Contrary to the run-of-the mill assortment of products introduced to expand the Samsung portfolio which have comparable dimensions and designer ideas (let's recall U600, E840, U700 and a number of less popular devices), the new E950 looks truly unique against the background of same-class handsets. It sports impressive looks and high quality of the materials. The marketing perspectives of the device, to our assessment, are quite good, it doesn't have any direct competitors as of now. The starting success based off the well-remembered popularity of E900 will be soon backed up by the big potential imbued into the model.

Samsung E950 Main Specifications

Communication:	GGSM 900/1800/1900, EDGE class 10
Memory:	60 Mb of user memory, microSD slot
Communications:	USB2.0, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR (A2DP supported)
Camera:	3,2 Mpix (up to 2048 x 1536)
Screen:	2.0", 240х320, 262000 Colors
Battery:	capacity - 900 mAh up to 6 hours of talk time up to 240 hours of standby
Dimensions, weight:	95x46x15,4 mm, 88 g.
Estimated price:	300 euro

Samsung E950 belongs to the Beatiful Technology product family, a fact that places the handset in the category of stylish, innovative and highly functional devices. And that is effectively the way it is in real life, for the good looks isn't the only strong side of the phone - a number of revolutionary solutions are implemented as well in the sphere of usability and functionality - and those are something you haven't heard of before. Firstly, that's a second touchscreen used for navigation, the capacitative type of the sensors used, which react to the electric potential drop when you touch the screen surface, and the brand new coating used for the surface of the casing. In addition to the impressive exterior, the functional extras turn the handset in a very appeasing solution that deserves the most detailed examination.

Design and Ergonomics

Samsung E950 is a compact slider, not just slim or something - it's the overall dimensions that invoke that word, not an extreme slimness. In fact, it's 15,4 mm thick but that allows to curb the width and length so the overall size in optimal for everybody. Thus the phone is very comfortable to hold in the hand, quite on the contrary to the ergonomically challenged Samsung E840.

Let's compare to SonyEricsson S500i:

Let's Compare to Motorola RAZR2 V8:

The build quality is traditional for the latest models by that company and deserves purely positive comments - both in open and closed state the phone looks like a monolith, no play between the parts is to be found. This is a long-term tradition of the company to pay maximum attention to this aspect of product assembly, only a few exceptions to the rule known to exist. All in all, the build quality and the sliding mechanism implementation of the new Samsung E950 is very similar to the recently reviewed G600. The mechanism is smooth and produces but a faint sount, though there's no finger rest to provide even further comfort in opening it. Your finger presses against the secondary touchscreen instead, and if it's active there's a fair chance of an unwanted 'keystroke'.

The materials used for the casing are remarkable for the unique surface coating. By the most part the casing is made of plastic but has a metal spray coating all over the surface, and an additional layer of mirroring lacquer that effectively hides the fingerprints. Greasing is the universally persistent problem inherent to all glossy, polished and chromed surfaces - most of them if not all get soiled in no time, just after a few minutes of holding the handset in the hand. Samsung E950 is completely deprived of this problem, or to say more precise, it's minimized to the point where it causes no inconveniences at all. It's hard to describe with words how the new type of coating wards off and hides the grease, but in real life it's just stunning too see how Samsung resolved the issue in such an elegant manner. Moreover, the coating is resistant to scratching and physical damage, it's extremely durable. The aluminium sputtring hidden below has a grainy texture which also helps to conceal the fingerprints. The texture is hard to spot in detail from a distance, but when you get closer you easily see the mirror effect of the coating and the bright grainlike spots agaist a darker background created by the layer of aluminium paint. A small area at the bottom lacks the aluminium layer, it's just a piece of black matte plastic of a rather high quality. The stadard handset color is grayish brown, but a number of alternates are to appear during the next few months.

Of course, the face panel enframing the keyboard and the screen guard glass use different materials and are still vulnerable to soiling, but at least the most part of the handset, and especially the areas that frequently come in contact with the user's hands, are still protected.

