Samsung's D600 builds on the success of the
D500, voted the best phone of 2005 by the GSM Association, by
brightening up the screen, adding a 2-megapixel camera, a
Transflash memory card slot for up to 512MB of storage and a TV
output.
Slider phones have become quite popular this year, with the D600's predecessor, the Samsung D500, winning the GSM Association's coveted 'Best Handset' award. Samsung is no stranger to sliders; we've seen the Korean company continue to improve the form factor during its evolution from the D410 and the E800. Mobile phone giant Nokia, a relative newcomer to the concept of slide designs, announced four slider phones at CommunicAsia earlier this year; its premium 8800 silver slider was released soon after.
Design
Sitting the D600 beside the D500, you'd be hard pressed to tell
them apart when they're both switched off. However, on powering
up the D600, it is undeniable that the screen is brighter and
more colourful. The D600 has a matte, rubber-like grip on the
back and sides when compared to its predecessor's shiny and
fingerprint-prone case. That's not to say the D600 is immune from
smudges; the large 262K-colour display quickly becomes a little
blurry if you use your thumb to slide out the keypad.
Weighing in at 103g is quite adequate for a slider phone
measuring 96 x 46.5 x 21.5mm. These dimensions make it slightly
bigger than the D500, but with the additions and improvements, we
can forgive Samsung for the extra millimetre or so.
Below the 5cm LCD, and accessible when the slider is closed, is a navigation pad, two shortcuts, call, end and cancel keys. On the left-hand side of the D600 is a volume rocker and TransFlash memory card slot, while down the right side is a camera shortcut beside a slide back cover for the TV out port. The slide-open mechanism of the D600 is spring-loaded, so a little push will flick the top half all the way out.
Features
Sporting a top-notch 2-megapixel digital camera, the D600 lets
you take photos up to 1600 x 1200 pixels. But Samsung doesn't
finish up there with photo features. There is a flash next to the
camera, which, unlike the D500, is housed on the bottom half of
the slider, so you can shoot with the phone closed. Single photo
mode allows for automatic saving of photos; alternatively, you
can opt to review your shots before taking more. Six, nine or
fifteen images can be taken in multi-shot mode at a rate of about
two photos per second, in either normal or high resolution. The
mode we liked best is called Mosaic, where you can choose from
fifteen templates that comprise several layers each, where a
photo is taken and dropped onto each layer.
The usual array of effects can be applied to single photos, such as sepia, negative and B&W, but Samsung also adds Moonlight and Fog effects, which give a dark Lord Of The Rings-when-Frodo-puts-on-the-ring-style look and misty glow to photos, respectively. A timer mode rounds out the D600's camera settings, allowing you a little bit longer to set up self-portraits, which are assisted by a mirror next to the lens.
A first we've seen at ZDNet.com.au is the inclusion of an A/V output on a mobile phone. Using the same proprietary connector as the headphones, you attach one end of the supplied A/V cable to the side of the D600 and the other into composite video and stereo audio connections on your TV or projector. Once connected, the D600's screen goes blank and the phone's display is routed to the TV. Samsung includes the Picsel Viewer for Microsoft Office documents, such as Word, Powerpoint and Excel files, JPEG images, text, HTML and PDF files, but during our tests we found it very hard to read fine print on the low-resolution output (320 x 240 pixels). It's certainly not going to replace your 1600 x 1200-pixel laptop for important business meetings -- not only is the resolution shocking, but we found no clues as to how to navigate through documents as no guides appear on the screen. It's also possible to hook up the D600 up to a sound system using the stereo audio jacks, which produced rich quality sound during our tests using it as a portable MP3 player.
The Java games on the D600 include a cute platformer called Forgotten Warrior in which you collect keys, fight ghouls and collect items; a soccer goal-shooting game called Freekick; and a fighter pilot game called Arch Angel. Other applications include an MP3 player, voice recorder, world clock, stopwatch, alarm, calculator, timer and converter. There's also an image editor where you can apply most of the camera effects mentioned above to photos stored in memory. The D600 has 72MB of internal memory and Samsung provides a 64MB Transflash memory card in the box for additional storage (expandable up to 512MB).
Performance
MP3s come through loud and crystal clear on Samsung's supplied
stereo headphones, which doubles as a handsfree headset for
calls. An inline remote control for music would have been a
welcome addition, although the large navigation pad on the front
of the phone is easy enough to use to change songs. Classic, Rock
and Jazz equaliser presets are onboard but are subtle tweaks
compared to the over-the-top 3D sound effect, which makes it
sound like you're standing in the middle of a large warehouse
party with sound bouncing unevenly off every wall. Although not
as robust as the Sony Ericsson W800i's MP3 player, the D600 does
a good job and allows you to store music into four different
albums.
Images taken with the D600's 2-megapixel camera came out focused and clear, although we did experience graininess and noise in some low-light conditions. Videos can also be captured in MP4 format up to 352 x 288 pixels, although for some reason we weren't able to play these back on our test PC.
When the D600 is running low on power, i.e. the battery status indicator is flashing, the screen dims and functions such as MP3 playing and Java applications become unavailable -- to conserve the remaining juice. We averaged about three day's use of the D600 between charges, with intermittent use of Bluetooth, Java games and MP3 playback.
All things considered, we would recommend the D600 to anyone that likes this style of handset. It is quite compact, easy to familiarise yourself with, and has a 2-megapixel camera that is up there with the best of them. If you're just looking for a decent camera phone, check out the Sony Ericsson K750i and the recently announced 3-megapixel Sharp 903, the latter available only on Vodafone's 3G network.
Samsung D600
Company: Samsung
Price: AU$879
Phone: 1300 369 600
1. MP3 player: I bought a 512mb card because one of my main goals was to have a phone that was also my mp3 player. Problem is, the phone's software forces the songs to be placed into 4 "albums." You can only hear 1 album at a time and can only have 30 songs in an album. Therefore, you can only shuffle between 30 songs at a time. This is MAJOR design flaw. Also, there are no control functions on the headset, which would have been simple to integrate (as there is already a button on it for the hands-free function) and would have been a nice feature, especially considering it's included on the competitions' phones.
2. Rings: The phone can't ring and vibrate at the same time. How annoying is that!!! The closest thing is vibrate and THEN ring, but by the time you hear the ring (if the phone is, say, across the room) it has already rung several times. I don't understand this. It's simply bad design.
I have other minor complaints, but I don't wnat to go into them right now. Suffice to say, this phone looks very pretty, and is an impressive piece of hardware, but in my opinion these traits are all but negated by the profound lack of attention to detail of the software designers.