Samsung i8910 HD

The Samsung i8910HD is a milestone in mobile technology. It’s the first mobile to be able to record high-definition video. It’s probably the highest-spec phone currently available, with an8 megapixel camera, huge OLED touchscreen, MP3 player, FM radio, GPS, WiFi, HSDPA/HSUPA and up to 48GB of memory. If you want to be at the cutting edge, this isthe phone for you in 2009.

Fwooar! The Samsung i8910HD (originally known as the Omnia HD) is one heck of a sexy phone. It’s the first mobile to feature a high-definition camcorder (hence it’s name) and it has the world’s largest OLED display – 3.7 inches across. It’s a Symbian smartphone with an 8 megapixel camera, touchscreen UI, WiFi and A-GPS. Is there nothing this beast cannot do?

If you are looking for the highest-spec, most capable phone in existence, you’ve probably come to the right place. The guys atSamsung have wowed everyone with an impressive leap forward in technology. This phone has the biggest and best of everything. And it certainly is big. It’s not fair to call it a brick, as it’s rather slim – just 12.9mm – but it’s about the same size and weight as the iPhone 3G. But as millions of iPhone owners have proved, that’s not a problem, and in fact the i8910 HD is narrower than the iPhone and hence fits in the palm rather better. The phone’s front face is filled with the enormous screen, plus three conventional buttons below (call, end and home.) The screen really is a beauty. OLED is a new technology that offers greater colour definition and more brightness than a conventional TFT screen. This makes a real difference when using the phone outdoors, especially when the user interface is touchscreen-driven. The screen on the i8910 HD is the biggest OLED screen ever to appear on a mobile and has a very high resolution too (640 x 360 pixels, 3.7 inches diagonal.) It’s a gorgeous screen and makes a real difference when watching videos or using the onscreen menus. But Samsung have played safe by using a tried and tested user interface – the TouchWiz UI will be familiar to users of previous Samsung phones such as the Omnia. TouchWiz uses intuitive touch controls, e.g. tap, sweep, drag and drop operations as well as an on-screen qwerty keyboard with tactile feedback. The feel of the phone in the hand is one of quality, thanks to the use of metal, glossy black plastic and hardened glass.

The choice of Symbian S60 5.0 operating system makes the i8910 HD more of a mainstream product than the Samsung Omnia, which uses Windows Mobile. Personally we prefer the power and robustness of the latest release of Windows Mobile, but Symbian is a more familiar operating system to many. In any case, the TouchWiz UI is the main interface that users have to deal with, and the operating system is to some extent hidden from day to day use.

It’s hard to know what to talk about next – there are so many goodies to describe. Let’s talk about the camera, as it’s the video recording that gives the HD its name. For still photography the i8910 HD uses an 8 megapixel camera with autofocus, 4x digital zoom and LED flash. The camera is equipped with advanced functions such as face detection, smile shot, blink shot and panorama shot. These help to close the gap between camera phones and dedicated digicams – in functionality at least. In terms of image quality, the camera can’t beat a dedicated camera, but it can match the kinds of digital cameras that were on sale just a couple of years ago. The point is that the camera is good enough to take print-quality still photos under a range of lighting conditions, so you can rely on it on occasions when your “proper” camera has been left at home. The only complaint that we have is that the flash is LED-based, rather than the xenon flash found on just a handful of camera phones, such as the Sony Ericsson C905. The video camera is a worldbeater, in terms of resolution. It can record in HD format, which means 1280 x 720 pixels (0.9 megapixels.) At this resolution, the frame rate drops to 24 frames per second, so you might actually prefer to shoot in a lower resolution and use a higher frame rate. Bear in mind that if you record in HD, the resolution of the video will actually exceed the screen resolution! Still, the capability is there if you want it. It is possible, if you are technically minded, to view your HD videos on a HD TV. There’s no HDMI cable socket, but you can use the WiFi connection to send video directly to a DLNA-compatible TV or PS3/XBOX 360. We can’t imagine many people having the technical know-how and the necessary equipment to pull this off though. A better option is to upload your videos to Facebook or YouTube.