Despite the popular myth about Nokia's leadership, nowadays Samsung are the world's leaders in quality of materials used in their products, and E850 is something that ensures this leading position even further. It's great to see that Samsung equally care about the interior and the exterior, supplying their highly functional products with durable and smart looking bodies. In our opinion, E950 is ideal in terms of exterior design, instead of chasing after the maximum slimness or any other extremeties, it's all based around the idea of balance, usability and practical comfort. Why should one buy a disproportioned handset which is only 9 millimeters thick while there's another one available, which is 15 millimiters thick but in practice feels better when you get hold of it? Numbers subside when it comes to real-life experiences, and Samsung E950 shows strong disposition towards the latter. The exterior design balances between appealing and individual looks and a classical form that is neutral and unpretentious. Unfortunately, the handset loses much of its charm in the photos, try to use every opportunity to get hold of a real one if you're interested in this model.

The integrated camera is located at the top of the sliding panel. This kind of positioning is the most optimal, when the phone is folded the lens is safely hidden so it won't get damaged by anyhting. Just near the lens you can see a LED flash, it's rather powerful and proved of real help during our test shooting sessions. Whenever it was too dark, the flash helped us to sort out a bit more quality and detail. The self-portrait mirror is found right next to these two, and is big enough to cause no discomfort.

There's only one integrated speaker, located at the back pnael. It's rather loud to suit most environments, but if the back panel rests on a flat surface or the phone is put into a tight pocket, some muffling can occur, and it's harder to spot the signal. The battery bay cover also conceals the memory card slot, it's possible to hot-swap them (contrary to what such a constructive solution might suggest).

Screens

The main screen of the phone has a diagonal of two inches (30x40 mm), the matrix is powered by the TFT technology and can render up to 262K colors. The screen resolution is standard: 240x320. Up to 12 lines of text can fall into the field of view simultaneously. The screen is supplied with a mirror backing, so the information stays legible even in broad daylight. The quality of the screen is remarkably high, - actually one of the best in its class, - the colors are maximally natural and vivid, the brightness is perfect. The relatively small size might be the only thing to criticize, but it seems to be quite proportional in size to the rest of the details.

The screen fonts, as usual, look very neat and distinctive. The digits while typing the number to dial are rather large. You can customize the size, color and background color for all the fonts in the settings.

The secondary screen utilizes the OLED technology and supports a 65K colors palette, but most of the time the only color it displays is the color of the control indicators. The secondary screen resolution is 128x112, it does well against the sunlight, everything stays legible while in the sun. The extra functions provided by this element will be discussed a bit further.

Controls and slots

The extra controls include the volume rocker located on the left edge of the casing, which is also used for zooming in and out during the camera mode. Also there are a few options available for this element while receiving a call: you can select either the Mute or Reject mode, so the button will act as defined. In the former case the ringtone is muted, in the latter - the call is rejected. If you don't want to get the caller upset, you can activate an option to send a disclaimer SMS automatically once you drop a call. This is a very interesting and useful function which first appeared with Nokia smartphones. When you're busy and can't answer a call (or drop it), the caller will be sent a template-defined message once the connection is released.

At the very bottom of the phone's body rests the charger/headset slot covered with a plastic flap. Such a location is quite awkward, it's hard to use the keypad and keep the headset plugged simultaneously, the jack stands in the way. On the right edge sits the camera launch / shoot button, it's noticeably sticking out, easy to press. The block / power off button is placed nearby, it's slightly sunk into the surface, which poses some difficulty yet avoids accidental pressing.

Touch controls and navigation

The digital keypad is of a quite standard type, it's made of black plastic, the button's aren't too flat, more on the traditional side. They have a good keystroke, are easy and comfortable to press. The keypad sports a bright white, even backlighting.

Now let's pass to the innovative element that makes up most of the device's originality - the secondary screen powered by touch technology. Samsung E950 is the world's first slider supplied with two screens. The secondary screen utilizes a resolution of 128x112 and is powered by the OLED technology. It entirely replaces the regular navigation button. The secondary screen is encompassed by a chromed frame and protected with a durable glass, resistant to scratching and physical damage. This element can only display a limited number of symbols, it's effectively an alternative to a navigation button.

