Samsung S8300 Ultra Touch
Samsung’s on a roll with this, the Ultra Touch being the third mobile handset bearing an 8 megapixel camera lens. They’ve gone with an amalgamation of form factors with this one – it has a touchscreen like the Pixon and it’s also a slider like the INNOV8. The 2.6-inch AMOLED capacitive touchscreen features a 240 x 400 pixel resolution with 16 million colors and a built in accelerometer and sensor. The display is also scratch resistant and very responsive.
The most startling aspect of this phone, however, is the AMOLED display. Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode is part of the OLED family of technologies we’ve seen emerge in televisions recently. One of the main advantages to using AMOLED displays is that the screen is viewable from almost any angle, so you don’t need to hold the phone right in front of your face to see it clearly. At 12.9mm the UltraTouch is only millimetres thicker than the slimmest touchscreens in market at this time, though it has what most don’t: a numeric keypad hidden under a sliding mechanism. This gives you the choice to type your messages with real buttons or by using the on-screen virtual keyboard. The slider mechanism is brilliant, it moves smoothly to open and close and doesn’t rattle loosely at all. Opening the slider also reveals the 8-megapixel camera and its LED photolight flash as well.
Most of what makes this phone exciting is due to its design; the screen, camera and controls. Under the hood is a standard range of top-end phone hardware including HSDPA and Wi-Fi. In Australia there will be two variations on the dual-band 3G radios, one featuring 900/2100MHz compatibility and an 850MHz version for Telstra customers. It also features a GPS receiver, but the review unit we’ve seen doesn’t include a dedicated navigation software, only Google Maps for location searches.
The video player couldn’t be simpler to use, which automatically goes into full-screen mode when you turn the phone on the side. Videos in a variety of formats look fantastic on the AMOLED display. While there’s no 3.5mm headphone socket on the UltraTouch, Samsung has chucked an adapter in the box with a pair of very decent headphones as well. The adapter also doubles as the FM radio antenna for dialling into your favourite radio analog station. The new Samsung S8300 UltraTOUCH Phone is available at price of Rs.24,900 in India.