this resolution are recorded in MPEG4 format.

Check out our Samsung D880 sample video and judge for yourselves.

Web browser is almost unusable

With the Samsung D880 you can count on EDGE and GPRS only for browsing internet on the go. Unfortunately, the handset doesn't come with the latest NetFront 3.4 web browser but instead uses the older Openwave browser seen in handsets such as Samsung D900. The Openwave web browser doesn't even have a desktop-like rendering view mode and most images are resized beyond recognition with the default Smart Fit option.

Browsing GSMArena.com • browser options

Although the D880 large display may seem attractive for web browsing the lack of faster 3G speeds combined with the underpowered browser makes the Samsung D880 Duos unattractive for web surfing.

Adequate organizer, while the document viewer is a nice touch

The Samsung D880 calendar offers three views - daily, weekly and monthly. There are five types of events available: appointment, anniversary, holiday, important, and private. The number of alarm slots is also five, each with a variety of configurable options - snooze time, repetition, etc. You can of course choose a custom ringtone to wake you up at a preset volume level.

Calendar: monthly view and types of events • Alarms: 5 slots and some of the available options

Among the other offerings are the voice memo recorder, a world time application, a calculator, and a unit converter. A countdown timer and a stopwatch are also available.

Recording a voice note • world clock • calculator • converter

The Samsung D880 Duos also has an office documents viewer like most Samsung handsets out there.

File manager • opening an excel, word and acrobat document

Games are all too well known

When it comes to games, Samsung D880 is quite well geared. A whole bunch of games are preinstalled just waiting for you to have some free time to spend. The games that the Samsung D880 bundles up are Cannonball, Forgotten Warrior, Freekick, Arch Angel, Minigolf Las Vegas (trial), Paris Hilton's Diamond Quest (trial), Tetris Mania (trial) and Asphalt 2 (trial).

You've probably seen every one of them on other Samsung handsets.

Some of the free games: Cannonball, Forgotten Warrior

Some of the free games: Freekick, Arch Angel