The announcement of Samsung G810 must have had many a geek's heart skip a few beats. The handset has all but the kitchen sink and there's Symbian under the hood. Now, we just had to test it, right? So, get your pulse back to normal and stay with us as we check if the Samsung G810 has the performance to back up those marvelous specs.

5 megapixel camera with auto focus and 3x optical zoom

Symbian OS with S60 user interface

2.6" 256K-color TFT LCD display with QVGA resolution

Wi-Fi

Built-in GPS receiver

3G capabilities with HSDPA support

Xenon flash

330MHz TI OMAP processor

130MB of internal memory plus a microSD card slot

3.5 mm stereo audio jack

Bluetooth and USB v2.0

TV-out functionality

Great metallic design

Large size

Awkward keypad

Tri-band only

Poor sunlight legibility

Xenon flash is disappointing

Optical zoom reduces picture quality noticeably

It's pretty obvious Samsung G810 is having a go at Nokia N95 8GB. We're yet to see about how timely an attempt it is and if the top dog is to fear dethronement. G810 tops the Nokia feature pack with xenon flash, lens cover and face detection. Let's not forget the 3x optical zoom, which is still enough of a rarity. All this comes at the expense of a tad smaller screen: Samsung G810 features a 2.6-inch display, while Nokia N95 8GB has a 2.8-inch one.

Other potential market rivals of the best-equipped Samsung to date are the Nokia N95 classic and Nokia N82. Sony Ericsson G900 could also sneak into the bunch of contenders. With a few other interesting names yet to hit the shelves, users are in for some exciting high-end hustle-and-bustle.

Samsung G810 owners should know better than to expect to leave onlookers in awe. A looker it is, full metal casing and all, but size is really unsettling. Its dimensions of 103 x 52.9 x 17.9 mm do fail to tell the whole story. And even if it's the Nokia N95 story, the Samsung looks much bulkier. Anyway, squeezing any of those heavy-weighters into a pocket is quite a feat.

The video call camera is located in the upper right corner of the front panel. The earpiece/loudspeaker grill is placed dead center. The ample 2.6" display is next, along with the D-pad and the surrounding controls will get their due attention later in our review.

The left side of Samsung G810 is rather crowded. The list starts with the lanyard eyelet right under the top edge. Under it is the Power key, which is also used for changing the currently active profile. The 3.5 mm audio jack under a protection cap is next in line. We would have preferred it at the top. The last thing on the left of Samsung G810 is the microUSB slot - the same one as used in some latest Nokia phones.

It's strange that Samsung have chosen a universal port of the microUSB variety for their flagship smartphone as this type is still quite rare.

If you want to buy a spare charger, say for your car, you will have much more trouble finding one of those. This however may change in the near future as more and more phones are using such slots.

The volume rocker is placed on the right side of Samsung G810. It is just above the microSD card slot. The last control here is the dedicated camera key, which this time is much more comfortable than the one on its predecessor Samsung G800.

The top and the bottom of the phone are almost completely plain, save for the microphone pinhole on the lower end of the handset.

The back panel is naturally dominated by the 5 megapixel camera. Complete with auto focus and xenon flash, the camera is hidden under a nice metallic cover. It's an active lens cover and sliding it turns the camera on.

Opening the battery cover of Samsung G810 reveals the 1200 mAh battery. We didn't spend enough time with the handset to be of help on battery life. There are no official standby and talk time estimates either. All we can say at this stage is that the battery of Samsung G810 has the same capacity as the one of Nokia N95 8GB.

As far as the build quality of Samsung G810 is concerned, we have every reason to cheer. The phone looks sturdy and has a nice solid feel in hand. Besides, weight is not always a disadvantage when it goes with high-quality materials.

The display of Samsung G810 can hardly be called anything but typical Samsung. It has great picture quality indoors with good contrast and brightness levels.

However in brightly sunlit environments the legibility is severely reduced. It is still better than Samsung G800 with its glossy front panel but not by a large margin. It's very hard to find a proper angle for working with the phone in those conditions.

The keypad is probably the most disappointing element in Samsung G810. It looks good at first, with large keys and distinguishable borders. However every nice impression is gone the very moment you start typing.

The keys are overly rigid, the problem being most obvious with the two keys inside the metal frame - 5 and 8. Almost impossible to press and offering absolutely inadequate feedback, using them is quite a pain. The totally flat keypad has poor overall tactility, making typos very probable.

The four controls around the D-pad are another story. The key under the left softkey is the menu key but the customary Symbian symbol is nowhere to be seen. The key on the opposite side is used for accessing the audio and video players and the FM radio. We can't help missing pictograms on those keys, even if it would have somewhat spoiled the looks.

