Fascinating as they are, ultra high-end handsets are not everybody's cup of tea. In fact, the good old mid-range is the bread and butter for every successful mobile phone company, for that's what gets those sales numbers right. As we see it, Samsung i550 might just be the phone to perfectly fit this description. It doesn't yell expensive out loud, but has great all-round functionality and might just become tomorrow's classic.

2.6" 262K-color TFT display of QVGA resolution

3G with HSDPA

Trackball navigation

Built-in GPS receiver

Symbian OS with S60 user interface

Wi-Fi (Samsung i550w only)

3 megapixel camera with auto focus

MicroSD card slot

3.5mm stereo audio jack

FM radio

Decent battery life

Bluetooth with A2DP support

Tri-band GSM support only

Trackball is somewhat slow

No two-step shutter key

No Wi-Fi (Samsung i550)

A bit too conservative looks

Video recoding limited to QVGA resolution

Awkward soft key layout

No RDS

When first announced, the Samsung i550 had only one version and it crucially lacked Wi-Fi. However, just as it started hitting the shelves, a second WLAN enabled version named Samsung i550w popped up. 

The two versions have no other differences in terms of hardware or software. Anyway, the second version places Samsung i550 in a somewhat different league - handsets that have it (almost) all. It may not have the best camera or GPS receiver around but performs adequately in both departments and that is what really matters most of the time.

Right now the Samsung i550 seems to have no direct market rivals. It's considerably cheaper than Nokia N82 and N95, or Samsung G810, which makes any comparison unfair. Even the N95 classic costs more than what you would pay for a Samsung i550. All of these handsets have a number of extra features on top of what the i550 has to offer but, as we found out, they're all on par in terms of usability and user friendliness.

Nokia N78 is probably the most similarly equipped phone but we are yet to see its market release. Nokia haven't been so kind of supplying us with pre-release handsets for testing - a rather quirky marketing decision.

So for now, Samsung i550 is the only handset in this market niche and that seems a good enough stepping stone to success.

One last thing before the actual review gets going. The Samsung i550 we had for the test was a beta unit, some i-dotting and t-crossing short of being ready for the shelf.

If we must summarize, we would definitely call Samsung i550 conservative. It does have its strong points but is by far not the most inspiring handset in terms of design. In fact, the plastic used on its body looks downright cheap. To put it mildly, we weren't impressed.

In terms of size the Samsung i550 stands at 115 x 53 x 13.8 mm, a decent and quite pocket-friendly achievement. It is surely on the slim side of smartphones and one of the slimmest to offer a similar or better feature pack.

Samsung i550 will be offered in two color versions -black and silver. Frankly, we do appreciate the silver one more but the black one isn't that much of an eyesore either. Anyway, appeal is not what this handset is about.

The front panel of the phone is dominated by the large 2.6" display. The earpiece is located right above it, dead center. In the left corner is the video-call camera. No surprises here.

Under the display is the trackball, which is the key navigation tool in the phone. We do like trackballs and this particular one had every chance of impressing us. Well, it failed. It was far too slow and needed a whole lot of rolling to move a single icon. It might be Samsung's first go at trackballs but we still expected more. Anyway, we are going to get back to the trackball and the rest of the keypad a little later in our review.

The left side of Samsung i550 features the microSD card slot, the volume rocker and the neck/wrist strap eyelet. The volume rocker has nice ergonomics and tactility but is a little too hard to press for our taste.

On the right side of Samsung i550 we found the USB slot and the dedicated camera key. The latter was a real downer for the lack of a half-press, which makes operating the camera rather unnatural. We can't see any good reason for Samsung doing such a thing but, after all, the camera is not the key feature in i550 so it may as well get away with that.

Topside of Samsung i550 we have the power key and the 3.5mm jack. The power key also gives access to the ringing profiles. We find the location of the 3.5mm jack very convenient; it's most comfortable for wearing the handset in you pocket with headphones plugged in.

The bottom part of Samsung i550 is quite plain. The only adornment here is a wide gray stripe.

At the back side of the phone is the 3 megapixel camera lens. It goes with a LED flash which, as you may have guessed, is rather inadequate. Producing good night photos is hard for even the best equipped cameraphones and Samsung i550 falls seriously short of being one of them. There is also a self-portrait mirror backstage so you can frame you self-portraits better. More about the camera is coming up in the dedicated part of the review.