There a few modes in which it can be functioning. Depending on the currently active application, the screen displays a unique set of symbols which act as control buttons for that application. For isntance, during standby it shows the standard set of navigation functions - Up = My Menu, Down = Google Search, Right = mp3 player, Left = Start Message. Of course, all of this can be customized and remapped, and the action icons displayed will change accordingly. Unlike a navigation button, such a screen always lets you know for sure what action will follow pressing a certain action icon.

In the menu, the application icons are replaced with the navigation symbols and the OK button is shown in the center. The Calculator applications accordingly displays the icons of the basic math operation, the mp3 players shows the playback control symbols, the same goes for the FM tuner, voice recorder, the camera application, the alarm clock and so on. Each of these acton icons features a unique pressing animation, once you touch an element it slightly increases in size and an audio signal is played - all of this is meant to prevent stray keystrokes.

That's exactly why Samsung E950 belongs to the Beatiful Technology product family. What else can be said about such a navigation system? In essense, that's an enhanced version of the regular touchscreen controls, moved to a separate touch panel and embracing every possible navigation function. Definitely, you'll have to face a short learning curve while getting used to this unusual feature, even if you are pretty much acquanted with the touch controls of E900 and U600, but on the whole we weren't able to spot any serious issues on this side. Of course, some people won't stand such a system of controls, and some are sure to adore it. The customer feedback on the controls of Samsung E950 is so varying that we can't draw any final conclusions, yet the majority tend to approve of it rather than reproach. Of course, we should pay a lot respect to all the work and smart planning carried out by Samsung engineers - the sensors provide high sensibility and accurate response, the percentage of stray keystrokes is very low indeed.

Just like with the rest of Samsung phones that have touch controls, the telephone gets blocked during a call to prevent accidental connection release due to pressing a touch button with your cheek, so if you have to drop a call during the talk, the only way to do that is to turn off the block by pressing the power off button on the right edge of the casing, which is a bit too sophisticated for such a simple task.

Now let's draw our attention to a certain tiny feature that can hardly be spotted at once. While you are holding the handset in your hand, the touch controls work all right, the touch buttons are very accurate and respond instantly. But once you put the handset on a table, the Call and Drop touch buttons cease to respond to touch at all. First we thought this blocking occured due to the presence of a position sensor, but later it turned out that the handset may be stationed at any angle, yet the buttons still won't respond. But once you touch the battery cover with your finger or palm, the sensors again start responding. Interesting, isn't it? Touching any other areas (the upper edge, the plastic bottom, the digital keypad) leads to nothing, as well as touching the phone with anything else than the hand. The device is able to feel a human touch even through a thick layer of cardboard.

As it turned out, that's just how the capacitive sensors work. Once you touch an element, the potential changes and thus the element is activated. The battery cover is also a sensor which lets the phone know whether the it is held by its owner's hand or is put aside (obviously, while keeping it in the pocket, it shouldn't make accidental calls or something like that - that's why the buttons get locked if not in hand)

Battery

The model makes use of a Li-Ion battery with a standard capacity of 900 mAh. No reinforced battery types are provided for this handset. Similar to the latest Ultra Edition II phones, the trademark charge saving OPUS technology is implemented, providing for a longer battery life. As proved in our tests, it does indeed though the results aren't too impressive to pay any serious attention to this feature.

The handset is able to stand about two days of standard duty cycle (about an hour of talk time, two hours of listening to the music, an hour of menu interaction and other features). That's quite sufficient for the majority of customers.

A full recharge cycle takes about two hours and a half. The charge indicator has a certain peculiarity - the first two points of the scale go away relatively fast, but the last one stays for about a day.