The red and green receiver keys are well hidden: they were dismissed to the lower deck and share beds with the alphanumeric keys. That's an understandable solution, which however doesn't prove that convenient. In fact, we couldn't help getting annoyed with it during the time we had with the device.

The only ray of light in the otherwise dismal picture is the D-pad. Its ample size and commendable tactility greatly benefit usability. In addition, the confirming center is also large enough and quite responsive.

The backlighting is strong, although not the most even we've seen. It is still usable enough in the dark, causing no problems whatsoever.

We should once again warn you here that ours was a beta unit so the keypad might be altered in the retail version. The keypads of the units we tested at the MWC in Barcelona were different, so we sincerely hope a much needed change will be made to get a usable result.

Symbian muscle and multimedia riches aside, the top end G810 will still be used for calling. As you may have guessed Samsung G810 didn't let us down. Signal strength is good and voice quality is fine on both ends of a call.

Samsung G810 is running on the Symbian 9.2 OS and uses the well known S60 3rd edition graphic user interface. The Feature Pack 1 also comes pre-installed. In fact, the OS is probably the most obvious difference from Samsung G800.

It's worked out well here - Samsung G810 is really quick and responsive. The icons are also quite nice. They are the same as in Samsung i450 and we happen to like them a bit better than those of Nokia phones using the same UI. However, the Feature Pack 2 that we saw in the newly announced Nokia handsets in Barcelona was really promising.

As a Symbian device, Samsung G810 naturally features an active stand-by mode. You have a bar of shortcut icons for instant access to pre-selected functions at the top of the display, and scheduled events from the calendar together with the currently playing track or radio station (if there is any) underneath.

When choosing items for the Active Standby, you can choose any application or even a website. The functionality of the two soft keys is configurable too. Another standby screen feature that we really like is the Google search bar which gives you instant access to the search engine.

The phone has 5 profiles plus an offline mode that switches off all transceivers. It is also the default profile if you start the handset without a SIM card. The offline mode allows full access to the functions of the phone that do not require cellular network coverage. The other profiles can easily be edited to best suite your needs.

As with any other S60 smartphone, the task manager of Samsung G810 pops up upon a press-and-hold on the Menu key. It allows switching between applications or turning off any running application by pressing the Clear key. That leads us to another peculiar design decision: the C key is keeping company to the Call and End keys under the slider.

There are only two different menu views for the G810 but they are practically what the majority is using. Whether the icons will appear as a 4 x 3 grid of icons, or as a list, is completely up to the user.

Finally, Samsung G810 has a voice recognition feature to supposedly allow using almost every phone feature handsfree. This is however easier said than done as, despite being speaker independent, the systems doesn't even come close to recognizing every user command. It's still at a decent level though and, given the beta status of our unit, this may as well be not its last word.

If you get bored with the phone looks, you can always change the theme. There isn't a great variety of preinstalled themes on Samsung G810 but all three we found are good enough.

What's best about the customization options is that there is nothing easier than downloading additional themes. There is hardly anything in greater number on the internet than themes for S60 3rd edition phones of QVGA resolution displays.

Typical Symbian device, Samsung G810 offers a phonebook with practically unlimited capabilities. The number of entries is only limited by the available memory, which means that you will have no problems even with thousands of contacts.

The contacts can be ordered by first or last name, depending on the user preferences. Naturally, they can also be searched by gradual typing of the desired name. The phone will search in both first and last name fields, as well as additional names in those fields. This means that even if a contact has a really complicated name, you will have no problem finding it provided you remember at least a part of it.

While editing a contact, you can select from a huge number of preset fields, which you can repeat as many times as you like. There is no way any information about the contact will have to be left out. You can attach as many numbers as you like to each contact as well. Finally, if by some very rare coincidence, you happen to need a field that doesn't exist, you can always use one of the existing ones and simply rename it.

The Call log department has always been a strong side of Symbian smartphones too. The Samsung G810 makes no exception, offering detailed information of all your communications for the past 30 days. It stores all the calls, messages and even data transfers for that period. You can also reduce the amount of saved data but it doesn't use up that much space so such a choice is unlikely.

There is also a more convenient way to access your latest calls. In standby you can press the call key and three tabs appear on the screen. Each of them holds up to 20 missed or received calls or dialed numbers.

If you are a heavy texter, the S60 user interface might just be your best friend. The messaging menu is really well organized and generally a pleasure to work with. However, with a keypad like the one on Samsung G810, texting is hardly something to look forward to.

