Samsung X830 review: The small big player

Two columns are not enough

Another potential contradiction has in itself the name for „keypad“. Let’s begin with the dominating control assembly, which is a rotating round key with confirming center area, located on the front side under the display. In case the constant turning of the finger all round doesn’t satisfy you, the oval acts also as a classic four-ways key. It’s enough to press the rotating area in the chosen direction.

    
Rotating control • details of the functional keys • numeric buttons • lightning in the dark

Pressing and rotating have one and the same effect in the menu and most of the sub-menus. The music player, however, fully utilizes the potential of the dual function of this navigation key. When you have the music player turned on pressing and rotating have different functions assigned to them. When the phone is in stand-by mode the rotating navigation button can be assigned to trigger one of 17 predefined specific functions.

Rotating the cover reveals an area with seventeen keys. Five of them are functional; the other ones are part of the alphanumeric keypad. It will take you more time to get used to those alphanumeric keys, located unusually in two columns, than to the rotating button. In addition, the buttons are little tougher than normal, so the messaging fans will have to sweat the first few days. The gentle key feedback though gives you confidence during typing.

The operations you do by pressing the functional keys, situated in the upper part of the keypad are showed on the display. It is a little confusing, so don’t worry when in the beginning you press the round item instead of a functional button. The backlighting is excellent. The signs on all the keys are perfectly legible in the dark. It’s a pity that the confirming centre area doesn’t light up. It would be easier to find it in the dark and the illuminating effect would surely contribute to the phone attractiveness.

A strip, which shines

The display of the Samsung X830 is an active TFT one with resolution of 128 x 220 pixels and it is capable of displaying up to 262K colors. The display shows a detailed image, although the resolution is relatively low. The font used in the phone system however, is unnecessarily rough and only spoils the overall impression.

The shiny coating on the surface is not a good prerequisite for use in the sunlight, so in such conditions be prepared for lower legibility. The display lightening has two levels of intensity; the timeout before the phone enters its power saving low-light regime can be adjusted.

  
Display in daylight... • ...and in the night

It’s impossible to select smaller font size, that’s why most of the menu items end with three dots and their full names are available only through scrolling. For text messages there are two preset text sizes you may choose from; it takes nine text lines to fill up the screen when using the smallest font.

Through shortcuts – wherever you like

The X830 user interface is the typical one for Samsung lately. The manufacturer used it for example in the latest highly successful model D900. A limiting disadvantage is the display size, which is hardly comparable to that of the D900.

Standby display • two possible previews of the main menu • display in landscape mode

The display in standby mode shows time, date, operator logo, signal strength, battery status and other active services by means of system icons. Some preinstalled wallpapers are available, you may add others too.

Clicking the left context key takes you to the main menu. A press of the rotating key confirming central area activates the WAP browser. The menu offers two different views such as icons grid (2 x 4 icons) or list view. The number of items is constant and can’t be modified. The key shortcuts serve for fast access to the submenus. There is a number in front of every item of the menu, designating the short key.

Note: the tested sample had a lot of software faults. For example – the wrong translated items or some simply wrong located items in the settings. Let’s hope that the retail version won’t have such disadvantages.