Tuesday June 23, 2009

Samsung Jet S8000 review and technical specifications

Samsung Jet review, AMOLED display and first impressions :

The Samsung Jet aka Samsung Jet S8000 mobile phone was announced at a series of global launch events in London, Dubai and Singapore. It was one of the highlights at the Communicasia 2009 exhibition and I was able to try out actual production models. Samsung showed off its deep pockets this round with practically one booth babe standing next to each phone on display, ready to explain to you all about the phones, but that's not what people are really there for, is it? Oh wait ... :) Well, given where I work, I don't have a mobile phone camera with me, but this is from Hardwarezone to give you an idea :

"You know about the AMOLED display?" mine asked. "Yes, Active Matrix OLED," I said, because the full acronym of Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode would have been a mouthful and I was trying to get a feel for the phone. Yes, the phone. Honest. I mentioned that I was right there, at Communicasia 2003, at the same Singapore Expo location, looking at the first OLED display prototypes, and that I had waited some 6 years for OLED to actually be put into mobile phones for sale. "Oh I didn't know that", my booth babe said. It would have been a little too geeky to talk about the issues of the blue OLED lifespan, response time, and how individual pixel addressability eliminated the need for a backlight leading to 40% lower energy consumption compared to TFT-LCD and a much slimmer display profile, n'est-ce pas? Rest my case. So I left it at that.

So this is my Samsung Jet review with an actual production model, of which 2 million units are said to have been pre-ordered before the launch. According to the press release, the Samsung Jet enjoys the benefits of both advanced features of a smartphone and easy-to-use user interface of a conventional mobile phone, and the large banners outside the show proclaimed how the Samsung Jet phone is "Smarter than a smartphone". So we'll see about that.

First impressions of the Samsung Jet's 3.1-inch AMOLED display : it's fantastic. The 16-million colour WVGA 800x480 resolution display is fabulous, with the true deep blacks and rich vivid colours that OLED delivers in spades, together with a high resolution of 480dpi and a viewing angle of a full 180 degrees. This has been the promise of OLED all along and it was great to be able to see the actual device in hand. The touch screen is pretty responsive and applications opened and closed snappily enough.

Samsung Jet vs Apple iPhone comparison :

With the Samsung Jet, though Apple iPhone users may sniff at the comparison, I'd say first-hand, first-impressions-wise it actually does do its bit to give the iPhone a run for its money. The Samsung Jet even has a faster CPU to boot, with an 800MHz processor compared to the Apple iPhone 3GS's 600MHz and the earlier iPhone original and Apple iPhone 3G generation's 412MHz. Of course iPhone users will tell you that tech specs don't tell the whole story, it's the whole package with the UI and apps and such and of course the entire invisible Apple halo thing which can't be easily duplicated.

Application support is a potential issue for mobile developers wanting to write their own applications who might want to stick to the Apple iPhone or Google Android since all Samsung has promised is the ability to download around 30 self-developed online "widgets" from their website for such things as weather, news and search, though details of SDK and such have not been forthcoming. But if you're just a user and not an aspiring mobile developer, I'd suppose that's fine. Myself, I haven't installed that many apps on my own Nokia E51 S60/Series 60 Symbian phone, just a Tetris game and a Sega emulator which I play with only occasionally.

Samsung Jet user interface, Internet browser :

For the user interface, the Samsung Jet claims the TouchWiz 2.0 user interface, with motion UI, smart unlock, customizable widget screen and a multi-tasking manager. It supports Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync for push emails for both business users and consumers. The Samsung Jet also claims multi-window browsing to surf several web pages simultaneously, with up to five pages at a time.

For Internet browsing, it uses Samsung's Dolfin Internet browser. Avoiding Apple's patented multi-touch zoom technology which as they have pointed out requires the use of two fingers and two hands, the Samsung Jet supports a unique "one finger zoom" which enables one hand operation to zoom in and out not only for the Internet browser, but also for Photo browser and file viewer to see TXT, PDF and PPT files. It took a bit getting used to but once you get the hang of it, I'd suppose it would be a useful feature to have on the move, while holding it in one hand.

