Samsung G600 is the most modestly priced item out of the whole top camera phone range. The concept proved to be successful since the U600 had been out and later won a considerable amount of popularity on the market. The novelty features a significantly enhanced camera module, namely being a 5 Mpix one quite comparable to those of Nokia N95, Sony Ericsson K850i or LG KG920. A new software platform with a number of themes is in - at last, Samsung got down to that, too. It remains a mystery though why Samsung decided to change the type of the interface slot making it slightly larger. According to the company's official statements, this is to avoid possible confusion with the memory card slot which is located nearby, thus preventing possible physical damage to the hardware. Being a boon to some distracted users, it's a nuisance to the rest due to an evident incompatibility with some of the older accessories.

Samsung G600's closest match is Sony Ericsson K850i - the latter being also a casual camera phone and not a smartphone like Nokia N95. Both share the same camera resolution, same screen build and so on. From the point of design and ergonomics G600 proves brilliant. The handset is easy to handle and pleasing to use, the controls produce a nice impression, all the control elements are arranged in an orderly and logical fashion unlike the wild controls alignment of the K850i.

G600 sports a traditionally good quality of materials. The housing is made of high-quality plastic and the build is very neat - no creaks, no gaps. That's even better than what we see in N95 and K850i. The Finnish-made smartphone can also boast its high materials quality but due to some build peculiarities it has a minor gap in the sliding mechanism area. K850i, in its turn, utilizes plastic of somewhat inferior quality and is susceptible to scratching and cracks, the plastic is too thin and yielding to sustain a prolonged physical pressure without pressing through.

In addition to all its virtues, Samsung G600 is going to cost significantly less than the two others. Price is an unquestionable advantage of the new gadget, but it should be to the prejudice of its functionality. Let's see what Samsung guys did to the G600 camera and whether it's ok to save on quality? First a few words about the specs. Here things go all right even as compared to the more expensive phones, a flashlight included. G600 has its camera protected in a really nice way, arguably the best among the three models reviewed here. It hasn't got a protective cover so you don't have to slide it away every time and the protective glass seems not to get greasy so quickly as the one of K850i does. The front of the camera is well hidden inside the material of the upper part of the casing, exposing only a small window hosting the lens. It's a solution common to many Samsung sliders, e.g. U600:

G600 is neatly compact, probably the lightest 5 Mpix camera phone that leaves all its unwieldy rivals behind due to their relatively bigger size. This makes G600 a handy gadget in our everyday life. The K850i is notably bigger and so it feels in the hand, especially on the part of thickness. Being a slider, G600 still manages to be three millimeters slimmer. Nokia N95 is the biggest but evidently not the strongest on this front. This is justified by a larger screen and the two-position slider mechanism and a number of other factors.

G600 lacks a full-fledged Flight Mode though. Similar to K850i, you have to keep the SIM card in all the time, but unfortunately with no chance to remove it after passing authorization unlike the Swedish-Japanese phone. This is really nasty because it limits its music and camera capabilities in a way.

Camera interface and settings

The camera button has two positions and is located on the right edge of the casing, it's rather ergonomic. It's neither tight nor loose, the only sad thing is that it's positioned a bit too low which may result in the phone falling out of the hand when trying to shoot single-handedly.

There's no separate button for switching between shooting modes (like in E590) but a quick action menu can be easily called upon pressing the right soft button. The menu has following items:

Exit

Let's begin with the most interesting feature - scenery presets.

The user chooses between seven possible environmental presets plus the Auto mode. That more than N950 and K850i have but still less in comparison the majority of compact digital cameras. On the other hands, some of the environmental options may be grouped within a single menu item, producing as a result:

Everything essential is present, no worries here. Video recording modes are also quite all right, G600 isn't a bad egg at all:

It deserves mentioning that in the serial shooting mode the maximum resolution drops from 2560x1920 to mere 320x240. The same goes with the Mosaic shot. An overall number of 15 different kinds of Mosaic are available which is more than enough. Each series may consist from 6, 9 or 15 pictures of Normal or High quality.

Now let's move on. Macro and flashlight have a number of quite standard options. The flashlight has an auto mode but can't be turned on permanently, that's limited to only while shooting video. It's really disappointing that the Macro mode doesn't have a full auto though. You have to switch that on by hand every time if you want to make a series of highly detailed pictures. Nokia and Sony Ericsson did a better realization of those features.

G600 has a traditionally good timer like other recent Samsung phones. It can be set to 3, 5 or 10 seconds. A time bar is displayed during the countdown backed by a value shown in numbers which is nice but yet hard to see from a distance.

Various special FX are quite abundant, they are even more than N950 and K850I:

On the other hand, you can do all those modifications even in the least sophisticated graphics editor so the variety of effects will only prove useful to those who are either too lazy or too fussy to find a minute in front of the computer. The same goes to zoom, it's just a regular digital zoom and is only limited to 4x while Nokia N95 has an 22x zoom and K850i offers a maximum of 16x. With no optical zoom in any of the three, in practice it's a very minor improvement.