The SMS editor is a very intuitive and easy to use application. It has a counter of the characters left to the limit of 160. There is also an indicator in brackets showing the number of separate parts the message will be divided into for sending if that limit is exceeded. If you are exiting the message editor without having sent the message, the editor offers to either save it to the drafts folder or delete it.

Naturally, a delivery report can be activated if the user prefers. The reports pop up on the standby screen, and are consequently saved in a separate folder in the messaging sub-menu. This is one of the best ways to deal with the reports we have come to know.

The MMS editor is almost identical to the one just described. It has an added line for subject and of course the option for inserting multimedia content in it.

Finally, there is also an audio message editor. If, by any rare chance, you want to create an audio message you might find this editor interesting. The editor can either record the message right away or use a previously recorded sound clip. Still, the last time we checked audio messages were simply a type of MMS so it isn't actually that much of a help.

The great email client won't surprise anyone who has ever used a Symbian-powered phone. It has support for POP3 and IMAP protocols and can download headers only, as well as the whole messages. There is also support for attachments, so with Samsung G810 you will have no trouble meeting almost any emailing requirement.

Our overall impression is that despite the good software part, the Samsung G810 isn't fit to be a texting-friendly device at this stage. We may only hope that the keypad will be somewhat improved but the revolutionary change that is needed seems unlikely. So all in all, future owners better not put their trust in Samsung G810 for the quickest typo-free messages.

Samsung G810's music player looks exactly like on other Symbian 3rd edition devices. It can either be accessed from the menu or from the dedicated key on the right of the D-pad.

It is surely not the most attractive application in terms of looks but it is as capable as any other music player out there. As usual, there is support for a huge number of audio formats including MP3, AAC, eAAC+ and WMA. M3U playlists are also managed flawlessly and files are automatically added to the music library once downloaded to the phone.

Tracks can easily be transferred to the phone via Bluetooth, USB or by simply downloading them from the internet. Upon completing a USB transfer, the phone automatically prompts scanning for new music tracks and, if allowed to do so, adds the new ones to the music library. You can sort tracks based on their artist, album, genre and composer.

Another thing to mention is that Samsung G810 also supports the A2DP Bluetooth profile. Not that we can remember the last phone reviewed here that doesn't. This means that you are able to play your favorite tracks on stereo Bluetooth headphones. We had no problem pairing Samsung G810 with a third party headset.

Samsung G810 comes with Real player and Flash player preinstalled. The videos can be displayed in both portrait and landscape mode according to the user's preferences. You can also switch to full screen to make better use of the ample display. In fullscreen, the Softkey labels are hidden, so they don't stand in the way, and only pop up when a key is pressed. The great picture quality is also benefiting the video watching experience greatly.

As for the Flash player - there is nothing special to note. It plays them flash files, no bangs and whistles.

If you get bored with the preinstalled content on your Samsung G810 you can always turn the radio on. The FM radio can automatically scan and save the available stations in your area. If it wasn't for the missing RDS, it might have just been as good as it gets.

Being able to listen to your favorite tracks is one thing but playing them properly is something completely different. It is therefore important that a high-end device such as Samsung G810 have good audio output quality. Besides, its main rival - the Nokia N95 8GB is really failing to deliver in that department, so it's a welcome opportunity to earn some points.

We were surprised to see that the G810 results weren't the best Samsung can pull off. In fact it is completely identical to what Samsung G800 was capable of. Now, don't get us wrong: they are still very good and outdoing most handsets. However, we have seen a few Samsung phones perform better than that and we are wondering why the top-of-the-shelf G810 isn't as gifted. This of course may change in the final version of the handset.

Samsung G810 lacks the 3D rotating gallery of Nokia N-series smartphones and we find this somewhat disappointing. With the G810 we were only left with the list view for displaying images and videos. Not that it makes any improvements to functionality but sometimes it's the interface that makes the difference.

Other than that the gallery is good. It allows viewing pictures in both normal and full screen mode. Once you pick a picture you can zoom on it for greater detail. The actual zooming and panning thing is quite fast, as should be in a multimedia handset.

The gallery offers good file-managing capabilities allowing selection and sending of multiple files. In addition to that, the smartphone has the usual file manager that does a very good job. It allows filtering files according to the memory used as well as marking, moving, copying single or multiple files at a time.

There is also an Application manager to take care of the installed applications on Samsung G810. It is very familiar, consistent across Symbian S60 3rd edition devices. Its purpose is to keep track of the installed and removed programs on you phone and facilitate uninstalling of unwanted programs. It does that job pretty well too.

Regretfully, the Samsung handsets have no feature similar to the "Search" application we found on Nokia phones. This means you have to spend a little extra time organizing your files and applications, unless you want to end up in a mess. Anyways, there are a bunch of third-party applications, available for download that can do this job.