Removing the battery cover reveals the 1200 mAh Li-Ion battery. It will keep you going for a good 3.5 days under moderate use (a few calls and messages plus about 40 minutes of using the other phone's features a day). It is about what you expect, given the size of the screen. Plus, Wi-fi and GPS take their toll on battery life too.

To summarize, we are pleased with the build quality of Samsung i550. It looks sturdy and problems such as paint peeling seem very unlikely. What we are not happy about however is the rather cheap look. It's a fine line between neat and cheap but we, for one, were on the wrong side of it.

As already mentioned, Samsung i550 is equipped with a generously sized 2.6" 262K-color display. The supported resolution is QVGA (320 x 240) pixels, which is about as much as most other Symbian devices will offer.

As far as picture quality is concerned, Samsung i550 is doing pretty well. It has good contrast and brightness. Although we've seen better from Samsung, the i550 is still good enough.

On the negative side, the i550 has the typical weak legibility under direct sunlight. On a bright sunny day it is quite a challenge to find a proper angle for working with the phone. We are starting to wonder if Samsung is ever going to do anything about this. After all, there are plenty of other manufacturers to manage displays of great picture quality and adequate sunlight legibility (Nokia and Apple come to mind straight away).

The alphanumeric keypad on Samsung i550 is decent, allowing quick enough typing. It might not be the best looking keypad in business but it does the job.

The keys are rather minimalist in size, the spacing between them however is enough to provide adequate touch orientation. Still with the amount of space available for the keypad we wish Samsung did a bit better. After all, business device or else, typing should not let Samsung i550 down.

We are quite sure that a little time spent with Samsung i550 should solve the thin key problem and users will speed their way through the lines of text.

The real problem with the keypad of Samsung i550 are the six keys placed around the trackball. Those are arranged contrary to any logic and really got on our nerves during our reviewing. The problem is that the more frequently used soft keys are smaller than the dedicated web and GPS buttons. Now, don't get us wrong - having shortcuts to those two features is great but the implementation in i550 is disastrous. In addition, the shortcuts keys launch the corresponding application regardless of the currently open menu item. If the selection keys were placed at least on the same level as the shortcuts a lot of wrong presses would have been avoided. Instead, the elevation of the shortcut keys really makes it as bad as it can get.

The trackball itself is another controversial part of the Samsung i550 hardware. As much as we like trackball navigation, we just couldn't let it get away with the painfully slow response. Rolling a thumb all the way we only managed to move about two icons in the menu. Scrolling through very long lists (usually in the gallery or file manager) will probably take quite a lot of time and effort.

Backlighting is also somewhat uneven. Still, with the sufficient spacing between keys usability in dark environments doesn't suffer that much. In addition the trackball is pleasantly illuminated in blue and that looks really cool.

All in all, apart from the decent typing, the Samsung i550 keypad is a sounding failure to us. We do hope the trackball speed has been corrected in the retail version making navigation at least passable.

Quite as expected, the i550 lives up to Samsung's reputation as regards reception and in-call sound. Voice clarity on both ends of a call is commendable and in terms of clear reception it's completely competitive to what other manufacturers have to offer.

Samsung i550 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. It brings in a bunch of nice upgrades to the original 3rd edition, such as multiple alarm slots and longer voice recording capabilities.

In general the result has turned out very good. Samsung i550 is one snappy device with great handling. Looks are also quite decent with the handsome Samsung styling of icons.

Being a Symbian handset, Samsung i550 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, while scheduled events from the calendar along with the currently playing track or radio station (if any) get displayed underneath.

When assigning Active Standby shortcuts, 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 giving 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. 

All the profiles can easily be edited to best suit your needs.

As with any other S60 smartphone, the task manager of Samsung i550 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.

There are only two different menu views for the i550 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 standard list, is completely up to the user.

Finally, Samsung i550 has a voice recognition feature that (supposedly) allows you to control the whole user interface without even having to touch the phone. It does all right but still not as well as we hoped. Although speaker independent, the application has trouble recognizing some user commands, especially the longer ones. It's still a good help on some occasions and, given the beta status of our unit, it may even be better in the retail version of Samsung i550.

If you get bored with the phone's looks, you can always change the theme. There are only two preinstalled themes on Samsung i550. Anyway, downloading additional themes for a Symbian S60 device is a walk in the park. There is hardly anything in greater number on the internet than themes for S60 3rd edition phones with QVGA resolution displays.

