The replacement to last year’s U900 Soul is here, and according to to the tradition of Samsung’s mobile division, also sport the best features ever seen in a mobile phone. The SGH-S8300 or Ultra Touch, combines several significant design elements of past mobile phone models; a capacitive touchscreen, Samsung’s TouchWiz user interface as well as the extreme slimness of the ULTRA-series. All this makes for an awesome combination on paper.
The device exudes an ultra-premium feel with its brushed metal look as well as dominating touchscreen on the front. Sliding the device up reveals a stylish keypad which is almost seamless from left to right, making the otherwise small area seem large. When the phone is slid upwards, an 8 mega-pixels digital camera is also revealed on the rear of screen, making it easy to snap images while keeping its technological prowess a secret at the same time.
Activating the touchscreen while simply clicking the Lock button on the right of the phone reveals a gorgeously colored theme as well as the now familiar TouchWiz user interface. Using the same widget docking system that can be found on the OMNIA, users are able to easily drag and drop information onto the main screen, which can be scrolled to fit many open widgets at the same time. With the Ultra Touch, users are now able to install widgets of their own, although at the time of writing, offerings are still few.
Navigation through the phone menus is done by manipulating the touch screen, as there is no five-way navigational button on this mobile. Save for a touch-based virtual button, there is only single Return physical button on the front of the device for quitting applications. Otherwise, messaging is made possible via the alphanumeric keypad as well as virtual buttons which can be hassle if you need to edit parts of the message. With a capacitive touchscreen as the only display, the Ultra Touch suffers from slight navigational problems, the most critical one being scrolling. Even with no fingernails, the screen isn’t accurate enough for scrolling or even pressing a tiny virtual button, especially when faced with alert screen.
A couple of good features on this device include the 8-mega pixels camera, while creating large image files which suck-up memory has surprisingly good image quality for a mobile device, and the geo-tagging feature which comes with it. This ensures that friends and family are able to track your location, particularly useful on a long holiday. Battery life is good too, and for such specifications, the phone seems to last two and half days on a charge, with a moderate calls as well as multimedia usage.
The convenience of a touch screen mobile phone is still debatable, but otherwise, this Ultra Touch shows that it is able to work well providing that you combine a usable interface and some style too! It just need some polishing in terms of screen accuracy and overall speed to be a serious contender to smartphones in terms of usability.
Samsung Ultra Touch Specifications :
Network Support : HSDPA/UMTS, GPRS/EDGE/GSM Quad-Band (850/900/1800/1900 MHz)
Display : 2.8” 16M Color OLED capacitive touchscreen
Camera : 3.2 MP image sensor with video recording (3GPP, MPEG4)
Multimedia : Stereo FM radio with RDS, DivX, XviD, MPEG4, H.263, H.264, WMV9 player, MP3, AAC, WMA player
Memory : 80MB, microSD up to 16GB
Dimensions : 110 x 51.5 x 12.7 mm
Weight : 105g
Samsung Ultra Touch on Youtube I :
Samsung Ultra Touch on Youtube II :
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