Another thing we are missing is the WLAN wizard plug in which greatly facilitates using the Wi-Fi. It makes connecting to nearby hotspots a piece of cake. Instead with Samsung G810 you have to do a bit more work, navigating through a couple more menus. This application is also available for download but its compatibility with Samsung G810 is not guaranteed.

The camera is one of the key elements of Samsung G810. It brings xenon flash and 3x optical zoom, which are both rare enough features, reserved exclusively for high-end gadgets. Add auto focus and face detection, and you get camera performance at its present best.

The camera interface isn't the same as in other Symbian Samsung phones. Instead it is almost identical to the one of Samsung G800. The toolbar layout is the best solution here and we are more than pleased with it.

Some of the more important settings are picture size, shooting mode (single shot, multi-shot, mosaic, and frame), effects (black and white, sepia, negative etc.), white balance and face detection.

The face detection feature itself works pretty well and is even capable of recognizing several faces simultaneously.

The submenu for general camera settings includes wide dynamic range, anti-shake, picture quality and ISO settings. Exposure metering is also configurable and auto focus can be switched off if necessary.

Regarding connectivity, Samsung G810 is among the most tempting offers around. USB connectivity is truly seamless, as with any other Symbian device. In addition you also get Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, which should take care of all your wireless data transfer needs. The card slot is also an option with the good data transfer rate they offer.

The network connectivity is also at the expected high level with GPRS, EDGE and 3G all covered. HSDPA is also in the package. The only thing missing is the Infrared port, but we doubt it anyone is using that anymore.

As you probably know, we do appreciate Symbian web browsing. No wonder we find the Samsung G810 great at that.

Browsing the internet with Samsung G810 is a pleasure. No matter how elaborate the web page, it fits perfectly on the screen and looks almost exactly like on a PC. The virtual mouse cursor earns the handset another point. It is easy to control and generally works great. A mini-map can be activated to help finding your way around large sites where lots of scrolling is required. The zoom level is also adjustable at the expense of only a few key presses.

The calendar in Samsung G810 has three different types of view - monthly, weekly and daily, and four types of events available for scheduling - Meeting, Memo, Anniversary and To-do. Every event has its own unique fields and some allow an alarm to be activated at a preset time to act as a reminder.

The mobile office applications are also duly covered. The preinstalled applications are able to open Word and Excel files trouble-free. There is also a PDF reader in the package. However, as with the other Symbian devices, Samsung G810 has no support for editing documents out-of-the-box. You will need to purchase the full version of the office application if you are to do that.

The other included organizing and time-management applications are: a state of the art unit converter and calculator, as well as a Notes application. There is of course also a convenient voice recorder. (recording length is up to an hour).

Finally come alarms. You can set up a virtually unlimited number of alarms on your Samsung G810. Furthermore, each of these can have its own name, activation day and repeat pattern. You can also adjust the snooze time.

No games were found on our Samsung G810 but this may not hold true for the retail version of the handset. Besides, there is a huge number of games for the Symbian phones all over the internet.

The final interesting feature of Samsung G810 is the built-in GPS. The chip is not the most sensitive we have seen and needs quite a lot of time to get a satellite lock. Tall buildings around are making the situation even worse. We are only hoping that the built-in receiver will be improved, although frankly, we are not expecting miracles of it.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to test the Navigon software that is supposed to come prebundled in the final version of Samsung G810. It wasn't available in our unit but, as far as we know, Navigon will be worth it. The company has enough experience in navigation software development, so we are quite sure that the mobile application will be at a decent level. Besides, with the smartphone capabilities you can always go for a third party alternative if you prefer.

To begin with, it is quite obvious that Samsung are a bit late releasing the G810. It has been six months since Nokia N95 8GB hit the shelves and the N82 has been around for about five. It's quite likely that most geeks that are after a loaded handset have already sealed a deal. Another problem with the Samsung G810 is that its estimated retail price of 560 euro is by a good 110 euro more than what you would pay for a Nokia N95 8GB. We somehow cannot see how it deserves that extra pocket digging.

On the other hand, Samsung G810 has a unique optical zoom feature and is probably the sleekest looking among them all-but-the-kitchen-sink devices out there. It has the performance and snappy user interface, which is probably what's most important in such a phone. If it wasn't for the awkward keypad, we would totally call it better than its market rivals. With this issue in mind though, we'll refrain from such a statement. There is however nothing to stop us from admitting that we did like the handset. So if value-for-money is not high on your agenda, Samsung G810 is definitely a tempting offer.