Samsung SGH-i450V
Straight out of the box, the Samsung i450V doesn’t look like it may be anything special and feels a bit thick and bulky.
Ted Gibbons | Tuesday, July 01 2008Much like Nokia’s Expression handsets, the i450V’s external speakers are supposed to get the party started like an old-fashioned boom box, but the simple laws of physics mean these tiny drivers produce an underwhelming sound that lacks any real body. On the upside, you can easily plug in your favourite set of earphones, and on these the sound is excellent. The i450V is one of the first handsets I’ve come across that is capable of some real volume while still producing clean, dynamic sound with good body.
Getting back to those touch-sensitive controls, a ridged, rubberised semi-circle gives the appearance of being part of a full circle that is completed by the onscreen interface. When you run your thumb up or down the semi-circle the wheel onscreen appears to spin to scroll through the menu functions. A press on the wheel selects a menu function. It’s good fun but you’ve got to press pretty hard to make the selection work.
Unfortunately, the i450V’s video player is not integrated into the same funky interface as the music player. You’ve got to access it through the normal menu system, and when you find it, you discover it’s RealPlayer, which doesn’t like many common video file formats, and no conversion software is provided.
Another thing the Samsung shares with Nokia is the S60 operating system. The good thing about this is that S60 offers one of the most intuitive (if not overly exciting) interfaces around, greatly reducing the learning curve any new user will face with this phone. I especially like the home screen, which gives you icons for your chosen apps across the top, and then lists any calendar entries, messages or calls below.
The i450’s keypad controls are also a pleasure to use, with big buttons and no gimmicky tricks. A central five-way navigator does most of the work, and is backed up by two soft buttons (one of them a Back button), a Menu button and a Clear button. The keypad itself is brightly backlit, with clear letter text and similarly big buttons. I found it particularly good for banging out two-thumb texts.
Elsewhere, the i450V is equipped with HSDPA for fast 3G data, although there is no wi-fi. The installed browser does a decent job of rendering most websites, but if you prefer another, the S60 platform allows you to download just about any mobile browser available.
Another handy aspect of the Symbian S60 platform, especially for business-types who will do a lot of emailing, is that the i450V comes pre-loaded with the Quickoffice suite for Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents, and Adobe Reader LE for PDFs.
The i450V’s capabilities are rounded out with a bog-standard 2-megapixel camera that also offers video capability. Images are ordinary, with the usual lack of saturation, and blue cast to any images that aren’t shot in direct sunlight. However, one cool feature is video editing software that also lets you make movies from your still images.
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