News - Samsung SGH-P960

Samsung SGH-P960 (Singapore Trial)

The Samsung SGH-P960 was announced at this year's Mobile World Congress alongside the Soul. Although the two handsets have some similarities in the design and use of materials, the P960's ultimate selling point is its onboard DVB-H radio which allows people to watch TV-on-the-go in places where the service is available.

Beginning in August, a mobile TV trial spearheaded by Singapore's national broadcaster MediaCorp and three telco operators is being carried out over three months. We recently got hold of the Samsung SGH-P960 test unit from M1 and came away with some impressions of the new service.

For a start, only six broadcast channels (we noticed an additional 7th channel recently: 98.7FM radio station) are available during the trial, which honestly isn't a huge palette. The service is still only in its trial stages, so things are likely to change down the road--that much we can say. Unlike regular videos, in order to watch TV on the move, you'll need to have DVB-H reception. We tested the broadcast service at several locations and found that the service works best if you are in an outdoor environment, or near to the window with a line of sight to the sky when indoors. It didn't work when we were in an underground train station. So much for TV on your mobile while commuting.

A SIM card based on the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA)'s new BCAST Smartcard Profile was provided for testing the service. According to Alcatel-Lucent, this is a SIM-based service protection system that enables content providers to offer flexible subscription models. Regular SIM cards wouldn't work for the mobile TV trial.

After the initial startup screen, you'll see a list of channels available and you can add those which you watch frequently under Favorites. For each channel, there's also a TV guide within the menu that shows the program lineup. This is useful if you don't want to waste time loading the program to view what is on. The user interface is utilitarian and nothing to shout about. It works but the software could be improved.

In use, the mobile TV experience on the P960 was a mixed bag. We turned up the brightness level to its maximum (which could potentially drain the battery more rapidly) and the 2.6-inch QVGA screen held up well under sunlight, though we found the reflective surface distracting. We also liked the separate antenna for improved reception, but it felt flimsy and we were constantly worried about breaking it. This makes other DVB-H-enabled devices like the Nokia N96 with embedded antennas comparatively less worrisome.

Design-wise, the P960 isn't the smallest handset, but has its own appeal with a combination of metallic and plastic finish. The build quality, apart from the antenna, is also top-notch. You get the feeling of a very reliable device once you pick it up. The keypad is generously sized and, although it uses a single-slab design, the buttons are clearly defined and provide reasonable travel for comfortable typing.

Other features onboard include HSDPA, hot-swappable microSD expansion card slot; Bluetooth, FM radio, 3-megapixel camera with LED flash, and TV-out connection via the bundled cable.

Depending on how much time you spend commuting daily, mobile TV may or may not appeal to you. For example, due to the short travel times in Singapore, watching a full episode of a drama serial may not be feasible. What might work are news, sports and variety programs which are best watched as they are aired. Subscription rates and the pricing structure will also swing early adopters either way. On the hardware side of things, our concern lies with the battery life.

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Tips - Getting the Most Out of Your Samsung Omnia

Getting the Most Out of Your Samsung Omnia

Along with better images, megapixel phones offer more memory. You can store up to 200 high-resolution images on the Nokia 7610, which means you'll have plenty of room for all the pictures you took on a weekend trip, for example. But when it comes time to move those images to your PC, you'll find yourself staring at unruly filenames, such as pic150704_2.jpg. Yes, you can rename your files in Windows, but this can be tedious if you're transferring dozens or even hundreds of pictures at a time.

Instead, change the default image name that the camera phone uses to store pictures. If you're going on a trip to New York and you know you'll be taking lots of pictures, you can change the camera's default image name to New York. Subsequent pictures will contain the filename New York 001, New York 002, and so forth. The following steps apply to the Nokia 7610, but the process is similar among other camera phones that offer this option:

In camera mode, click Options, then Settings.
Select Default Image Name.
Enter a new name, then click OK.

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Review: Giorgio Armani Samsung Phone camera

Giorgio Armani Samsung Phone camera samples

How does the camera on the Giorgio Armani Samsung Phone perform? We select examples of digital photos taken with its 3-megapixel camera

The Giorgio Armani Samsung Phone may be an ultra-slim, highly compact touchscreen device, but Samsung has still managed to cram a 3-megapixel camera, with a flash, into the back of the phone. This can capture video too. The lens is a fixed focus type, with no autofocus control or macro shooting mode for precision close-up shooting.

As it's not a 3G-enabled phone, there's no need for a secondary video calling camera on this device - all shooting's done with the 3-megapixel main snapper.

The phone's large 2.6-inch, 262K-colour QVGA display is an able platform for framing snaps as the viewfinder. In fact, touchscreen operation means that most of the controls - and all the settings adjustments - are carried out by pressing the screen.