True to its Symbian nature, Samsung i550 is equipped with 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.

Contacts can be ordered by either first or last name, depending on the user's liking. Searching can be done by either scrolling through names, gradual typing of the desired contact or a combination of both. 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 chance, 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 Symbian strength. The Samsung i550 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. Pressing the call key in standby brings up three tabs on the screen. Each of them holds up to 20 missed or received calls, or dialed numbers.

People who send and receive lots of messages are likely to appreciate the S60 user interface. The messaging menu is really logically organized, which makes it a pleasure to work with.

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 surely one of the most convenient ways of dealing with the delivery reports we have seen.

The MMS editor is almost identical to the one just described. The only noticeable difference is the added subject line and the option of inserting multimedia content.

Finally, there is also an audio message editor. Every time we are reviewing a Symbian device we get to wonder if anyone is ever using this option. Well, it continues to be available so maybe there are such people after all. The editor can either record the message on the fly or use a previously recorded sound clip. Anyway, last time we checked audio messages were simply a type of MMS so it isn't actually worth the fuss.

The great email client won't surprise anyone who has ever used a Symbian powered phone. It supports POP3 and IMAP protocols and can download headers only, as well as the whole messages. There is also support for attachments, so with Samsung i550 you will have no trouble meeting almost any emailing requirement.

The overall impression with the Samsung i550 messaging department is really positive. In terms of software users have all the reasons to forgive the keypad shortfalls. In addition, the email client is so good that it will hardly leave anyone disappointed. This of course was to be expected as Samsung i550 is meant to be a business device.

Samsung i550's music player looks exactly like on other Symbian 3rd edition devices. It can either be accessed from the menu or from the dedicated shortcut key, located on the right of the trackball.

It is surely not the most attractive application in terms of looks and it also lacks some features the music players in other handsets have to offer. For example there are no equalizers - neither presets, nor the option to make a custom one. The other flaw of the music player is the lack of any type of visualization to freshen up the looks. Neither of those is however that much of a deal breaker.

The music player has the essentials covered. As usual with Symbian devices, Samsung i550 supports 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 loaded to the phone.

Tracks can easily be transferred to the phone via Bluetooth, USB or by simply downloading them from the internet. Upon completing USB synchronization, 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 artist, album, genre and composer.

Another thing to mention is that Samsung i550 supports the Bluetooth A2DP profile. This means that you are able to listen to your favorite tracks on stereo Bluetooth headphones. We had no trouble pairing Samsung i550 with a third party Bluetooth headset.

Samsung i550 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 large display and the great picture quality are also enhancing the video watching experience greatly.

If you get bored with the preinstalled content on your Samsung i550 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.

Even though a business-minded smartphone, the great audio quality of the device sticks out a mile. It is one of the best handsets we have tested so far and we've seen quite a few. In fact, the audio quality of Samsung i550 is comparable and, in some aspects, even better than some dedicated portable music players. We are really pleased that Samsung didn't compromise the audio capabilities of the i550, never mind that business comes first. Here are the results so you can see for yourselves.

The Samsung Symbian smartphones lack the 3D rotating gallery of Nokia N-series smartphones, which we really enjoy. With the Samsung i550 we were only left with the list view for displaying images and videos. This is however something we can live with as its absence isn't damaging the functionality by any means.

The gallery 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 is quite fast and isn't going to bother anyone. As a matter of fact, the same holds true for almost any aspect of the user interface.

The Samsung i550 gallery also offers adequate 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 itself. It allows filtering files according to the memory used as well as marking, moving, copying single or multiple files at a time.

The Application manager is supposed to take care of the installed applications on Samsung i550. 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 are up to the task.

Another thing we are missing is the WLAN wizard plug-in, which greatly facilitates using the Wi-Fi. It makes connecting to available hotspots a piece of cake. Instead, with Samsung i550 you have to do a bit more work, navigating through a couple more menus. You might want to go and download this application too but there is no guarantee of its compatibility with Samsung i550. Naturally, this whole thing holds for the Wi-fi-enabled Samsung i550w only.

The fact that Samsung i550 is supposed to be a business device has had a somewhat negative impact on the camera. For one, the lack of a two-step shutter key is quite a disappointment. It makes shooting with the autofocus camera rather unnatural and makes achieving good results harder.

