Shoot with style!

Shoot with style!

The Samsung Pixon M8800 is an 8 megapixel
touchscreen phone packed with loads
of features. 

There was a time when hearing about an 8 megapixel mobile phone camera would have inspired a look of disbelief and awe to the average mobile consumer, now it’s pretty much a ‘ho-hum’ syndrome. Nevertheless, for the photo buffs out there who like having a good camera in their mobile handsets, Samsung’s M8800 Pixon may just be the one for you. But truth be told, this is how it really fared.

Form Factor

It's a simple enough design. If you’ve seen one touchscreen handset you’ve pretty much seen 'em all. The large display, in this case 3.2-inches with a 240 x 400 pixel resolution, is a bit of an issue when in bright sunlight. It tends to be overly reflective if not held at the right angle. It has three standard buttons under the display – Call Take, End Call and the center circular one is a Return key. A VGA camera is located just near the light senor that’s right beside the earpiece.

On one side is a microSD card slot followed by a shortcut key and a screen lock button. Samsung’s proprietary universal port is located at the top which is actually a good idea in terms of placement as it makes it easy to plug in the hands-free (which incidentally is equipped with a 3.5mm socket and volume control for the line-out or earphones). On the side are the Volume/Zoom and two dedicated keys–one to access the media library (video and image only) and the other a shutter release for the camera. An LED flash accompanies the 8MP camera at the rear.The all Black Pixon with the lined sides is in no way a bad looking handset.

Features and Performance

Interface: Samsung’s TouchWiz UI with its widget system is what helps run this piece of machinery. It’s so much smoother and more responsive than the F480—then again it’s been a while since we’ve seen it and we did expect this. Not much has changed except that Samsung has thrown in a few more widgets. Some of the widgets have been refurbished a bit, like the quick-dial option for those saved in your favorites. This allows you to send messages, make voice and video calls to five of the top candidates in the favorites. There’s also a separate shortcut menu that pops up for quick access to some of the more important features. So you don’t have to keep pulling out the widgets, dropping them onto the desktop and then accessing their features. Handwriting recognition is also supported on the Pixon for data entry but that means you’ll have to use the LG mascara-like stylus. There are options for this too. You can use the full screen, boxes for various script or a simple screen divider. The easiest thing is to use the alphanumeric keypad that switches very smoothly to full QWERTY when the handset is held in landscape.

Audio: The music player could have used a customizable EQ setting but the WOW presets et al work just fine. What really impressed us is that the handset has a 5.1-channel, SRS sound engine on board that sounds pretty good when hooked up to a surround sound audio system. Playlists can be created on the handset itself. Although the decibel level was a tad low for us, the audio quality is crisp and well balanced.

The Stereo FM radio (With RDS) works reasonably well with decent reception even on the commute. It has a built-in recording feature as well. The Pixon also has a voice recording feature for voice memos and such. Music Recognition is Samsung’s version of TrackID from Sony Ericsson. You can record a section of audio from the radio or via the sound recorder and send it to an online database for information on the said track.

Video: The Pixon supports a wide range of video formats such as DivX, XviD, H.263 and H.264, WMV and MP4. You’ll have to make sure the audio level is set high enough as the video player tends to sound a bit low for some strange reason. Since the handset has an accelerometer you can simply turn the handset to the side and the display orientation of the video will switch to full screen. They look good on the display and since you won’t really have to convert too many files it’s even better.

Samsung has also included a video editor that allows users to edit and create slideshows of images and even edit the captured videos via the handset’s camera. It’s a simple and intuitive application but it doesn’t support all file types.

Images: The new image browser sorts out the files by their name and flick control can also be used to navigate the files. The most innovative part is that it can be adjusted to sort out images via colors, time the images were taken (month-wise) and even the Face Tags created—it’s just brilliant. The flick control is smooth and Samsung has utilized the accelerometer here to the fullest. The images flow in the direction the phone is tilted.

The biggest glitch is that this is only available from the photo browser section and it won’t let you view the image in any other mode except landscape. Turn the handset and the images start to scroll. But if you view the images from the My Files section, you can flick to go to the next and even rotate the image 360 degrees by simply turning the handset. You can also create face tags here or view existing ones that you may have created earlier.

