Samsung S8300 UltraTOUCH review: Touch, slide, shoot

Design and construction (continued)

The right side of the S8300 hosts the camera key, the display lock key and the microUSB slot. The memory card slot is hidden under a small plastic lid to prevent dirt accumulating. We are glad to see Samsung using the standard issue microUSB ports on some of their latest phones, and it would be nice to see other manufacturers doing the same thing.

It's more crowded on the right with the camera key, the display lock key and the microUSB slot

The top is completely plain and so is the bottom, save for the microphone pinhole.

The top and the bottom are pretty plain

The back of the Tocco Ultra Edition hosts the 8 megapixel camera and its loyal companions - the self-portrait mirror and the LED flash (the beta unit had a dual LED flash but it was obviously sacrificed in the name of a longer battery life). Those are of course only visible when the slider is open, giving them plenty of protection from scratches.

An 8 megapixel camera is at the back, along with the LED flash and the self-portrait mirror

Under the battery cover is the 880 mAh Li-Ion battery as well as the SIM and microSD card slots. The battery is quoted at 350 hours of standby and up to 4 hours of talk time.

Having a lot of people complaining in or comments section about poor battery life, we paid more attention to our usage pattern and charging. The numbers seem ok for a device with such a large display. The Samsung S8300 lasted three full days and that included 1 hour of taking images and videos, 15 min of browsing the gallery, and 1 hour of voice calls.

As we've already mentioned, the device supports both microSD and microSDHC, and it didn't have any problem handling our 16GB microSD card. The only problem here is the slow first-time access of the microSD card, which may take several minutes. The back cover is made of thin plastic and to remove it you have to press it and slide it upwards at the same time.

A look under the battery cover: 880 mAh Li-Ion battery, SIM and microSD card slots

The general build quality of the S8300 UltraTOUCH is commendable. No creaks or other disturbing noises of any kind were heard throughout the time of our preview. The slider is also nicely done - as is usual for Samsung, it's smooth and stable.

The only bad seed is the battery cover which scratches very easily. It took less than a week for our test unit to get covered in numerous fine scratches.

The phone held in hand

But putting the bad behind our back, join us on the next page, where we take a tour of the latest TouchWiz user interface.