The SGH-i550W is not Samsung's first Symbian S60 phone. In fact,
there have been a number of models, such as the SGH-i520 in 2006 and
the SGH-D730/SGH-D720
in 2005, but these were mainly for the European markets. Two years on,
the Korean chaebol is once again bringing the S60 platform to some of
its handsets. Two recent ones are the SGH-i450 and the SGH-i550W which
we are reviewing.The good: Strong set of features including GPS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth stereo; 3.5mm audio jack; microSD expansion card slot; bundled in-car charger and holder.
The bad: Trackball not sensitive enough in Web browser and map software; no option to search for Wi-Fi connection in Web browser access point setup.
The bottom line: The SGH-i550W has several things going for it, including a strong feature set matched with an attractive price and bundled accessories. But the implementation of both the software and hardware (trackball) has room for improvement.
For most people in the know, Nokia has been using S60 in its Nseries multimedia phones. With Samsung now joining the fray, things will likely become more interesting in the near future as this gives S60 loyalists another mobile phone brand to choose from.
Design
Samsung is great at coming up with
head-turning handset designs, but the i550W happens not to be one of
those. Instead, it takes a very conservative approach with a black
casing with gray strip running round the sides, traces of metallic
silver for a sophisticated look, a textured back casing that doesn't
attract smudges, and the right size for a robust grip in hand.
The 2.5-inch QVGA screen takes up almost half the phone's
front, so it's inevitable that something else has to give. Our concerns
were initially with the longish and thin alphanumeric keys which remind
us of the ones on the Nokia N82 and Sony Ericsson W880i.
Fortunately, our worries were unfounded. Although the keys are smaller
compared with the traditional rectangular buttons, these are
well-spaced-out and provide decent tactile feedback.
The most unique implementation on the i550W is the trackball
which replaces the standard directional pad. Its role is to save us
from clicking by rolling to the desired point on the screen with a
swiping motion. The flipside is we now have less precise control over
the navigation compared with using the D-pad. On the i550W, we
recommend increasing the sensitivity of the trackball to its maximum
limit as anything less hampers the user experience.
While the trackball has a novelty appeal, it doesn't work that
well in the Web browser and the Navfone map application. That was when
we wished the trackball was an option instead as it was a pain to
scroll across a larger area of the screen. With a hardware directional
pad, pressing and holding down a button usually does the job. But with
the trackball, we had to make repetitive swipes in the same direction.
Quite the opposite, the trackball on the BlackBerry Curve 8320
performed significantly better and felt a lot more responsive than the
one on the i550W.
The i550W comes with a 3.5mm audio port and that is on the top
edge of the set covered by a protector. This lets us plug in our
headset from the top, so there won't be anything protruding along the
sides when the phone is in our pocket. Elsewhere, there's a microSD
expansion card slot on the left and a connector port behind a sliding
door on the right.
GPS and Web browser
Previously, users who wanted onboard GPS on their phones had only Nokia to choose from.
Now they have an additional option. The i550W uses the Agis NavFone
mapping solution. Retail units will come bundled with a 1GB microSD
card with the application and maps (Singapore, Johor Bahru, Malazza,
Klang Valley and Kuala Lumpur).
Unlike Nokia's GPS handsets which already have the Maps
software installed and ready for use, users will need to select the
installation file on the flash memory to install both the application
and maps themselves on the i550W. While that wouldn't require a rocket
scientist to perform the task, it made us wonder us why Samsung
couldn't save users the additional step involved. With regard to map
updates, Samsung says users will be able to download map updates
without incurring additional costs within a year after registration.
The license key (which also includes turn-by-turn real-time navigation)
is valid for as long as the handset is operational.
The GPS feature generally worked fine during our review and
took approximately 15 seconds to achieve a lock on our position with
A-GPS enabled. Unlike the A-GPS implementation on the Nokia GPS
handsets which offload some of the computational work to the cell phone
towers, the i550W equipped with Qualcomm's GPSOne Xtra uses Qualcomm's
own servers for receiving data on the chipset to get a faster lock-on
timing. This data file, estimated to be 10Kb in size, is activated
separately from the NavFone software and requires an update every seven
days.
Our only gripe is that the GPS button on the i550W doesn't
activate the navigation software, which is probably what most people
would use with the feature. Instead, it brings up the generic GPS data
application that shows information like trip distance and position.
There are other useful features on the NavFone such as SMS
Position and Where Are You options even though their uses are somewhat
limited at this stage. Ideally, the SMS Position function should not
only send the latitude and longitude coordinates to the receiver, but
also offer the user an option to view the position on the map software.
We tried it with the Samsung SGH-i780
that was loaded with the NavFone app and found that not to be the case.
Instead, the receiving end got only the numeric coordinates via a text
message. Likewise, the same happened for the Where Are You feature.
Overall, while the NavFone application appears somewhat to be
a more useful map application out of the box, Nokia Maps has slightly
nicer graphics on its interface. No doubt, if Samsung could work out a
firmware upgrade to address the issues in the near future, it would
probably give the NavFone a slight edge.
As for the Web browser, there's the Mini Maps
feature--something which has made the browser on the Nokia S60 phones
very popular. There are just two matters to take note of: One is the
usability of the trackball as mentioned earlier. Two, there's no option
to search for a Wi-Fi access point from within the browser window.
Instead, users have to define the Wi-Fi access point separately from
the connection manager before the option will show up in the Access
Point window in the browser. This is a feature which is available on
the Nokia sets and no excuse for Samsung to leave it out.
Performance
The i550W uses a 1,200mAh cell which is rated for up to 7 hours of talktime and about 21 days on standby. We managed to get about 1.5 days of operational time with making calls, sending text messages, listening to music, using the Web browser and GPS navigation. When used outdoors under the sun, we noticed that the LCD appeared faded and screen legibility was poor. Otherwise, our review unit (with a 450MHz TI OMAP2431 processor) felt responsive during use and there's 128MB of RAM, of which 80MB is available to the user.One of the issues we encountered during our review was the installation of the Samsung PC Studio 7. We got an alert message that said "Installation found Nokia PC Suite on this computer. Because Samsung PC Studio 7 and Nokia PC Suite cannot function flawlessly in the same computer, installation was cancelled. To use Samsung PC Studio 7 in this computer, first uninstall Nokia PC Suite."
We did as instructed, but the problem didn't end there. We got another alert popup saying: "The version of PC Connectivity Solution already installed on this computer is newer than the one you are trying to install. Installation will not continue." The response from Samsung was that they found conflicts when the two software were residing on the same PC, though it didn't mention specifically what. So this is one to take note of if you were previously using the Nokia PC Suite with a Nokia handset.
Picture quality from the camera gave average results which would suffice as snapshots or for Web use. It's not possible to use the focus-and-recompose method with the i550W as the camera records the picture immediately after a focus lock. Pressing "*" on the numeric keypad will show a series of camera shortcut functions that could be helpful for changing certain settings on the fly.
Conclusion
Although the specifications of the i550W
give the handset a lot of headroom in an otherwise saturated market, we
can't help but feel that Samsung is still lacking in its implementation
of the S60 platform. In this aspect, Nokia, with its many years of
experience, no doubt has an edge over the i550W.
The i550W fits nicely in Samsung's portfolio of products and
is probably a sign of things to come. It's wonderfully priced (S$738
without contract) with an equally comprehensive set of bundled
accessories (in-car charger and in-car holder), and if you can live
with the limitations such as the quirky trackball that we mentioned, we
would recommend the handset for its features, if not its price.