We have seen lots of phones from Samsung with slider form factor but this time it's a full hardware keyboard that is revealed when you slide the Samsung i620 out - the new mid-range smartphone running on the Windows Mobile 6 Standard edition. Packed with some exclusive features - a rotating D-pad wheel and sensor keys all over, you might as well be blown away by the one-off snowy white color too. So, it's compact, it's QWERTY, it's smartphone - yes this is really an offer you can't resist to play with - and neither do we. So grab yourselves something to drink and join us on this Samsung i620 review.

Windows Mobile smartphone

Novel design and unusual form factor

Compact dimensions

2.2" TFT display

Tri-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE and HSDPA, 1.8 Mbps

Rotating wheel and sensor front panel keys

Full hardware QWERTY keyboard with sufficient backlight

Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP

2 megapixel camera

microSD card slot

Landscape orientation is not common for applications

No Wi-Fi

No autofocus, mediocre camera performance

TI OMAP 200 MHz processor struggles at times

QWERTY keyboard has little tactile feedback

Only 34MB storage memory available to the user

The Samsung "i" line of smartphones are obviously keeping us busy these days. And again, quite obviously, the i780 we recently tested and the i620 are poles apart. While the high-end PocketPC sure adds value to the Windows Mobile lineup of the company, the main point of i620 is the benefit of diversity. After all, Samsung i620 is an i600 in the slider form factor and short of Wi-Fi. Sadly, one of the defining traits of the device is an absence.

Samsung i620 handles very well. The touch-sensitive controls on the front and the rotating D-pad wheel make navigation a breeze.

Ergonomics and friendly handling are a nice advantage of this smartphone, especially considering the space consuming QWERTY keypad slumbering under the slider.

Samsung i620 has been around for a while in two color versions: Silver and Black. We had the Silver variety, though the label is truly misleading as it's only the QWERTY keyboard that can pass as silver. The otherwise white casing has a shiny chrome-like framing on the front adding some to the sharp looks of the phone. The sliding mechanism is at the usual high level we've come to expect in Samsung sliders. We were delighted to find out that fingerprints are no issue at all with this nice and friendly slider.

Other than that, there's somewhat of a mixed identity issue with the i620, as seen on the UK Samsung site. We had the same thing reviewing the Samsung i780. Anyway, our unit has no LED flash. The other differences are in the keyboard layout and the loudspeakers, which position can vary from the back to the sides of the handset.

With the slider closed, Samsung is quite a compact device, measuring 94.9 x 59.3 x 16.3 mm at a weight of 126 grams - a good overall achievement for a QWERTY slider. Sadly, at 2.2" the display is a tad smaller than the Samsung i600 screen, keeping the same 320 x 240 pixel resolution.

Under the display we face six touch-sensitive keys and a large 4-way navigation key/scroll wheel. Control and navigation are seamless with Samsung i620. The scroll wheel is commendably responsive, and so are the touch-sensitive Soft Keys, Home and Back key and the call keys. 

Other than that, the D-pad offers traditional 4 way navigation. All in all, the friendly handling and ergonomics are the Samsung i620 strong points.

Sliding the phone up reveals the good old QWERTY keyboard. It is virtually the same as the one in Samsung i600. The handset's compact dimensions have inevitably taken their toll on the size of the keys - they are not as big as we would've liked, especially compared to alternatives available on the market. However, with a little practice tackling the rounded knobs becomes less of a challenge.

The keypad consists of 37 keys arranged in 3 main rows and a fourth one for special function keys. The keys are white with black symbols, except for the numpad keys with their dark-grey tops. Each button serves two symbols, which you switch between using the Fn or number input key. There are no dedicated keys for either phonebook or internet browser, except one for messages in the bottom right corner of the keyboard.

The function of the message key varies between a short and a long press defaulting to the messaging menu and the MMS composer respectively. The short press function can be also reassigned to one of the following: SMS/MMS inbox, Outlook email inbox or Gmail inbox. The long press can be reassigned as well. MMS composer, SMS composer, Outlook Email or Gmail composers are the options to choose from.

The left side of the phone sports the volume rocker key and the memory card slot with its plastic cap. On the right side we face the Quick List key, which upon a press-and-hold doubles as Camera key. The proprietary Samsung universal connectivity port used for connecting the headset, charger, and data cable is also here hidden under a plastic top. The port itself is the older type used in the first Ultra series such as Samsung D900.

There's little to note at the top and bottom of the handset, except the power key topside and the mouthpiece all the way down.

On the rear there's a pair of speakers at the top. Sliding the phone up reveals the 2 megapixel camera lens and the self-portrait mirror. There's neither autofocus, nor LED flash although the UK Samsung website state there is a camera flash.

Removing the rear panel reveals the standard 1200 mAh Li-Ion battery. Speaking of standard, it one of the physically largest Samsung batteries we've seen. It's quoted at up to 320 h of standby time and up to 6 h 30 min of talk time. The SIM bed is under the battery.

The display backlighting is adequate. In direct sunlight, the small fonts require some effort. On a different note, the soft keypad backlighting is strong and even.

The i620 runs on the same TI OMAP 1710 (200 MHz) processor as the Samsung i600. It has 64MB of RAM for running processes and there are 80MB of shared storage memory. However only 34MB of those 80MB are available to the user. Thankfully, the phone has a microSD memory expansion slot.

The good old Windows Mobile Standard in its 6.0 edition is what you get with Samsung i620. With the very familiar user interface and options, the only thing to note is the absence of any proprietary homescreen plug-in. Not much of a deal-breaker, but the ones in i600 and i780 were a welcome perk.

