The Samsung SGH-i450 is of a rare breed called dual sliders, meaning it opens in more than one direction. In fact, like the Nokia N95, the i450 slides up to reveal a 12-key number pad, and slides down to reveal a, um, what the heck is that? It looks like a wheel, but it doesn't spin. In fact, Samsung has used touch sensors to make a pad that acts like half a wheel (maybe a bit less than half). To complete the visual metaphor, the user interface uses a circle for feedback that seems to complete the wheel onto the screen of the phone. So, you slide your finger clockwise to increase the volume, and the circle on the screen grows in the same direction. It's a neat visual trick, and makes the phone cool to use, at first.
Besides the scroll half-wheel, the phone also hides a speaker behind the slide. With audio from Bang & Olufsen's ICE power technology, the speaker provided surprising clarity to the music we heard. It lacked the volume of the Serenata phone, which is co-branded with B&O, but retained much of the clarity. We tested the two back to back, and were pleased with the results. The Serenata, playing a jazz tune, provided a brighter sound, a bit more energetic, perhaps thanks to its more powerful amplifier and bass. But the i450, playing a song from the soundtrack to the movie "Return of the King," was no slouch. It didn't quite fill the conference room in which we were testing, but it certainly exceeded our expectations, and would make a fine, clear speaker for a small room, no sweat.
The phone has a few other impressive features, as well. First of all, it runs Symbian S60, which means that plenty of 3rd party apps will be available. Second, it has a 2-megapixel around back, and a VGA camera up front for video conferencing, which should be no sweat, considering the phone also uses high-speed, 3.6Mbps HSDPA for network access. You can also listen to an FM radio with your own headphones, since the i450 uses a standard 3.5mm headphone jack. Internal memory tops out at 35MB, which isn't much, but the phone will accept microSDHC cards in capacities up to 4GB. The phone connects to headphones and PCs using Bluetooth and USB of the 2.0 variety, including A2DP for stereo Bluetooth headsets.
In our hands-on tests, the Symbian OS looked very pretty on the phone, but only seemed to compound a problem we had with the scroll wheel. The phone may be fun to use, but it isn't terribly responsive. The scroll wheel would not always react to our touch, and once or twice we found ourselves simply rubbing the phone again and again to change menu selections or decrease the volume, when the action should have been sure and smooth every time.
Symbian may be a pretty OS, but it isn't very fast, especially when the phone lacks a heaping stack of RAM. Fast connectivity means that essential functions, like Web browsing and sideloading, should work smoothly, but when apps pile up, there could be some lag.
So, is this phone better than the Serenata? Not in terms of sound quality, but it is the best phone with a speaker that we could actually afford. And, the user interface is much, much better than the Bang & Olufsen menus, with 3rd party support and useful features, both of which the Serenata lacks. If money is no object and sound quality from the phone's speaker is of the utmost important, by all means enjoy your new pebble-phone. But if you want an all-around multimedia slider, the i450 is the way to go.
Of course, we'll reserve our opinion until we've had a chance to try one ourselves. Considering the fact that U.S. HSDPA bands are ignored, that may not happen any time soon.
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