Samsung E950 Battery

	Samsung E950	Samsung U600
Regular Duty	2 days	1.5 days
Multimedia cycle, video (3GP)	3:35	2:50
Multimedia cycle, audio (MP3)	10:35	9:45

Communications

Samsung E950 supports three frequency ranges - EGSM 900/1800/1900 with full EDGE Class 10 support. It doesn't support WCDMA networks though. As for the wireless modules, it comes with Bluettoh 2.0 + EDR. Its functionality is up to the level, the settings are: activation status (on or off), the shared devices list, visibility status, device name and the standard parameters. The list of services is also quite common, save for one specific feature to be discussed below.

The wire connection is achieved using the USB 2.0 protocol, but the data transfer speed isn't the highest. The Mass Storage mode is fully supported as well synchronazation with the Windows Media Player and Samsung PC Studio. The required mode can be selected in the corresponding menu as a default setting, or you can be prompted for selection every time you connect the phone to the PC.

User Interface

As we have already discussed, Samsung E950 is a brainchild of the Gumi R&D development centre, unlike the G600 model, so the interface sports a few differences, though these aren't of any critical importance to the end user. Samsung E950 belongs to the same generation with U600, having a much improved interface, while G600 is the sequel to D900. The most significant changes regard the way the call service functions (a possibility to set a default phone number for a person's contact record, contacts sorting, recording the talk time in the call log and so on), an opportunity to customize the SMS message audio signals, and a number of less important points to be discussed further.

As compared to E900, the E950 model displays a number of noticeable improvements in terms of interface, its immersiveness nearly approaches the company's flagship G600. The U600 models seems to be slightly worse on this front due to a lack of certain functions, for instance E950 has fully functional interface themes like in G600 which aren't found with U600. The sound profiles aren't supported though, the only difference in customization here is the possibility to engage the mute mode, just like in numerous other Samsung handsets. The audio settings allow to select a ringtone and the signal type (from five possible presents, simultaneous song plus vibro signal included), the keystroke signal, the power on and off sounds, the message signals. Each message type can be customized with one of the two available signal types - vibration signal or an audio signal, for instance you can set a custom mp3 file to act as such. The mute mode is engaged by holding the # key pressed for a few seconds, the profile status icon is displayed in the status line.

The themes functionality will be discussed a bit later, let's get down to the interface now.

Following the trodden path of D900, the company are extensively implementing the Living World feature in all of the newer models. Once the phone is logs into the local carrier's network, a wallpaper corresponding to the country of residence is displayed. There are a lot of unique wallpapers corresponding to a multitude of countries, each showing a landmark of that state like the Sydney Opera, the Frisco Bridge, the Big Ben of London, the Eiffel Tower of Paris. The wallpaper is animated and the day is followed by the dusk and the night simultaneously with the real world, once the signal gets worse the cast becomes overcast with clouds, a missed call is indicated by fireworks. If you find yourself somewhere where no cellular network is available, the screen just shows a green lawn. Little of a novelty, yet this feature is strictly exclusive to Samsung products.

During stadby, the screen shows the analog clock, big enough and all the data is clearly seen from the distance. If needed, the screen can display two different clocks operating in different timezones, the clock indicating the local time of the country of residence appears bigger.

The status line shows all the main indicators of the currently running processes and active modules - Bluetooth, music player, current profile, web connetion, battery charge, local network status and so on, once you open a menu all the icons go a line lower, and stay visible all the same.

Of course, you can always select a custom wallpaper to replace the Living World splash screen, for example a photo taken with the phone's camera. Besides the picture, the calendar can be displayed in the standby mode, it will show up as an overlay to the wallpaper - this feature is common for all Samsung phones.

In the standby mode, the info shown on the screen (carrier name, currently playing track, event information) can be visually represented in a number of ways depending on the currently selected settings in the corresponding menu - it's possible to customize the font color, the style, the screen location - bottom, top or center.

The font style in the dial mode is also customizable, it's possible to choose size, color and style - the first two parameters are available in the standard viewing mode only. A number of specific styles can be applied to the digits of the phone numbers - for example, handwritten ink symbols on a sheet of paper, all with a corresponding animation. In addition to the font customization, the very dial window can be customized in terms of colors, everything can be set to the user's liking - Samsung designers are traditionally strong in this area.

