REVIEW | SAMSUNG PIXON M8800
The Samsung Pixon will create quite a buzz in India with its 8-megapixel auto focus camera. The company claims that this is the slimmest 8-megapixel camera phone. The Pixon takes excellent pictures and users can keep themselves entertained by playing music on it.
The phone comes with a large 3.2” TFT touchscreen with Samsung’s TouchWiz User Interface. Viewing can be done in both portrait and landscape modes. The TouchWiz UI is one of the best interfaces. On the front panel, on top of the screen are the ear piece, light sensor and the secondary videocall camera. At the bottom of the screen are the call buttons, back and the power/exit menu buttons. The call button opens the call log, while the back button takes users a step back. The power/exit button brings them to the home screen directly.
The top of the Samsung Pixon has a multifunction jack for USB connectivity, charging and handsfree. This is a big disadvantage, as users cannot use any thing else while charging the phone. The left side has a microSD expansion slot, which supports up to an 8 GB card. Below is the button for application switch key and for hold. Once pressed, the hold button locks the screen. On the right of the phone are the camera buttons. The zooming rocker is on top. It also doubles as the volume rocker. Below that is the display button, which shows all clicked pictures. This is followed by the camera button.
The menu is simple, user-friendly and easy to recognize. The quick menu on the right of the screen gives users quick access to some of the most common functions on the menu. These quick menus can be dragged and dropped into the homescreen to activate the function. Accessing the photo gallery is fun, as the phone recognises which side it is tilted to (when viewed in landscape mode). As expected the QWERTY keypad is exceptionally accurate.
All about the camera
The Samsung Pixon’s camera is located at the back with a XENON flash on the top left corner and the loudspeaker on the top right. The 8-megapixel camera has 13 scene modes. Users can use them according to their needs: portrait, sports, fireworks, text and document. The shooting mode has multiple modes -- from single to continuous and panorama shots. The shooting mode also includes mosaic mode, fun frames and smile shot.
The camera can be set to seven resolutions ranging from 400x240 at 0.1-megapixel to 3264x2448 at 8-megapixel. Multiple effects can be added from black and white to emboss, negative effects to water colour effects.
The camera also has ISO settings that range from Auto to 100 and go up to 1600. It also features the anti-shake and blink detection features. It has the geo-tagging feature that allows users to tag their location using GPS. The camera has three focus modes: auto focus, macro and face detection.
Overall, the camera is one of the best we have seen so far. But the zeon flash consumes a lot battery within a few shots. However, without the flash the battery consumption is nominal. An optical zoom like the G800 could have been a good bet for the Pixon.
The Pixon also has good video recording capabilities -- the best we have seen. The recording resolution goes from 176x144 to 720x480. The device can record videos in three modes: normal, MMS and slow motion. Resolutions are fixed depending on the video recording modes. For example, for MMS the resolution is 176x144 and for slow motion it is 320x240. In case of normal recording the resolution can be set to the highest at 720x480 in MP4 format.
Entertainment box
The Samsung Pixon features an excellent speaker with Surround Sound System (SRS) virtual 5.1 channel giving a full blast of quality sound. The video quality is one of the best so far. It supports DivX, Xvid and MP3 player-3D sound (DNse and SRS) formats. The phone has an internal memory of 200 MB, which can be expanded up to 8 GB. It’s FM reception and voice recording features are quite good.
Onboard games like Tumbling Dice, Brain Challenge, Diamond Twister, Millionaire 3 and PyramidBloxx are based entirely on touch and motion detection. These are trial versions and more games can be purchased.
Connectivity
The Samsung Pixon has the best connectivity. Its Bluetooth pairing with other devices is excellent. GPRS can be accessed well as long as there is a strong network. The Google Maps feature is very accurate and speedy with EDGE. The lack of Wi-Fi is a big drawback.
Alternatively
Overall the Samsung Pixon is a price approximately at Rs 25,000 and is one of the best camera phones at this price value. Other expected alternatives include the Sony Ericsson C905 for Rs 31,000 and the Samsung Innov8 for Rs 43,000.
Tech Specs
Size: 107.9 x 54.6 x 13.8 mm
Weight: 121 g
Memory: 200MB, microSD (8GB)
Battery: 1000 mAh Li-ion
Screen: 256K colors/3.2" WQVGA
Talktime/Standby: 3.4hours/290hours
Bluetooth/Wi-Fi: y/n
Phonebook Capacity: 1000
Camera: 8.0-megapixel
Frequency: UMTS 2100, GSM (850/900/1800/1900)
Others: Built-in GPS receiver, Camera geo-tagging, auto-panorama shot, FM radio
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