Samsung G600 review: Slide and snap

Brand new display

The Samsung G600 has a shiny 2.2" TFT screen of QVGA resolution capable of displaying up to 16M colors. Visibility under direct sunlight is OK. The display is well done and Samsung deserve a thumbs up for it.

We really liked the fairly large 16M color TFT display on Samsung G600

The white keypad backlighting is even and strong enough. The navigation key has circular backlighting along the edges and, if nothing else, the backlighting adds to the high degree of user-friendliness the Samsung G600 offers.

The keypad has really nice and even white backlighting

The better side of a mobile

The Samsung G600 is great at calls - nothing less than you would've expected. You can make or receive calls with the slider closed too. Dialing a number has always been fun with Samsung but this time there is only one dialing animation available.

Different dialing styles • dialing Dexter

Samsung G600 loudspeaker test

Samsung G600 was not among the loudest handsets we have tested in our loudspeaker loudness test. In fac it only rated somewhere in the botoom of the tested handsets that bear the mark "good" in this test. It saves the G600 from complete failure, however it doesn't put it on top of our list. Here is how the G600 ranks along some of the other handsets that have entered the loudness test. More info on our test and all current results can be found here.

The latest Samsung user interface

The Samsung G600 features dynamic animated wallpaper as usual. Of course you can change that with a wallpaper of your choice. If you stick with the animated one, known in the past as Samsung uGo, it will automatically update the home screen background to display landmarks of the city or country you're in. The scenery even changes when night falls.

The Samsung G600 is also the first Samsung handset to actually have full-featured ringing profiles. All we used to get with previous models was the Silent and Normal ringing modes. Now there's a choice of 5 profiles, including the Offline mode.

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In standby, the up direction of the navigation key activates the proprietary Samsung My Menu. It features several user-configurable shortcuts for your convenience. As it has always been with Samsung handsets, pressing the confirm key on the pad in standby launches the web browser - a truly inconvenient solution but one gets used to that eventually.

Stand-by display is dynamic • Samsung's My menu

Samsung G600 features the interface styling we first saw in Samsung E950. The G600 menu interface has an advantage over Samsung E950, as it offers lovely animation effects. There are four animation styles (slide, door, zoom, fade) to choose from and the handset deals well with all of them. We are under the impression that the G600 is equipped with a rather capable processor.

Main menu • listed sub-menu

The interface supports skinning through themes. There are several presets but you can create ones of your own too. The number of the main menu icons displayed is a total of twelve. You can choose whether list menus should be available as pop-ups (Samsung old-school) that come up when you highlight a menu item, or not.

The other three available themes plus the Create Theme option

The Samsung G600 is also the first Samsung handset to actually have full-featured ringing profiles. All we used to get with previous models was the Silent and Normal ringing modes. Now there's a choice of 5 profiles, including the Offline mode.

Ringing profiles are here for the first time

Another new thing about the menu system is that all settings are put together in one place - phone, light, display, messages, calls, phonebook settings, etc. are all easily accessible from one place. A centralized setting for choosing the default memory for different applications is also available - you can set that for the camera, voice recorder, FM radio (with the G600 you can record FM broadcasts), Bluetooth, WAP downloads, etc - all in the same place. It's really convenient.

Listing your contacts

The phonebook of the Samsung G600 can store up to 1000 contacts with multiple fields. It can display the names from the phone memory only or all names from both the phone memory and the SIM card at once. Searching employs gradual typing. A total of 12 fields of information are available for each contact. You can store up to 5 numbers for each contact, plus an email address and a note. Each contact can also be assigned a specific ringtone and picture; contacts can be organized into groups. Individual contact details or your whole contacts list can be sent via Bluetooth. Unlike Samsung E950, the G600 now has a field for a contact's birthday.

Contact list: searching a contact • opening contact details • Editing Dexter's details and viewing various fields

Call management

There aren't any innovations in the call management department. The Dial key on the touchpad opens a list of the recent contacts, while opening the Call log from the main menu will provide additional details. We were let down by the fact that there is no longer a message counter, which monitors the received and sent messages - it's a feature present in all the Samsung Ultra II lineup handsets. However there's the new Call Manager that allows you to limit your call times and call costs or filter the incoming calls with a Reject list.

Recent contacts • the Call log menu offers more detailed information • the Call manager is something new • setting up the incoming calls reject list