My Menu is an addition to the main menu which is called by pressing the navigation button upwards. It looks like a quick shortcut menu with a number of icons which call the most frequently called functions. The menu is mostly analogous with a similar feature of Nokia and SonyEricsson phones, and more than one generation of devices proved its usefullness. It's possible to change the number and order of icons, the shortucts themselves are selected from a list, but unfortunately, it's impossible to add a third-party application here.

By pressing the navigation button (well, the symbolic navigation button shown on the secondary scren) it's also possible to assign certain functions from the list (the list fully coincedes with the list from My Menu).

Another intereting feature is searching for phone numbers by three digits during standby (both in the contact book and the call log lerocrds). Indeed, if you know a certain combination of numbers found in a person's phone, you can just type them on the keyboard and the phone will automatically list all the found phone numbers that match the criteria. Both the first and the last names of the person are shown (if the number is registered in the contact book), as well as the phone type icon - home, mobile and so one. If the number isn't found in the phonebook, the only thing that's shown is the number itself and the icon indicating the call status in the call log.

Thus, all the interface settings combined, Samsung are leading in the ways of user interface customization. The interface of Samsung E950 is comfortable and very usable, it closely approaches Nokia products in this aspect, and maybe even outreaches them.

Themes

For the first time ever, the Korean manufacturer introduces full-blown support for themes in their products - until recently, the only theme setting that was available in Samsung phones was the color pattern, selectable between the black and the white. As we have already mentioned, the implemenation of the themes feature in our case is quite admirable, you can even create your own themes from scratch without resorting to a specific software that is needed for theme creation in phones produced by other companies. Obviously it's much more comfortable for the user, since not everyone installs specific cell phone software on their PC.

The Theme Creation Wizard prompts for a series of steps leading to the creation of a custom user theme, as follows:

The newly created theme can be instantly applied.

Samsung E950 comes with four preinstalled interface themes, of which Espresso is the most appealing - the icons aren't organized in the traditional fashion of a 3x4 block, but changes size as you move your selection from one item to another - the selected item grows bigger and the rest of them squeeze. This reminds of some interface elements found in SonyEricsson phones, where flash themes are utilized, sporting a great variety of animated elements.

Unfortunately, this feature is unavailable for the newly created themes, all the icons are shown in the same way.

Main Menu

Navigation is remarkable for the traditional user action memory feature found with many Samsung phones - the device keeps track of user's actions and always opens a menu at the item which was used last. Fast navigation is possible by pressing digital keys.

The main menu comprises twelve items, it should be noted that those vary from model to model, and the order in which they follow varies as well:

The contact book is called by pressing the right touch button or through the main menu. The list features phone numbers taken from the user memory and the SIM card alike, each number goes with an icon left to the person's name indicating the storage location. Navigating is done by pressing the left and right keys, which is a pecualiarity of the Suwon platform. The call icon is placed in the top left corner, and not right to the left of the person's name. The contact list features filtering the names by the initial seven symbols of the first name, no second name search is possible - some of the customers may find this a serious drawback. If several phone numbers are assigned to a contact record, only the main one (mobile, by default) is shown in the lest, indicated by the specific icon.

The following fields are to be filled up on creating or editing a contact book record (each field limited to 20 symbols): five phone numbers (mobile, home, work, fax and a miscelannoues one), e-mail, a short note, a specific ringtone, call icon or video. Any image can be set as the call icon, or any of the preset icons. There's no possibility to rename the phone number categories - a limitation not observed with G600. The total number of phone numbers can't exceed five. There's no option to set a default phone number out of several assigned to a contact record. The call icon occupies roughly about two thirds of the screen.

AS you remember, Samsung G600 has a nice setting that automatically records the person's birthday into the calendar, marking a new event, right after filling that field in the contact record and an option to activate the alarm clock in a few days beforehand, unfortunately this feature is missing in E950 - a bit of simplification on this side.

