the big mega pixel (Samsung GT M8800 Pixon)

Member Name: chickiepoo

Product:	Samsung GT M8800 Pixon
Date:	08/10/09 (50 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: easy to navigate, great camera, good battery life

Disadvantages: screen scratches easily

I purchased this phone around 5 months ago, I got it as part of my contract deal, I always wanted a touch screen phone and this seemed a pretty good deal.
I took the phone home and opened the box, the box contained:

Mobile phone
Charger
USB lead for computer to phone
3 different coloured backs. (Red, black and blue)
Instructions for the phone
Disc for the computer to enable transfers from phone to pc
Headphones
Memory card
Instruction manual
Battery
Sim card
Phone pen to tap the screen with, or just use your fingers
So I set the entire phone up and plugged it in to charge as instructed in the manual. Switched it on and waited for it to pick up the sim card. This can take a minute or so to start up. I started to explore the phone and below I will describe what the phone has with it.

When you hit the menu button you are shown a list of things listed:
Call log: This gives you a list of people who you have either receive or missed a call off and also who you have rang yourself.
Phonebook: This is quite obviously a list of all your contacts
Music: This has the music player, which is where all your songs you have added to your phone can be player. Also it has music recognition. This is for those times when you hear a song and you can't remember who it is. You start up the music recognition and play the song into the speakers it will pick up the artist and the song. Great for those times when its just bugging you what it is loll.
Google: This is where you can go straight onto the google website to browse the Internet.
Messages: This is where all text messages are saved whether sent received undelivered or drafts. You can also create your own folder to save text messages that you would like to keep. It also has email inbox, for if you decide you would like to set up an email account.
My files: this is where all your music files and videos are stored. This also gives you how much memory you have left on your phone.
Organiser: contains things such as your calculator, calendar, memo, task, converter and world clock.
Settings. This is where you set up all your profiles, displays, phone settings, security etc.

I could go on with the full list of everything but I would be here forever this phone really has got too many things to mention. So I will go on to tell you a bit about the phone and how things work.
The phone book: This is pretty simple to use. You can either access this by going into your options or by tapping the phone book key at the bottom of your screen. To go to a contact you have to either push up or down on your screen, or press the button up or down on the right hand of your phone. This key is also the volume key for you music, and your keypad tones. I did find this frustrating to start with because the screen moves pretty fast and until I got used to it I used to be messing about trying to get the right contact up. When you get to the desired contact you also have the option to send them a message, phone them or video call them if they have a video call enabled phone.

Text messages: This I did find very hard to get used to after having just a normal phone. The keys are still the same as on a normal screen phone, but these are on the screen and you sometimes forget just how sensitive the screen really is. One simple tap and the key is pressed. Like all mobiles you can either do the message by pressing the key to the correct letter you would like to use, or use the T9 dictionary. When using the dictionary most of the time you get different words that can be spelt but it gives you the option to change the word just by scrolling down a list. Also if you turn the phone on its side you can use a normal keypad a bit like a keyboard on your pc. Once you are used to the touch screen the messages are really easy to use. Another thing I like about this phone is that when you receive a message, if you do have pretty bad eyesight as I do you can enlarge the message by using the volume key. The only thing is you can't enlarge messages as you are writing them.
Camera: This phone has an 8 mega pixel camera, you have far too many options in this phone to run through them all but there is so many options to change things, like the flash, focus mode, you can even set a scene, i.e. portrait, landscape ect. The phone even has a timer so you don't have to take the picture right away. The quality of picture is absolutely superb. In the daytime and the nighttime. Although you do have to be careful on the nighttime as if you do move your phone even slightly the picture does become blurry. You can zoom in and out also, so close up pictures are brilliant. This also has a video camera that works in the same way and the picture and sound is just as good.

Widgets: These are easy to access things that you use the most and all you do is click the little arrow to open the widget box and some favourites will be there, and you just click the screen and drag it to the main screen to be able to use it.
Battery life: On standby it says you have roughly up to 290 hrs and talk time roughly 3 hrs 40 minutes. I do think the battery is pretty good on this phone, although it does seem to run down to the last bar pretty quickly, but once its down to the last bar it still lasts quite a while, so no need to panic when on the last bar as you can still have a decent conversation on the phone. And it will beep at you when the battery is running very low.

My overall opinion
Well I do really like this phone and will say its one of the best phones I have ever had, and that's quite a few phones loll. The phone does take quite a bit of getting used to if you are not used to the touch screen but once you get used to the screen then it's easy to use. Very easy to navigate around too.

The phone is quite resistant too, I dropped mine once down the toilet (after I flushed it may I add loll) Amazingly the phone still worked, the screen was slightly damaged through water and the answer button stuck, but I could still make calls and send texts. Although I did get a replacement as I was insured. The main problem I do find is that the screen gets scratched pretty easily and also gets dirty a lot too, so I seem to be forever cleaning the screen.
The only other problem I find is that I have no option to set up an answering machine, so I get texts sent through if I miss a call when my phone is off, but I would much rather have a message service so I know if anything is important. I am not sure if that's something wrong with my phone, network or if its all phones but I keep meaning to phone up O2 about it.

I like the fact too that it's easy to lock and unlock your phone with a simple press of a button on the left hand side of the phone. Also in your settings you can put locks on anything you want to make sure no one gets into. You can do it on everything or just make a few selections like pictures and messages. You can also set up a password so if your phone is off you need to type this in when you switch your phone back on.
I would highly recommend this phone to anyone, fair enough its not a small phone but its not too big either, but it is easy to use and looks smart to have too. And I can't really pick up any faults that I have had with it.

also on ciao under kineticspade

Summary: see review xx

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