Likewise a majority of other Samsung phones, G600 offers you to choose from 29 different kinds of frames to decorate your photos, that's quite interesting considering the MMS functionality. Your girlfriend can get an MMS with her photo inside a heart-shaped frame after the date is over, the very same photo that you took in the street an hour ago. Neither Nokia nor Sony can't come even close.

A set of standard White balance settings are available (Auto / Daylight / Incandescent / Fluorescent / Cloudy / Sunset) as well as ISO (100 / 200 / 400 / 800). You can also tune the way the viewfinders works (Regular / Indicator / Guidelines) and tweak the camera application icons.

Misc Settings include image quality (Super Fine, Fine, Normal), exposure meter, adjustable action sounds, storage folder settings and default file names.

	Photo	Video
	2560x1920	640 x 480(VGA)
	2304x1728	352 x 288(CIF)
	2048x1536	320 x 240(QVGA)
	1600x1200(UXGA)	176 x 144(QCIF, MMS)
	1280x960(SXGA)	160 x 120(QQVGA)
	1024x768(XGA)	128 x 120(Mobile)
	800x600(SVGA)	128 x 96(MMS)
	640x480(VGA)
	320x240(QVGA)

G600 compresses the photos into standard JPEG format but video is quite another story. The new approach of Samsung engineers challenges N95 and leaves K850i behind. Video recording is based on H.263 + AMR NB and MPEG4 + AMR NB formats, the only weak point being a low framerate of 15 (as compared to 30 with N95). The maximum clip length is up to an hour, flashlight works in the same way as taking pictures.

Gallery

Viewing your photos right on the phone is easy and pleasurable though that doesn't make a really big advantage. Imaging software is also a pro since you can't have a notebook with Photoshop or a PDA around you all the time. Both Nokia N95 and SE K850i have finely customizable, well-designed gallery application but the G600 doesn't lag behind either. The Swedish-Japanese phone even has a motion detector, both rivals of G600 make intensive use of animation an other eye candy features. Samsung decided to stick to the same quality level so G600 has a brand new gallery with improved functionality as a part of the latest firmware platform.

It looks a bit simpler than what we see on the side of the competitors, but don't let yourself be fooled by its looks - the functionality is quite on the same merit level. The photo selected is clad into a red frame and gets half and a time bigger so browsing is as easy as never before. You have to select a function prior to choosing a number of files or the whole lot of them to process, e.g. you first click Sent via MMS and only then choose which files exactly will be sent. The functions include View, send via MMS, send via Mail, send via Bluetooth, set as a personal icon, set as a background; copy and move; delete and rename; all kinds of sorting - by date, type, name, size; set gallery mode, that is List or Thumbnails. You can instantly share a file through Bluetooth or send it for printing both via Bluetooth or USB connections. The last thing you could do is just view the file properties.

Let's examine the slide show function in particular. Its notable feature is the broad range of alternate modes:

A substantial boost to the rest of the advantages is the Image Editor capable of sophisticated image processing techniques

You can either use an already saved photo or one taken just from the camera and open it in the editor. Four effect groups involve Filter, Style, Warp and Partial blur, the four tweaks are Auto Level, Brithness, Contrast and Colour, the three image transformation options are Resize, Rotate and Clip, and also a bunch of misc features like Crop, Frame, Icon, Text, Print, Send and Binding.

Simple, essential and non-restricting.

Shooting

Now it's time to get to the practice and real-life field tests. Unfortunately G600 turns to be a slacker when it comes to performance, being twice as slow as K850i. It makes almost a whole second between pressing the button and getting the picture - way too long even for a camera phone. Pictures taken in a dynamic environments are of a rather poor quality. But with the rest of the things G600 holds a firm ground. In some cases G600 even beats N95 and K850i despite of its budget status. Let's compare day shots:

Samsung G600 / Nokia N95 / Sony Ericsson K850i

This shot is notable for the oversaturated red area in the centre making a strong contrast against a background of foliage. It's a challenging task for the camera to render the colors all right and not to 'fail the angle'. Sony Ericsson K850i took the last place in the competition, it repainted the auto in a sick pink color and added some sort of pale white mist over the green leaves. Samsung did better, but the whole impression was spoilt because of the strange blur in the background. N95 won the test with a minimum of distortion, the quality in comparable to a mid-end compact digital camera:

Samsung G600 / Nokia N95 / Sony Ericsson K850i

A typical urban panorama with a lot of small details. Upon a closer look we face a situation similar to the previous test, but the leadership of N95 is quite more obvious here. Samsung and SE display a glaring negligence in regard of small details which ends up in blurred pictures, but still G600 renders the colors in a more realistic manner. So the Finnish-made phone beats them both. Let's get on to macro:

