Features of the Samsung U800
Convention dictates that when it comes to size, smaller is better. In this regard, the Samsung U800 lives up to that by going even slimmer than the Soul. At a meagre 9.9 mm thin, it still manages to not appear fragile, mostly due to the metal exterior that has a brushed, instead of smooth finish that somehow seems to further emphasise ruggedness. All in all, as far as appearances and size go, the Samsung U800 works well with its dimensions and exterior, and looks sleek and sturdy at the same time.
Not much has changed with the TFT LCD display, which is pretty much akin to the one on the Soul, offering 16 million colours at QVGA resolution. Of course, this does go down well with most, and the final product is graphics of great quality. Much of the features, including menus, text, and so on are fully customisable, making it a treat to use and fool around with.
One area that blows not just the Soul, but most other mobile phones, totally out of the water is the internal memory that chocks up to a huge 1 GB. To all appearances, Samsung decided against going the common way of low internal memory and options for high additional storage with microSD cards (still an option, however). Still, this change allows for even greater storage capacity and reduced reliance on external storage, which is always a good thing.
All in all, the rest of the features are pretty standard, with a web browser, FM radio, HSDPA support as well as GPRS/EDGE, and finally Bluetooth or USB. Unfortunately, the Samsung U800 is not perfect, and does not come with a 5.0 megapixel camera as many expected it would. Instead, it offers a 3 megapixel camera that is still non-too-shabby and really not bad.
A New Age
If Samsung plan to make the Soul get thinner with every generation, pretty soon there will be no room to fit anything in. However, that said, Samsung has gone an interesting path by choosing to not focus on the camera. No matter how one looks at it however, the U800 is a nice looking, solid, and really pretty reliable among mobile phone deals.
In the end, it is a completely satisfactory phone that can be purchased for either its good looks, or great customisability. By combining convenience and utility, there is a great debate as to whether or not the Samsung U800 does completely live up to expectations, however, in the long run, it really seems as though it did.
