30 Jun 2008
A lot of music oriented mobile phones have already paraded in the streets. Some of which are Nokia's 3250 Xpress Music and Sony Ericsson's W850i Walkman phone, then comes the Samsung X830. This mobile phone carries a design highly inspired by the iPod construction. Rest assured that X830 will really catch your attention.

The Samsung X830 is a handset made with a swiveling mechanism. As this is a rotating phone, it is possible to have a compact design. The handset only weighs 75g. It measures 84mm tall, 30mm wide, and 19.9mm thick which makes it a very small phone. It comes with a four-directional navigation wheel that allows users to access the menus and other functions without having to open the device. Located right above the navigational wheel is a large and narrow screen measuring 19mm wide and 32mm tall.

Its body is made of plastic casing offered in a colourful selection of oasis blue, lemon green, orange, candy pink and black. It comes with a spring type mechanism so that it can easily pop when opened. Metal buttons can be found on the sides of the phone. One of which is a button used to unlock its music player controls. Located on the opposite side is the volume control button. On the back side is the battery cover. The battery provided is called Li-Ion. Its battery performance may vary according to use. However, the indicated battery life comes at a maximum of 120 hours standby time and 3 hours of talk time.

When opened, it reveals a keypad arranged in a strange manner. It is not your usual alphanumeric keys as it is designed in a two column layout, so you will have to get used to it. Its backlighting is great and the characters on all keys are highly readable.

In terms of functionality, the features of X830 are impressive. Its display comes with a TFT LCD screen which offers a resolution of 128 x 220 pixels and supports 262K colours. Although screen resolution is a bit low, it still illustrates a detailed image. The screen surface comes with a shiny coating which makes it almost impossible to read in direct sunlight. During standby mode, it displays the time and date, signal strength, battery status, operator logo and other active functions.

As a music player phone, it holds impressive multimedia features. Carrying an in-house 1GB memory space seems to be a good achievement for a mid-range music player handset as it allows storage of up to 240 songs. It supports commonly used formats such as MP3, AAC, AAC+, AAC+e and WMA.

Unfortunately, X830 doesn't provide a memory card slot to expand its capacity. The music player can easily be accessed through the navigation key or the application menu. The player also comes with a music library wherein tracks are arranged according to character or frequency of usage.

It also provides player settings which includes a repeat or shuffle option. In addition, it also comes with a 3D sound and 9 pre-set equalizer settings. It does not have a stereo FM radio but it can play videos in MPEG4 format. It also allows synchronization with Winamp and Windows Media Player.

Located at the back side of the phone is a 1.3 megapixel camera. Its camera can produce a photo resolution of 1280 x 1024 pixels, while video recording can produce a maximum resolution of 352 x 288 pixels. Camera features include photo effects, quality settings, timer, scenic program, white balance or ISO, and night mode functions. Unfortunately, it does not include a flash and auto focus function. Although its camera can't compare to other high-end camera phones, it still delivers an average video and photo quality.

Messaging options for X830 includes SMS, MMS and EMS. However, it does not support email services. Its phone memory can store up to 200 text messages, provides a 3MB space for MMS, and allows a size of up to 300KB per message. The Samsung X830 also provides smart synchronization. It is well equipped with a GPRS facility, wireless Bluetooth, USB data cable, and EDGE technology for faster data access and transfer.

It houses other basic features such as a phonebook, a calendar & scheduler, world time, a clock with alarm options, a calculator, and a currency converter. It also comes with a flight mode option and pre-installed java games.

To put it simply, Samsung X830 has its own advantages and minor drawbacks but its overall performance is average.

Find out more about the Samsung X830 at uk.samsungmobile.com
Read other reviews at ecoustics.com