A camera button on the side of the phone gives you a quick access route into the camera from standby, although you can also activate it from the main menu grid. Switching on the camera, the phone automatically re-orientates itself into landscape mode, like a standalone digital camera, with the camera button now acting as the snap-capture button.

Moving finger operation includes zoom control and brightness level adjustments. The phone has a 10-step 4x digital zoom, available on all resolutions; moving your finger across to the right increases the zoom, to the left decreases it. Similarly, brightness is adjusted by moving up and down the screen.

There are a series of icons displayed on the left of the screen to indicate the camera's current status and settings; these aren't tappable; the column of four icons on the right of the screen are the virtual control buttons.

The bottom two allow you to quickly set a shot timer, for 3, 5 or 10 seconds, and turn the flash on or off by tapping. The top two take care of other settings. The top button allows you into a carousel to select the operation mode (camera, camcorder, settings adjustments and so on), while the second one allows you to alter the main settings groups for the camera or camcorder.

The main settings allow you to change white balance from automatic to one of four settings for varying indoors and outdoors lighting conditions (incandescent, fluorescent, cloudy and daylight). You can add colour effets (black and white, negative, or sepia) and add fun frames to pictures. You can also take multiple shots or mosaic shots together, while you adjust resolution in six steps, from 320x240 pixels up to maximum 2048x1536 pixels resolution.

Other camera settings can be adjusted; you can set quality levels, ISO levels, and exposure metering, plus default image storage - memory card or phone memory (this is significant if the onboard memory becomes full - you won't be able to shoot high res if the phone memory can't accommodate large files). Camera sounds can also be changed or switched off.

This control system generally works adequately. With any touchscreen, you have to be careful where you put your fingers. With such a small phone, we found our large fingers occasionally straying on to a button when we were framing shots, but generally it's fine. A lot relies on you working it out, with little guidance about functions to help you. Zooming isn't as smooth an operation as we'd like; a rocker is preferable to the touch control, which demonstrates the touchscreen, but doesn't add anything to usability.

Although we were recently impressed by Samsung's 5-megapixel camera-packing G800 (which has a fine 3x optical zoom), the performance of the Giorgio Armani Samsung's camera is not up with Samsung's best.

The cameraphone can produce some reasonably detailed shots in bright lighting conditions, and mid-range shooting performance is acceptable. But there are limitations to its performance. The lack of autofocus can become apparent in mid-to-close range shots where it's difficult to ensure sharp images (you can't always tell from the view on the screen).

We found colour rendition generally good, even when dull outdoor conditions prevailed. There were some issues with exposure and contrast however, with the sensor burning out high contrast elements of pictures against moderately lit white sky. Some slight artifacts were also apparent where high contrast elements were adjacent.

Indoors, low-light shots lacked precision and were a touch soft, even with the flash engaged. The LED flash certainly brings some light to proceedings, but doesn't fill in as well as a Xenon, with quite limited illumination across images.

As we said, you can comfortably reproduce your best images as standard photo prints. However, the performance is below the best quality 3-megapixel cameraphones available.

Another element worth noting about the imaging performance is that getting images displayed from your memory card and making adjustments to these takes a frustratingly long time - much moreso than if you're accessing them from the phone's onboard memory.

With good lighting conditions you can capture memorable images in printable quality

You can achieve reasonable mid- and long-range shots if there's sufficient illumination and the camera is kept steady

It's possible to compose some pleasant shots you'll be happy to print. There's enough detail to print them as standard sized photos

You can take typical tourist shots with the Armani Phone's camera. Mid shots such as these of telephone boxes are reasonably well detailed. There is some exposure issues, with some burn out of the tree against a cloudy white sky

In dull light conditions, the 3-megapixel camera is able to capture a good range of detail in this mid shot. Colours are also well-rendered

Again, in this mid-range shot colours there's some good detaiing, but at the top of the picture there are some contrast issues with branches and lamposts against the white clouds

Colours here are bright and vivid. However, with no autofocus, it can be tricky to ensure subjects are in focus. Here, the guitar, which looked fine on the phone's display, is slightly soft, with the amp behind looking sharper

Without an autofocus and macro facility, it's not possible to get sharp close-up shots; here the background is detailed but the flowers in the foreground half a metre away from the camera are blurred

Indoors, with the flash on, the image is brighter but it's not evenly illuminated. The subject is soft too

This indoors, with black and white piano keys contrasting was taken indoors without a flash. Colours are not precisely rendered, there's a bit of noise and the top right of the picture is overexposed by a small amount of outside lighting

The flash improves contrast and colur rendition, and the image is sharper. There's still an exposure issue in the top of the image, however

There are a selection of colouring effects you can add, such as this sepia tint.

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