Musically, the i8910 HD offers high quality audio via its twin speakers, which are loud! The speakers are placed at the top and bottom of the phone, which seems strange until you realise that they are ideally placed for use when watching video in landscape mode! We’re also delighted to see the presence of a 3.5mm audio jack, which enables you to plug in any headphones with a standard connection.

Web browsing on the i8910 is an excellent experience. The huge touchscreen in combination with fast data downloads using HSDPA or WiFi is just what is needed for a satisfying mobile internet experience. TheSymbian S60 web browser is optimised for this kind of environment, and is an excellent browser.

The phone is very generously equipped with memory, which is just as well considering the power of the device. It’s available with either 8GB or 16GB of flash memory, with a microSD card slot that will accept cards up to a massive 32GB, giving a potential maximum memory of 48GB! There’s also plenty of internal RAM available to the operating system for playing videos, etc. The device also uses a new type of superfast chipset, and these two factors mean that the phone is fast to react, even when running applications quite intensively. Nevertheless, a wise user will remember to shut down apps that are not needed, in order to avoid the inevitable Symbian system crashes.

The i8910 HD also comes with a built-in GPS receiver, which can be used for geo-tagging of photos and for mapping. When used with the map application, the device also displays a digital compass.

The phone comes with a number of preloaded touch-driven games that use the built-in motion sensor to good effect. The quality of the graphics is quite exceptional, and closing in on console quality. The motion sensor is also used to automatically flip the screen between portrait and landscape modes when you rotatethe phone. It’s worth also mentioning the light sensor that automatically dims the screen to save power, and the proximity sensor that prevents your face accidentally brushing the touchscreen when making a call.

One final innovation: the guys at Samsung obviously thought the phone was rather under-specified, as they also decided to add in support for the new HSUPA technology. HSUPA is a relative of HSDPA and enables fast uploads – 10 or more times faster than 3G – in addition to fast downloads. The U stands for uplink; the D stands for downlink. Simple!

The battery life of this phone is quoted as a ludicrously high 600 hours on standby. Whilst the 1500mAH battery is definitely a powerful one, no normal user is going to get anything like 600 hours use out of one charge. The power of this device means that daily charging will be in order for many users.

To conclude, the Samsung i8910 HD is a truly impressive device. Although its the HD video recording that gives the phone its name, the phone has so many other impressive capabilities that it’s definitely not a one-trick wonder. For us, it’s the fact that it excels in all areas that makes it an absolutely outstanding device. If you regard yourself as a power user, you should definitely have the i8910 at the top of your shopping list this year.

Features of the Samsung i8910 HD include:

* 8 megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom, autofocus and power LED flash
* HD video camera with power LED video light, DivX playback
* 3G video calling with secondary VGA camera
* Display: AMOLED, 16 million colours, 640 x 360 pixels (3.7 inches)
* MP3 player (MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA formats), stereo speakers & DNSe 2.0
* Stereo FM radio RDS
* MP3 ringtones
* Speakerphone
* GPS satellite navigation
* Messaging: SMS, MMS, email (POP3 / SMTP / IMAP4), instant messaging
* Document viewer
* Java games (Java MIDP 2.0)
* Personal organiser functions
* Offline mode
* Memory: 8/16 Gbytes plus microSD memory card slot (up to 32 GB)
* Internet: HTML web browser, WAP 2.0, GPRS Class 12, EDGE, 3G HSDPA (7.2 Mbps), HSUPA (5.76 Mbps)
* Connectivity: Bluetooth 2.0, USB 2.0, WiFi, 3.5mm audio jack
* Quadband GSM plus triband 3G HSDPA/HSUPA
* Size: 123 x 58 x 12.9 mm
* Weight: 144g
* Talktime: up to 13.5 hours
* Battery standby: 600 hours

source