I've got Jet the thing for you. (Samsung GT S8000 Jet)

Member Name: paulhanton

Product:	Samsung GT S8000 Jet
Date:	02/11/09 (191 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Brilliant, easy to use, sexy, great functions.

Disadvantages: Sound on music player patchy.

Samsung Jet

S8000

Having had my old Nokia Music Xpress 5300 for some time I recently decided I wanted a touch phone with a decent camera, and internet access, those were my basic requirements. I also wanted it to look good, sound good and be on a contract, but keep my same mobile number (was pay as you go) and I did not want to pay more than £25 per month. Not fussy at all, just know what I want....so off I trotted to the Vodaphone store to see what they could do for me....I'll just take a quick detour from the phone review to say how helpful the store staff were, another review for later methinks.

Now, writing a mobile phone review it is easy to fill the page with tech spec's, I'm not going to do that, you can always find all that out by visiting Samsung's online pages about the phone at: http://www.samsungmobile.co.uk/mobile-phones/samsu ng-jet

Nope, I am going to tell you a bit about the functions and functionality of the phone and how I found it...tech heads read another review that lists 10,000 specifications and has no user opinion.


~~It comes with~~

Head phones
Hands free
PC disc (software)
Nice case
USB cable
Instructions

The only reason I am listing the above is so that I can mention the necessity of them: The PC disc enables you to set up on a Mac or PC, the software required to transfer files to and from the phone, such as music, photo's etc. Very easy to use, though I could not transfer directly from iTunes, but that's Apple for you...MP3, WMV, REAL, all easy.

Whilst I am talking about music, the phone has a music player, not the best I have to say, passable, but not good, however, I did not buy the phone for that....though I have been slightly disappointed with the voice recorder too and that is more essential to me...the sound quality is quite basic.


~~Functions~~

First and foremost, and why people do not talk about this in phone reviews I shall never know, the phone reception and sound quality. Excellent, 10/10, great reception and so far it has been to London, Glasgow and even on the Yorks Moors (bit patchy there)...the sound is crystal clear and the volume control easy to adjust, speaker phone is fab and I generally use this function if at home and it picks up my voice easily as I am walking around so I'm told.

The Camera:
5 megapixels, not the greatest but more than adequate, takes really nice crisp pictures, though one has to be careful with movement, it is quite sensitive. All the functions you would expect such as flash (very good) are there. There is also a neat little camera on the facia for video phone calls, not that anyone I know has made one yet so I can't really comments on that function.

There is also a video function which is actually really quite good and obviously is dependant on how much memory you add to the phone via a memory card.

You can edit photo's and video incredibly easily, resizing, adding borders, messages etc, it is quite stunningly simple.

The facia is crisp and clean, nice size screen that can be uses horizontally or vertically and when used horizontally allows a qwerty keyboard to be displayed for notes, memos and messages....predictive texting and writing can be turned on and off at will and there are several ways to use it such as always using capitals etc...you can even change some basic fonts.

There is a 'paint' programme, quite handy for personal message writing and amongst the other functions, as one would expect are; alarm, calculator converter (weight, height, currency, temperature), music player, calendar (very comprehensive with 'event's function), notepad, photo browser (dead cool, bit like 'cover flow' on iPod), some basic games, stopwatch....time to stop the list, you get the idea. Oh yeh, I will just mention one more thing, a basic GPS function, attached to Google Maps, dead cool.

Bluetooth, Wifi and internet searching come as standard, though of course you will have to pay your provider for that and there is a handy 'side bar' called 'widgets' (of course), for you to store your instant access applications....mine has Facebook, Google and Youtube on it.


~~Ease of use~~

Really, this is a simple phone to use despite the complexity and comprehensive nature of its functions, only some of which I have listed in the above section.

There are functions I have not used yet, but those I have are clear and easy, the 'changeability' of things is great, different screensavers are easy to add from your own photo's, text is easy to resize, contacts simple to add and messages that tell you what is happening such as 'new text' are bright and bold.

There is a 'motion' function which is easy to use in its basic form but then there is a tutorial to teach you how to 'customise' motions; two shakes for on, three shakes for internet or whatever, too fussy for me, and the least easy bit of the phone.


~~Online~~

Getting online is easy and quick, boy is it quick, it is exactly twice as quick as my son's Sony Erickson walkman phone, we timed it. Once online the pages can be viewed easily and clearly and if the page or text is too small then simply hold a finger on the screen and drag it to make it larger, how easy is that?

My one slight criticism is that it is hard to work out how to load some applications such as Flash player, especially needed for some essential games. Also, do not download expensive ring tones when whole tunes are cheaper and can easily be used as ring tones.


~~Aesthetics~~

Make no mistake this is a sleek and sexy phone. Again, I am not going to list all the spec's, weight, size etc. It has a black facia, and kind of mahogany red, deep' back, very thin and only three buttons on the front.

Once the screen lights up it is a joy to behold, each 'page' of the menu is lovely and bright and colourful and can be customised to your hearts content, it is quite simply a beautiful phone that is the envy of all my family and friends right now.


~~Criticisms~~

I have only two slight problems with this phone, the first is that really it needs a touch pointer with it; I only have small fingers and even then I sometimes touch two commands/functions, easily solved I use the 'wand' from a Nintendo DS.

The other problem is sensitivity. Once the phone goes into 'standby' mode it is essentially locked, but before that, a slight touch and it does its thing, whatever that might be and it can be annoying to take the phone out of its case and see you are on some mad clock menu or something.


~~~Finally~~~

Sorry this is a bit of an epic review, but it is a bit of an epic phone and believe me I could write a lot more, but at 1,300 words plus it is time to stop and please note folks, no long list of tech spec's to pad out the review.

This is a great phone, it is like I have just discovered mobile phones all over again: Sleek, sexy, easy to use, hundreds of functions, colourful, and pretty much my most essential piece of 'don't go out without' kit.

I just want to briefly mention that the Bluetooth is like, lightening, brilliant.

In terms of realiability, one month, so far so good.

I know these cost anything from £25 to buy as a stand alone piece of kit but mine was free on a 24 month Vodaphone contract at £24.99 per month including internet access, 100 minutes of free calls and unlimited free texts.

I am one happy bunny!

Summary: Great new phone from Samsung.

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