Face tagging is great technology that enables users to tag a person in an image (like you would on Facebook) and link them to all the information in the phonebook under that person’s details. It even retains the recognition to such an extent that it will locate the same face in multiple images of the same person so you can click on the tag and either send a message to that individual or make a call. It’s extremely impressive and worked without a hitch. You can also select a Face Link option directly from the camera so it focuses on the person or person's face and allows you to tag the information from there itself.

Other features

The Pixon is loaded with a few fun games but in these times of recession, Samsung has decided that all the games will have to be purchased in order to play continuously, or you’ll have to settle for the extremely short game play trials. Another fun application is Live pix with which you can create ‘works of art’ on the handset. It has tons of fun settings for you to create animated posters and edit images. You can either save the file you edited or created or export it as a .SWF Flash file after adding motion. All of the other standard features are present such as a Calendar, Converter, Tasks, Calculator, Alarm etc. Samsung’s Mobile Tracker feature is also part and parcel of the Pixon’s makeup. Users will also be able to view Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF files directly from the handset.

The handset also has GPS but no application has been provided, however, you can download and use Google Maps for the time being. The camera also has a Geotagging feature. Unlike Sony Ericsson handsets that have the same, the Pixon doesn’t have a provision for simply opting to see any particular image on Google Maps. In fact I couldn’t find any GPS information tagged to any image whatsoever. Another problem was that almost every time we selected the My Location option it was nowhere remotely close to where we actually were.

Connectivity

Except for Wi-Fi, the Pixon is equipped with everything else—Bluetooth with A2DP for wireless audio streaming and file transfer, USB 2.0 for data transfer from the PC, EDGE and GPRS for internet access, and 3G (with HSDPA). The browser can switch orientation depending on how the handset is held and it also has an option for full screen viewing. It supports Flash, which is a very good thing and it’s quite easy to navigate and use.

Your POP and IMPA email accounts can be set up by following a simple step by step set-up process on the handset. If you’ve never done this before and are unsure of what the settings do, you can look them up online from your email account service provider such as Gmail or Yahoo Mail. An RSS reader is also present. Images can be uploaded via a ShoZu account that you’ll have to set up. From there you can send images to your Facebook account as well as VOX and quite a few other blog sites including Flicker.

Camera

We loved using the 8 megapixel autofocus camera on the Pixon. It does take a bit long to start up (around 6 seconds at times), but it oozes with features. Aside from the auto stitch Panorama mode which works without a hitch, it also allows you to choose the orientation of the shot– upwards, downwards, left to right and vice versa. Other features include–WDR (Wide Dynamic Range), Image Stabilization, White Balance, Exposure and Smile and Face detection technology with Face Tagging as well.

In Macro Mode you may be able to get as close to a subject as in some other handsets but the quality is still superb. Even in cloudy conditions the level of detail the camera manages to pick up in a cluttered scene is pretty good. The Night Mode in Samsung’s digicams have always been impressive and the Pixon doesn’t disappoint either, provided the camera is absolutely stable when taking a picture.

Battery

The battery life was the biggest disappointment. The handset required charging on a daily basis even with minimal use. Talktime was a joke at just a little over an hour before the handset required charging. We sincerely hope that this is an issue with the demo unit Samsung sent to us and won’t hold true with a brand new handset you buy.

Verdict

The price tag on the M8800 Pixon is Rs. 28,750 which was a pleasant surprise considering their last 8 megapixel handset was a whopping Rs. 46,000. But the INNOV8 did come with 46 GB of space and features such as Wi-Fi. The Pixon on the other hand doesn’t have either. It has just 200 MB on internal memory and has no memory card included with the package. With the lack of Wi-Fi, GPS software, a bundled memory card and free games is it any wonder the handset is priced so well? Nevertheless it’s a great handset for the price irrespective of the few shortcomings and oddities. It’s equipped with great technology and it’s plenty of fun to use for multimedia. If you’ve saved enough and love your photos, we say, go for it!

For: UI is very responsive, great camera, good music quality, loads of features.

Against: Lacks Wi-Fi and free full version games, doesn't come with a memory card, audio/video player’s volume could have been a little louder, photo browser is innovative but could have been better, battery life doesn’t seem too good.