Customizing the home screen is available through the seven preinstalled themes. Samsung Living world home screen layout is animated one which varies depending on your location. The other is Windows Simple, Default or Basic and the Samsung add-ons Simple, Calendar and Tab home screen layouts.

The Samsung Tab layout is also very handy, as it brings to the home screen all the necessary access to the main stuff of the phone just at a few clicks away.

Other thing you can change in the interface is the color scheme with six of them available - Default, Windows Mobile Green, and Guava Bubbles as well as Samsung Blue, Purple and Violet schemes.

We had a nice and clear conversation with Dexter. Samsung i620 has no issues with reception and in-call voice quality. The pair of loudspeakers on the back produce audible and crisp sound.

Samsung i620 has an unlimited contact list with a plethora of available fields for each entry. Synchronization with MS Outlook is textbook.

There is a practical additional field to each contact - the "Last call". It displays the number and the time the contact in question was last called. A full log is available of calls to and from numbers belonging to this contact, as well as call duration and time of call.

Sending and receiving messages is done through the centralized Inbox. It has separate folders for SMS, MMS and email. SMS length is virtually unlimited, as well as the memory available for received and sent messages. Inside the multimedia editor you will find the useful option to create multi-page messages containing more than one melody, image or text.

The Outlook Mobile email client supports POP3 and IMAP accounts. You can have multiple accounts and you can set the client to automatically check mail at regular time intervals. It has full support for sending and receiving attachments.

We've no reason to doubt Samsung's cameraphone skill. But when it comes to cameras in smartphones, especially the i620, the results are not so encouraging. The 2 megapixel autofocus camera produces passable images. Color rendering suffers a pinch of excessive green, The exposure and the contrast are correct, but it looks like the noise reduction was overused - there is no visible noise in the images, which is good, but a lot of fine detail is lost during the process.

The camera menu is easy to operate. It uses traditional window structure of the menus. The camera produces images of maximum resolution of 1600 x 1200 pixels with four quality settings. White balance can be either automatic or custom set to daylight, cloudy, tungsten or fluorescent. You can apply a few color effects (Black and white, Sepia and Negative) and use the special camera modes such as multi or night shot.

A nice feature is the mosaic shooting mode. It produces 4 successive images at 1280 x 1024 pixels taken in one-second intervals. The four images are then displayed in a grid layout making up one mosaic photo. We tried that feature on some portrait shots making funny faces and the result was quite amusing.

he video recorder interface is no different than the still camera. Video clips are recorded in QVGA or QCIF resolution at 15fps in 3GP format. Quality is barely passable. For those interested in the details, an average 30-sec clip has is about 1.5MB in size. The complete data is as follows: AAC mono at 8.000kHz, 15 fps and 128 kbps data rate.

The Picture gallery opens as a 2 x 4 grid of thumbs. The currently selected image appears a bit bigger. Zooming in on an image is effortless with the help of the rotating wheel. The process involves no visible delays.

The Document viewer can open Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and PDF files. Of course it's only a viewer, you cannot edit the documents.

The accessories folder holds applications like Adobe Flash Lite 2.1 player, Calculator, Smart converter, Smart search, Stopwatch, and Task manager.

Except for the traditional calendar under applications, the Organizer folder houses the other related stuff -Alarms, the D-day application (used for putting down tasks), voice notes and world clock.

Samsung have also incorporated a stand-alone JAVA launcher with 3D support. It's way better than the clumsy Java installation process using the internet browser, seen in Samsung i600.

Samsung i620 is not as well geared as the Samsung i600, let alone i780. The wired connectivity in i620 is ensured by the proprietary USB connector for synchronization with MS Outlook. Wireless synchronization via Bluetooth is impossible, as the phone does not support BISS (Bluetooth information Synchronization Service). A2DP support allows listening music on a stereo Bluetooth headset.

Speaking of wireless communication, we should mention again there is no Wi-Fi at your disposal.

The tri-band phone supports GPRS, EDGE and HSDPA (1.8 Mbps) so you always have data connectivity options available.

Softwarewise Samsung i620 offers an Internet Explorer Mobile web browser, as well as the Opera Mobile 8.65. The Opera browser is a downright favorite with tab browsing and several viewing options. You can have it fit the text to the screen, show everything in one column or show the website as it is. Fullscreen mode is also at hand. Hardcore Internet Explorer mobile users can of course use it as the default browser.

Internet services also include a separate Podcast client and an RSS Reader.

Samsung i620 is a stylish (to some!), neat and relatively compact slider phone, plus it runs on Windows Mobile 6 Standard. The full QWERTY hardware keyboard brings even more functionality to the smartphone. The sensor keys and the useful D-pad wheel help a lot when dealing with the address book, the menus and especially with the gallery images.

Interestingly enough, even before the Samsung i620 was out, it has already got a successor in the face of Samsung i640. You can call it a bigger brother if you want. With double the HSDPA download speed and quad band GSM support the main (shall we say, only) improvements, the only thing that can make you consider it are the more moderate looks.

 

Shiny white is not our favorite color - to put it that way.

Truth be told though, the absence of Wi-Fi in both i620 and i640 is one of the major drawbacks of the phone, if not a deal breaker.

In the end - it all boils down to this: the Samsung i620 doesn't offer high-end features but offers excellent implementation of the features that are currently on-board. As such it will have a really hard time coping with Symbian bullies out there.