The best 5MP camera phone on the market
I was looking to buy a new camera and a new phone for myself when I came across some articles about the Samsung G800 and I thought to myself that I could save a bit of cash by buying a 2-in-1 camera phone.
Unlike any other phone that I have used before (I used to own a mobile phone shop, so I have played around with a few phones), I must say that the G800 surely deserves the name 'Camera Phone' because this is the first phone I have seen that comes with a proper camera. With a resolution of 2560х1920 pixels, xenon flash, 3x optical zoom, autofocus, face detection and QVGA video @ 30fps, I think that you will have to agree with me that the G800 really does have a professional camera built in.
One thing that annoys me about camera phones is that when you are taking a picture, from the time you press the button to when the camera takes an image to save, the delay is often so long that the moment is usually gone (especially when it comes to taking pictures of hyper-active little children!). Not so, with the Samsung G800! It really does work exactly like a normal digital camera. I would have to say that this is probably what I love the most about the G800.
To complement the camera, the G800 has a 256K colour, 240x320 pixel, 2.4" display to view the pictures on. Apart from the usual phone features, it also has a few other outstanding attributes such as bluetooth printing, stereo FM radio and mobile TV (subject to service provider restrictions).
The G800 weighs just under 15g more than a Nokia N95 which it is superior to in most ways that I can think of. The N95 camera quality comes close but when you turn on the camera features of the G800, it really does have the N95 beat, hands down. The advantages that the N95 has are that it is quad band, has WLAN, a 16M colour display and an integrated GPS receiver.
Size wise, it it a bit smaller than my other phone which is a HTC TyTN II and it is about the same size as a N95. Does not make it small but it is a size that I can live with it considering that the alternative is to carry a phone AND a camera in my pocket, which I am sure will take up a lot more space!
I rated this phone a 4/5 because it does have a few minor deficiencies. Nothing that would stop me from recommending the phone to someone else, but still worth noting.
If you are taking a lot of pictures then there are two issues to be aware of. Firstly, the built in memory on the phone is only 160MB so you must buy a MicroSD card. Secondly, if you are using the xenon flash regularly during the course of each day, then you should consider carrying a second battery for emergencies.
For the globetrotters amongst us, it should be pointed out that the phone is tri-band on 2G networks and does not support the 850GSM band. It does support HSDPA 2100 for 3G networks.
From everyday use, the only area where I have found the phone to be lacking is that the ear piece volume is a bit low especially considering that the ringer volume is very loud. But this might just be a problem with my particular handset and not reflective on the model in general.
Finally, simply to avoid an annoyance, I would suggest investing in a case (preferably one of those clear plastic cases that cover the entire phone) because once the fingerprints get on there, they are very hard to remove. The Samsung SGH-G800 is one phone that you will want to keep in pristine condition to do justice to the capabilities of this most outstanding camera phone!Vollständige Rezension lesen