Up to 1000 contact records can be stored in the user memory. Contact groups are supported, each group can be given a ringtone and a call icon of its own. Up to 20 persons can be assigned to a group. All the contacts, just like the biz card contents, can be sent over SMS, MMS, E-mail or Bluetooth. The speed dial list can contain up to 8 numbers - everything's quite typical on this side. Only the person's name is displayed during an incoming call (if that person is found in the contact book), which may be inconvenient if that person has several numbers, and the currently engaged one isn't shown.

The rest of the options include the possibility to select the default storage location for the contact records - the SIM card or the phone memory (or be prompted for that every time you save a contact), there's no way to customize the order in which the contact data go, like First Name + Last Name or vice versa.

The call log stores all the records of the latest, received, dialed and missed calls (up to 30 records of each type stored separately) and messages. The common list shows calls of all types in a successive manner, where the call type is indicated by an icon. Switching between the main log and the type-specific logs is done by pressing the navigation button left and right, the system reminds of SonyEricsson and Nokia products. In the brackets to the side of each record, the number of calls is shown, though stats aren't available contrary to the Suwon-based phones.

A contact record or a group of records can be moved to the blacklist. This function is unique for a preinstalled feature, it's surely of great use to everybody. With most phones, people have to download third-party software to realize such a function, while E950 comes with an integrated blacklisting feature.

Messaging System

Samsung E950 traditionally comes with a combined message system - the message type is defined automatically depending on the content. Up to 1000 SMS messages can be stored in the used memory plus the SIM card storage. Even Samsung G600 has a much smaller SMS memory - some mere 200 - so the E950 gets an upper hand here. Up to 20 recepient can be specified for a message, and a total of 12 messages can be glued into one. The message signal can be set to vibration, an audio signal or backlighting signal. EMS enjoys full support. The MMS memory is limited to 300 messages / 3 Mb. Same with the contact book, an SMS blacklist is present.

The following settings are available: delivery notice, filtering messages by the read/unread status, by date, sender and so on.
There's a special recently dialed numbers list for the SMS messages, in the Send menu the device lists the recently dialed numbers so you can choose one to send a message to, or a few numbers, or a whole contact group. On sending the message to several recepients, their number is shown to the left of the contact's name, near the icon in the address field.

On creating a new text message there's an opportunity to set the font style (bold, underlined, italic, crossed), alignment (left, center, right). ALso you can select a text gragment and apply some of the settings to this fragment only. You can add attchments like an image, a video clip, a calendar record, a sound. Once added, the message automatically becomes an MMS. Photos and videos for making attachments can either be selected from the gallery or taken directly from the camera, without having to quite the message editor.

Besides the standard text messages, an option for SOS message dispatchment is available. First you specify all the phone numbers that should receive the message and whether the message should be sent twice. You can't customize the SOS message text for different situations, it's always the same template.

The following e-mail protocols are supported:

E-mail Samsung G600

POP3	+
IMAP4	+
SMTP	+
SSL	+ (3.0)
TLS	+ (1.0)
OTA E-Mail Settings Configuration	+
Push E-mail	EMN OMA 1.0

The maximum size of a message is limited to 300 Kb. The maximum number of e-mail addresses is five, the delivery settings include an opportunity for automatical mail checks performed on a regular basis at intervals specified by the user and the mail download mode customization - headers only or whole messages. The mail download limit is 500 Kb, the same menu offers the message auto-deletion option. Deleted messages can be kept at the mail server, if you set so. Of course, mail attachments are supported, the file format is automaticaly recognized either by the phone itself or by the Document Viewer application. The viewer is launched automatically on downloading the attachment, when you close the window you're left in the editor screen. There's also the setting that allows blacklisting for the undesired e-mail addresses. In addition to the blocked address the user can specify the message header keyphrases to filter for and ban messages containing them, making this feature also an effective spam filter.

The MMS message system (OMA 1.2) provides for a message size limit of 300 Kb. Up to 20 recepients can be specified, the message length limit is 1000 symbols. You can choose one of the two types for your message - Image basic or Image rich for images and Video basic and Video rich for videos. The basic type is limited to a size of 100 Kb, the rich type is limited to 300 Kb. This was done on intention to provide the user with an easier traffic control option. There are three options for the auto attachment control - limit-free, reminder, strictly limited (once the limit is reached, the image is automatically compressed). After adding an attachment, its actual size is indicated in the message, and the message can be previewed prior to sending.

