It's all about the cameras these days: Sindre Lia takes a closer look at Samsung's SGH-X600, which places a major emphasis on picture-taking - although not exclusively so.
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Exterior
Samsung's SGH-X600 - one of few models from Samsung featuring a more traditional candy bar design - measures 10.2 x 4.3 x 2 cm, and weighs in at a lightweight 80 g. The flat antenna in the upper right corner is a bit too eye-catching, but to make up for this the upper left corner conceals an integrated 0.3 Megapixel camera hidden behind a protective lid. The camera lens is attached to this lid, and offers a 180 degree rotation axis to the front and back.
 | The Samsung SGH-X600 focuses heavily on camera functionality
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The upper front of the SGH-X600 plays host to a 16-bit TFT screen with a resolution of 128 x 128 pixels, placed just above a 5-way navigational pad with adjacent soft buttons on either side. Below this, we find the numerical keypad, while volume up/down controls and an earphone jack is placed far up on the left side of the handset.
Ergonomics
Unfortunately, the keypad of the Samsung SGH-X600 emits excess noise, but on the bright side its keys have been comfortably spaced and sized. We're not entirely happy with the design of the navigational pad and its adjacent buttons, however, as distinguishing between these less easy than it ought to be. On the bright side, the SGH-X600 is comfortable to hold and lies well in ones hand.
Features
With regard to voice connectivity, Samsung's SGH-X600 is equipped with GSM 900/1800 MHz support, while data connectivity is ensured by GPRS Class 10 and an IrDA compatible Infrared port. A WAP 2.0 browser is also in place, as is support for polyphonic ringtones, SMS, EMS and MMS - the latter of which supports both sending and receiving messages up to 80 KB in size. Increasingly common functions such as e-mail, Instant Messaging, EDGE and Bluetooth are not present, however, but on the other hand the SGH-X600 offers a whopping 9 MB of memory.
The handset also comes with J2ME MIDP 1.0 support, and up to 1.5 MB of its memory capacity can be used to store Java games and applications. The remaining memory capacity is mainly reserved for pictures snapped with the integrated 0.3 MP camera of the handset - aptly supported by a photo light, which further emphasizes the imaging focus of this phone.
Performance
The menu system of the Samsung SGH-X600 is simple to use, and text input is a similarly quick and smooth affair. Use of manual text input, however, can be a tad slow at times following the insertion of special characters - and the method through which this is accomplished isn't of the best we've seen either.
During our review period, we also experienced an incident where the handset stopped receiving SMS messages without any warning or sign of malfunction. At first thought to be network related, other phones operated perfectly within the same network, which triggered a reboot of the handset - which in turn lead to several days of SMS messages suddenly arriving at once. Fortunately, this only occurred once, but was enough to cause concern regarding the stability of the handsets's firmware.
What really stands out with the SGH-X600 is undoubtedly its integrated VGA camera. Pictures can be taken at a resolution of up to 0.3 Megapixels, users can adjust the level of brightness manually, there's digital zoom - and even a photo light for use under poor lighting conditions. The latter is bright enough to obtain adequate pictures of motifes close to the camera. Pictures taken in broad daylight are of excellent quality considering the low resolution, and are fully on par with pictures taken by Nokia's current flagship camera phone - the 6230. The 16-bit screen of the phone is fully adequate, although not among the crispest and brightest we've seen.
Audio quality with the SGH-X600 is very good, and the loudspeaker of the phone offers good volume levels. The listed battery capacity for the phone is up to 3.5 hours talk time and 8 days of standby time; during our review period, we averaged 2.5 hours and 5 days respectively.
Availability
The Samsung SGH-X600 is now available in most European markets and sells in the 250 EUR range without subscription.
Price and availability
The will start selling for TBA () in November 1999.
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