The Samsung Jet also has a "motion gate", which is a motion sensor that accesses multimedia and speed dialing by tapping, tilting or flipping the handset. The interesting feature that I was shown, which ought to be standard on all full touch-screen mobile phones, was the ability to enter text, whether an SMS message or whatever it is, in the usual phone-like T9 style in portrait mode, and when you turn it around to landscape mode, the keyboard transforms into a QWERTY keyboard. Pretty neat.

Samsung Jet GPS, camera, DIVX/XVID video :

The Samsung Jet has an A-GPS application that claims 3D map navigation, GPS on Google maps and location-Based Services, geo-tagging, and a compass, which I'd suppose is getting quite prevalent on mobile phones today.

The 5-megapixel camera seems to work well, even with the odd colours, lighting and white balance problems usually associated with trade show floors. There is still a bit of a colour tinge but it ought to be much better outdoors. From what can be seen on the display, the photos are pretty clear, and the video recording works reasonably well. It ain't no Canon Powershot SX1IS or Canon EOS 5D2 with 1080p Full HD video, but overall for a mobile phone, video playback and recording looks reasonably good.

To top it off, the Samsung Jet has DIVX and XVID video codec support, so I'd suppose you get to watch your favourite AVI videos on the go, which is a good idea if you have many of these to catch up on, such as a drama series or something, while on your daily commute on a bus or train.

Samsung Jet technical specifications :

Display : 3.1" 24-bit 16-million colors WVGA 800x480 AMOLED screen
Networks : EDGE/GPRS Class 12 (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz), HSDPA 3.6Mbps (900, 2100 MHz)
Camera : 5-megapixel camera AF Autofocus camera with Dual Power LED
Camera features : Face Detection, Smile Shot, Panorama Shot, Blink Detection, Geo-tagging, Photo Editor
GPS geolocation : Built-in GPS with A-GPS, On Board Navigation with 3D Map
Video recording/playback : 30fps video recording, MPEG4, H.263, H.264, WMV, DivX, XviD, Video Editor
Audio recording/playback : Music player with DNSe & SRS WOW, 3.5mm earphones jack, FM Radio/ Recording
Audio codecs : MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA, AMR, MIDI, SP-MIDI, i-melody, WAV, MMF, XMF
Internet browsing : Dolfin Internet Browser, WAP 2.0, One finger Zoom
User interface : TouchWiz 2.0, Motion UI, Media Gate 3D, Multi-tasking Manager
Application support : Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, Share Pix & Mobile Widget
Connectivity : Bluetooth 2.1, microUSB (USB v2.0 Hi-Speed), Wi-Fi
Processor : Samsung 6410 800MHz "Jet Engine" application processor
Memory : 2GB/8GB, External MicroSD slot (Up to 16GB)
Battery : 1,100 mAh
Talk time : 2G/492 minutes, 3G/300 minutes
Standby time : 2G/422 hours, 3G/406 hours
Size : 108.8 X 53.5 X 11.9 mm

Conclusion :

The Samsung Jet S8000 looks good, works well, performs smoothly, and comes with an entire boat-load of cutting-edge technological features. It is probably a bit early at the time of writing to declare it a runaway success but it does look set to be a rather popular model. If you're in the market for a fully-featured phone and as a user you don't really mind the proprietary OS as compared to a mobile developer who would be setting his sights on something along the lines of a Symbian-, iPhone-, Android-, Windows Mobile-something or the other, the Samsung Jet with its sleek form factor, good looks, fantastic display and fully-loaded feature set makes a pretty compelling pitch as the touch-screen mobile phone of choice.

(2009-06-23 13:35:19 SGT) [Tech] Permalink

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