In addition to the listed features the fonts are also customizable - such settings as font color, size and style, the font backrground color are free for the user to define. The auto-delete option is unavailable for the MMS messages. SMIL is supported - the maximum number of pages and objects in a message is limited to 15 and 35 respectively.

PIM

The personal information manager comprises a number of applications such as the calendar, alarm signals, notes. There are a total of five alarm clocks, the first one is dubbed 'Wake up alarm'. Each alarm clock can be flexibly customized, it's possible to set an alarm schedule (you can choose the weekdays on which the alarm clock is activated), repetitive action (also with a customizable interval). The alarm clock sets off even if the phone is powered off, if the corresponding setting is active. It's possible to assign a specific ringtone to every alarm clock, for instance a custom mp3 file. Similar to the audio profiles, the alarm clock signal can be customized in a number of ways - ringtone only, vibration and ringtone, vibration followed by a ringtone, ringtone fade-in or fade-out with or without vibration. Once an alarm clock is fully configured, a short summary on the clock's settings is displayed on the screen.

There are three viewing modes available for the calendar: by month, by weak or by day. The schedule can contain up to 300 records (both on the whole and per day). Preliminary notices and repetitive events are available. Sorting by event type is well-organized (meetings, anniversaries, tasks). Here lies on the differences from the Suwon Dragonfly platform - in the calendar mode, no status line is shown, which would normally display icons indicating the events on the schedule - meetings, tasks and so on. A day with an assigned event is indicated by a colored corner. The default view is set in the options menu, it's possible whether the week starts on Monday or Sunday. The memory manager shows the number of free event records.

On entering the Tasks menu, all the necessary parameters are specified - date, starting and ending time, alarm clock set-off time (if this is required). The overall number of tasks, as it was already mentioned, is 300 - 100 per event type. This is more than sufficient, considering that the expired events are automatically deleted after a period of time.

As it was mentioned in the description of the contact book, there's no auto synchronization here, so you'll have to type in all the birthdays manually.

Multimedia, Mp3 Player

The Samsung software platform isn't the most powerful up to the moment when it comes to multimedia functions. The situation about handling video is the disappointing - most popular formats aren't supported, no cycle mode is available, and rewinding a large video file tends to screw up due to the low performance. As for the audio, everything's much better on this front, the mp3 player interface is completely the same with the U600 model. On the whole, the, the controls are quite comfortable. In the playback mode, the screen displays the track name, the name of the performer, the album cover (the Album Arts function), the playbar (progerssive rewinding is supported), the control indicators and so on. The music player can function in the background mode.

The player settings include:

Any track can be sent over via SMS, E-mail or Bluetooth. There's support for the Flight Mode which increases the battery life during the playback, however you have to keep the SIM card in all the time, which is a slight drawback. A special option was added - the system signals like the incoming message signal or the incoming call tone can be set to override the music completely, or, on the contrary, it can be deactivated so that nothing interrupts your listening to the music.

During the background playback, the screen displays a small window with (customizable color and style) which shows the track name and the playback time indicator. The player supports sorting by performer name, track name, genre, the recently played list, the most frequently played tracks and so on. The settings also allow to view functions bound to the keypad buttons (no way for remapping though)

As for the media format compatibility, the Korean novelty supports the following files: MP3, WMA, Polyphonic, AMR (Voice Tag), AAC, AAC+, e-AAC+, i-Melody, Midi (SMF), SP-Midi.