Samsung G600 / Nokia N95 / Sony Ericsson K850i

The very first examination gives Samsung G600 an upper hand in this competition and exposes Nokia's trademark quirk: the phone requires a significant distance between it and the object to get properly focused as compared to the two rival phones (look at the tip of the branch for instance). Sony K850i does ok but the color rendering glitches are still in, a lot of bleakness and such. In a number of other examples the SE handset manages to make a decent match to the Nokia phone:

Samsung G600 / Nokia N95 / Sony Ericsson K850i

Again the Finnish-made camera phone failed at close up, the apples look blurry in the center which is not observed in the case of its rivals. The conclusion is simple as that: N95 makes a bad use at shooting close-ups failing to focus properly in the majority of cases. G600 does vice versa, focusing is no problem at all when you shoot from a short distance with it. Sony Ericsson is somewhere in the middle and all the three phones have flaws of their own. However close-up shooting at extra close ranges is a rare occasion and the three contestants display virtually the same result when the distance is about 10-15 cm. This series of pictures makes a good illustration of the whole story about going Macro:

Samsung G600 / Nokia N95 / Sony Ericsson K850i

Samsung G600 / Nokia N95 / Sony Ericsson K850i

Samsung G600 / Nokia N95 / Sony Ericsson K850i

Samsung G600 / Nokia N95 / Sony Ericsson K850i

As we see, Sony Ericsson shows the best average result and the two other phones have some very specific, exclusive quirks that make them lag behind. N95 is a failure at shooting from an ultra-close range and Samsung did a bad job at rendering the colors. Then there goes night shooting:

Samsung G600 / Nokia N95 / Sony Ericsson K850i

A midnight highway is not the easiest task for the camera. N95 was the worst, pay attention to the stretch. Sony and Samsung seem to have produced images of comparable quality but the bus schedule on the right tells for sure which one is actually the best. Samsung photos display a lesser amount of blur and noise.

Samsung G600 / Nokia N95 / Sony Ericsson K850i

The lesser the light, the more the noise - that's clearly true about G600 so K850i wins the next test despite an amount of noise in its own pictures, note how the monument was rendered. N95 keeps falling behind. We didn't use the flashlight on purpose because our copy of Sony Ericsson began freaking out every time we turned it on. We hope this will be fixed in the serial version, otherwise it'll be a serious downside. To sum the things up we still have to perform some video tests:

Samsung G600 / Nokia N95 / Sony Ericsson K850i

The three clips are very similar and quite easy to compare. As wee see, G600 produces blurrier videos though the resolution is up to N95's standards. K850i does even better but the resolution is lower and the sound volume is too low. So this test was won by Nokia.

Now the tests are over, so we proceed to giving examples of different shooting modes of Samsung G600.

Panorama

Mosaic

Serial Shooting

And, finishing the story, here come two series of photos and videos taken with the maximum quality:

Impressions

Samsung G600 is a solution unique to the present-day market, combining compactness and light weight with a modest price and brilliant camera, its key feature. It makes a strong challenge to its more pricey and higher-ranking rivals - Nokia N95 and Sony Ericsson K850i. Samsung G600 isn't an uber camera phone, but in some cases it manages to beat them and keeps up to their standards in others.

Nokia N95 remains the best choice for day shooting, its camera provides the best detail, brightness and color rendering quality. It beats both SE and Samsung in means of quality. Sony Ericsson wins the macro shooting contest and it does great at nighttime, producing least noise and blur. G600 shows results comparable to those of K850i in most cases though. In some cases it even did better than the SE handset

Nokia N95 seems to stay apart form its less advanced counterparts, being a hi-tech smartphone with a wide variety of functions including GPS and Wi-Fi which are very helpful for blogging. On the other hand, the immense price of the gadget tells for itself.

When it comes to the clash between K850i and G600 we step into a gray zone of sorts. Comparable in functionality, they have a distinguishable difference in price, K850i costing a hundred more euros. Samsung does better at color rendering and contrast in spite of its rival bearing a Cybershot trademark logo on the casing. This would tell negatively on the image of the Sony photo brand, we don't see any perceptible advantages over the rest of the top camera phones available on the market. G600 also has better functionality and is easier to handle - it's highly ergonomic, using the handset in everyday life is a real pleasure, it doesn't have a weird controls set like the K850i. Let alone the fact that G600 has an evidently superior build and material quality.

It goes without saying that Samsung made a winning phone in keeping with the spirit of the popular U600. It makes a strong competitor to K850i and is bound to become one of the best selling product of its class. It's easy to guess it'll beat K850i in volume of sales, which is far from being a balanced solution like that.

The market situation happens to be that one giving an advantage to the Korean manufacturer who managed to introduce an averagely priced, highly functional product with an excellent camera and high material quality coming along with a sound design and an improved interfaces. A detailed review of G600 is coming within the next few days.

Author: Dmitriy Ryabinin, dm@smape.com

www.smape.com

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