The camera interface isn't the most user-friendly we have seen either. The number of available features number is but moderate. White balance and effects are included and so are flash settings and self-timer. 

There are also three image quality options - basic, normal and high and that completes the list of options worth mentioning. You should bear in mind that the LED flash is rather inadequate so usable pictures in low light conditions are not very likely to achieve with Samsung i550.

At least the picture quality is on the positive side. Color rendering is precise and the detail levels are very good. The noise levels are acceptable even with not the best lighting. The image processing algorithm is also very good and there isn't much detail loss due to noise reduction. All in all, it is on the better side of 3 megapixel shooters. We would have really liked it if it wasn't for the lack of two-step shutter key and the speed. The camera of Samsung i550 is rather slow, taking about 5 seconds to take a photo after you press the shutter key. Our guess is that a part of the reason is that the auto focus isn't the snappiest around and that really takes its toll.

As far as video recoding is concerned, the Samsung i550 is only able to manage QVGA resolution. Videos have a frame rate of 15fps and are saved in 3gp format. This means that most of the videos taken with the i550 will turn out useless but some exceptions might be expected. However we cannot help ourselves but feel that Samsung i550 camera and video are only a little short of being just great. Too bad the Samsung R&D team saved themselves the effort.

Regarding connectivity, Samsung i550 is among the most tempting offers around. Well, we mean the i550w version only. We haven't yet come around to saying this but now might just be the right time: we cannot see any point in purchasing the version without WLAN. After all, Wi-Fi is among the make-or-break smartphone features.

But first thing first - let's start with the wired connectivity capabilities of Samsung i550. The USB connectivity is truly seamless, as with any other Symbian device. You can set a default profile when a cable is connected or you'll be prompted every time.

In the wireless department you get the aforementioned Wi-Fi and Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP support. The card slot is also an option with the good data transfer rate card readers can offer.

The network connectivity is also at the expected high level with GPRS, EDGE and 3G all covered. HSDPA is also on board to further enhance network data transfer speeds. The only thing missing is the Infrared port, but we doubt it anyone is using those anymore.

As you probably know, we do fancy Symbian web browsers. The Samsung i550 makes no exception, plus on the generously-sized display pages look really great.

Browsing the internet with Samsung i550 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. This is where the 2.6" screen gets much appreciated, as it makes the font readable even when downsized to only a few pixels height.

Organizing applications come by the dozen in Symbian handsets. Those are also very practical and usually quite user-friendly.

The Samsung i550 calendar has three different types of view - monthly, weekly and daily, and four types of events available for scheduling - Meeting, Memo, Anniversary and To-do. Each 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 reasonably well covered. The preinstalled applications are able to open Word and Excel files trouble-free. There is also a PDF reader in the package. However the Samsung i550 lack support for editing documents. If you are to need this feature you will have to purchase the full version of the office application.

Here are some of the other included organizing and time-management applications: a very capable unit converter and a decent calculator, as well as a Notes application. There is of course also a convenient voice recorder. As we mentioned the recording length is now up to an hour.

Finally, we come to the Samsung i550 alarm. You can set up a virtually unlimited number of alarms on your handset. Furthermore, each of these can have its own name, activation day and repeat pattern. You can also adjust the snooze time. In addition the clock offers to show you the time in any time zone of the world.

The final noteworthy feature of Samsung i550 is the built-in GPS receiver. 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. There might be improvements but we doubt it they will be revolutionary.

Samsung officially claims the i550 is supposed to come complete with Google Maps preinstalled. Well, our beta unit certainly didn't. Not that it makes any difference, as Google maps are free to download and installing them only takes a minute. Still, we would've liked it if Navigon had the task of developing a dedicated software solution for the i550 as they did for Samsung G810 and Samsung i780. Else, users will have the option of third party navigation software.

Samsung i550 is a very capable device by all means. It blends a great bunch of features with the power of Symbian and the S60 user interface. The combination works out quite well and the result is a phone of great potential.

Although still not widely available, Samsung i550 can be found at about 390$. This is the Wi-Fi version we are talking about and it does sound a great deal to us. We guess the handset will be able to steal quite a few customers from Nokia Symbian devices.

Of course, Samsung i550 does have its annoying flaws here and there. We have tried our best to point them out, so users can decide if they are that much of a bother to them. Our guess is that once they've spent some time getting used to the i550 (mainly the selection keys layout and the trackball response) owners won't regret their purchase.