Samsung G800 launch event: A night at the museum

Focus on Music

The ranks of Samsung music-oriented phones will receive the biggest number of reinforcements. The smart Samsung i450 is the first in line featuring the not so frequent dual slide design. Furthermore, when the front panel is slid down a very cool navigational solution gets revealed. A touch sensitive semi-circle makes browsing your music files much easier and more fun. It really resembled the Navi wheel we saw on Nokia N81, although we found its location on i450 to be somewhat uncomfortable. In fact, it suggests that the music player should be operated with both hands, which doesn't quite match our taste. Anyway, leaving that aside, we ought to mention that in addition to the music capabilities, Samsung i450 has the features of a fully-functional Symbian S60 smartphone.

Samsung i450 official photos

Samsung i450 live photos

Another phone of music spirit is Samsung F330 - except for the ultra sleek looks, there is nothing that special about it. The specification highlights of the tri-band phone include 3G (HSDPA 3.6 Mbps) support and a dedicated Bang & Olufsen audio chip. The dedicated music keys and FM radio only nicely complement the musical image of the phone.

Samsung F330 official photos

The last musician to join Samsung band is F210 - another impressive model but, just as F330, mostly in terms of looks. The uncommonly compact swivel really does look like a dedicated mp3 player. It wasn't that much of a novelty though as its photos leaked not so long ago. Its musical benefits include 3.5mm audio jack and the energizing onboard memory capacity of 1GB, plus a microSD card slot.

Samsung F210 official photos

For the busy bees

Two Samsung business-oriented phones were presented - the i550 and i560 smartphones. Surprisingly enough, the i780 smartphone was sorted under the internet mobile solutions instead, so we will come to it later on. The device we spent a bit more time with was Samsung i550 - a Symbian smartphone with a built-in GPS receiver. The built-in Trackball Navigation Key was almost the same as the one we've seen in RIM Blackberry models. Another noteworthy thing was the fact that both Symbian devices were rather different in looks from most Nokia models sporting the same OS. The theme used was the reason, and our impression is that Samsung have done a nice job with it. Anyway, as this is not something of great importance, let's move to the next phone.

Samsung i550 official photos

Samsung i550 live photos

Samsung i560 seemed a slider version of the i550, rather than a truly distinct device. We only noticed a few minor differences, which we were prepared to look for knowing the specs of both devices. No trackball here but, as we see it, both phones are equally well operated and user-friendly. The 3.5 mm audio jack is however a nice thing to have. On the other hand, it doesn't seem the most businesslike of functions, but is still a good thing.

Samsung i560 official photos