Samsung Pixon GT M8800 is it worth buying (Samsung GT M8800 Pixon)

Member Name: Euan09

Product:	Samsung GT M8800 Pixon
Date:	17/08/09 (132 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: 8 Megapixel Camera, 720x480 video recording @30fps, Good build quality

Disadvantages: Touch screen might not be for everyone, Poor web browser

With an 8 megapixel Camera, DVD quality video recording, GP, HSPDA 7.2Mb/s and an abundance of multimedia features, is this touch screen phone a possible alternative to Apple's iPhone?

Looks
The Samsung Pixon is a stylish phone. My phone is the black version but it is also available in silver and pink all three colour look great so it's really down to users preference. The front of the phone is mostly taken up by the 3.2" touch screen and has three buttons on the front for calling and going backwards in the. There are buttons on the side for volume, scrolling, zooming, taking pictures, short cuts and locking the phone. All buttons feel sturdy and of a good quality and placement along the edges are very ergonomic when grasping the phone. The back of the phone is mostly taken up by the large lens housing of the camera lens which also has a shutter which automatically opens and closes when not in use. Beside the lens is a dual LED flash and on the opposite side the words "Samsung 8.0" etched in a metallic finish. While the back of the phone is made of metal and has a feeling of quality compared to cheaper plastic cases, the choice of making it the same colour at the rest of the casing makes it not look as nice as other phones such as the Samsung Tocco.

Touch Screen
The touch screen on the Samsung Pixon is certainly not bad but doesn't convey the sharpness of that of the iPhone. Compared to cheaper phones like the LG Cookie you'll find this much better quality. The phone comes with a stylus but unlike most phones this does not slide into the casing when not used, it must be tied on the loop in the corner and dangle from your Pixon. Personally I find this annoying and also more likely to scrape your phone while it's in your pocket I don't use it. You can use the phone on the most part without the stylus but you will find the occasional thing like moving and scrolling through the widgets on the main page very fiddly and frustrating at times. One of the great things about the touch screen is the fact that is allow you to type with a full qwerty keyboard when you tilt the phone on its side. Even without the stylus this keyboard is great while you might at first think it's not going to recognise what you type you type at full speed but after a short while with the phone I can assure you will be typing out SMS and E-mails very quickly in no time. With the use of the right hand side volume rocker buttons it allows you to scroll through lists in the menu making you less likely to accidentally press the wrong button while scrolling as with many other touch screen phones. While this touch screen is great, if you are someone who takes a long time to get used to new interfaces I would not advise you to by this phone. It certainly is easy to use but at times the controls don't feel fast as a good old keypad on standard phones. It also has slight slowdown while jumping through menus at times. If your into its style though and can live with the odd quirks of current day touch screen phones you are bound to love this phone.

Camera
The camera on the Samsung Pixon is 8 megapixel. This can be adjusted to lower resolutions and and settings such as 6 megapixel shoots in widescreen. The camera produces great quality photographs but would have been good if it had come with a Xenon flash for night shots. There are tons of settings and features such as panoramic, smile mode, WDR, ISO adjusting, exposure settings, GPS geo tagging among others. The phone also takes excellent quality video up to a resolution of 720x480 at 30fps. It even has the option to record video at 120fps although this is only allowed at a low resolution setting. The phone also has picture and video editing software so you can edit on the move.

Internet and GPS
The Samsung Pixon supports up to a speedy 7.2Mb/s on a 3G network. While the internet is fast the internet browser is not the best. Moving around the pages is nowhere near a easy on that of an iphone and zooming in and out of pages can be frustrating. Saying this, it is certainly useable and better than those on most non touch screen phones. E-mail can be sent and retrieved from within the messages menu and is easy to setup and work. The phone come with a Google maps app installed. Working with the internet connection as well as your GPS it actually works every well for personal navigation and shows you exactly where you are in real time and can plan routes and find places to eat etc. While this will cost you for your internet data if you have an unlimited internet plan this application is great.

Music and Other Multimedia
The phone plays MP3, AAC, eAAC+, WMA so you can play pretty much all kinds of music. While the player looks slightly boring it does support album art and sounds great. Earphones are includes and are of great quality but they need the adapter included as there is no 3.5mm jack on the actual phone. The phone plays MPEG4, WMV, DivX, XviD video formats to again your pretty much covered formats. Video quality again is great. The audio from the loudspeaker for music and video is not that great but acceptable enough. The phone also has an RDS radio but need to have the earphones plugged into listen to as with most phones. A few games come with the phone but you can easily install new ones, I have found though even with the virtual touch screen keypad games like PES 2009 are much hard to play than phones with joysticks or just even the standard keypads.

Reception Sound and Quality
The reception on my Pixon is excellent and as with the quality of audio when chatting I have found to be the best of all phones I have ever had. I have even had someone comment on how clear the line was on my phone.

Conclusion
So if you want a touch screen phone but don't wish to buy the iPhone, should you buy this? Well I say yes, while I feel the interface is better on the iPhone I have tried all the others and have to say all the others are not as good at the iPhone in terms of interface and screen quality. When you see how much this phone can do though you will love it. That's coming from a person who prefers Sony Ericsson and Nokia over Samsung. So if you do buy this phone I'm sure you will love it.

Summary: An all-round multimedia touch screen phone which proves you can have all your needs in one phone.

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