As we see, all the basic standards are supported save for RA. Like the majority of the latest models by the Korean manufacturer, the novelty makes use of a dedicated sound amplifier based on the patent-protected technology by Bang&Olufsen. The sound chip was dubbed ICEpower Mobile and helps to increase the output sound volume but doesn’t affect the quality. So Samsung phones virtually became the loudest phones on the market leaving behind all the rival handsets by other brands, which gives them an advantage on the mass market. Speaking if sound quality, it should be noted that it is high enough to consider G600 an able music player as well, nearly matching the latest XpressMusic models manufactured by Nokia supplied with a dedicated DSP which provides for a high sound quality, however Samsung easily beats them in volume (F300, Ultra Edition Series II, E740, F330 and somne others). DSP (Digital Signal Processor) provides additional sound processing algorithms while ICEpower Mobile only amplifies the signal to increase the sound volume. While a standalone amplifier amplifies noise and signal distortion just as well as the wanted signal, the DSP allows for separation of wanted signal from the noise part so the amplifier is fed with a more clear signal.

In other words, DSP handles such signal parameters as dynamic range (the equally high capability for reproducing quiet and loud sounds without any distortion), frequency range, noise-emission level, etc. Samsung did their best to improve the sound quality both by increasing maximum sound quality and implementing an improved circuit technique of the ICEpower amplifier itself, sporting better characteristics as compared to a regular DSP-embedded amplifier.

How does a casual phone user benefit from it? Of course, first of all there comes the high-quality and at the same time very loud sound perfectly audible in most situations. It’s an evident advantage over the many competing models, but calling that line of Samsung devices ‘perfect’ is simply wrong. Going back to G600, let’s notice that its sound quality is quite comparable to that of the rest of last-generation Samsung models, it actually displays very high quality of sound that’s perfectly able to challenge some of the world market’s best music solutitions. Combined with the high sound volume, it doubtlessly makes the G600 a perfect music solution.

The sales package of Samsung E950 includes a standard headset but there's no 3.5 mm jack adapter, so if you want to listen to mp3, you'll have buy one. By the way, the headset itself is of rather mediocre quality.

FM tuner

The implemnentation of the FM radio is typical for Samsung, all the standard functions like Search and AutoSearch are found here, the manual setting of the required frequency and so one. A frequency can be named and saved to the radio station list. Further operations with saved frequencies include actions like delete or rename, also a certain station can be set as the source for the alarm clock signal.

Scanning is done by rotating the circle shown on the secondary screen. A memory for 99 frequencies is available, RDS is in though can be switched off. It's possible set either the speaker or the headset as the sound output device. Radio, much like the MP3 player, can be functioning in the background mode. The signal quality is high. There's no possibility to record radio broadcasts as opposed to G600 and E740.

Preinstalled software.

Samsung E950 comes with a standard set of preinstalled software. Partially this was discussed above, and the rest will be reviewed right now. The Picsel File Viewer program is used for viewing Office files, it has a avery friendly interface with a Zoom function which is activated by pressing the volume rocker. As it comes clear from the very application name, there's no file editing function, this is the only difference from the similar feature found on smartphones.

The voice recorder comes with a nice interface along with a minimum number of functions. It's possible to limit the size of the record to the limit specified for an MMS message, or two an hour. You can choose to store the saved file either in the user memory or on the flash card. The rest of customizable parameters include the record volume and the default filename. Unfortunately the voice recorder can't record phone talks.

The World Clock function has nothing remarkable about it - just a graphical representation of two time zones and the respective anchor cities.

The preinstalled calculator program is quite good, but only supports the basic math functions. Once in the application, the secondary screen displays symbols standing for these operations. The measures converter is the standard tool for converting currencies and weight, distance, volume, area and temperature units one into another.

The backwards timer and the stopwatch are as standard as they come, nothing to discuss here.

The TV-Out is in, this function is commonly found with many of Samsung phones. The only two options are NTSC and PAL-B. The application is very ieasy to control. You just plug the phone with the bundled cable to the TV set, then you can easily use the large screen for viewing photos, watching videos, and even viewing Office documents using the Document Viewer.

There are a few preinstalled games, quite traditional for the company's products. This number comprises Cannonball, Paris Hilton's Diamonds, Freekick, Arch Angel, Mini Gold, Midnight Pool. The games aren't that interesting, yet sometimes they help to kill time.