Samsung D600

Slider phones have become quite popular this year, with the D600's predecessor, the Samsung D500, winning the GSM Association's coveted 'Best Handset' award. Samsung is no stranger to sliders; we've seen the Korean company continue to improve the form factor during its evolution from the D410 and the E800. Mobile phone giant Nokia, a relative newcomer to the concept of slide designs, announced four slider phones at CommunicAsia earlier this year; its premium 8800 silver slider was released soon after.

Design
Sitting the D600 beside the D500, you'd be hard pressed to tell them apart when they're both switched off. However, on powering up the D600, it is undeniable that the screen is brighter and more colourful. The D600 has a matte, rubber-like grip on the back and sides when compared to its predecessor's shiny and fingerprint-prone case. That's not to say the D600 is immune from smudges; the large 262K-colour display quickly becomes a little blurry if you use your thumb to slide out the keypad.

Weighing in at 103g is quite adequate for a slider phone measuring 96 x 46.5 x 21.5mm. These dimensions make it slightly bigger than the D500, but with the additions and improvements, we can forgive Samsung for the extra millimetre or so.

Below the 5cm LCD, and accessible when the slider is closed, is a navigation pad, two shortcuts, call, end and cancel keys. On the left-hand side of the D600 is a volume rocker and TransFlash memory card slot, while down the right side is a camera shortcut beside a slide back cover for the TV out port. The slide-open mechanism of the D600 is spring-loaded, so a little push will flick the top half all the way out.

Features
Sporting a top-notch 2-megapixel digital camera, the D600 lets you take photos up to 1600 x 1200 pixels. But Samsung doesn't finish up there with photo features. There is a flash next to the camera, which, unlike the D500, is housed on the bottom half of the slider, so you can shoot with the phone closed. Single photo mode allows for automatic saving of photos; alternatively, you can opt to review your shots before taking more. Six, nine or fifteen images can be taken in multi-shot mode at a rate of about two photos per second, in either normal or high resolution. The mode we liked best is called Mosaic, where you can choose from fifteen templates that comprise several layers each, where a photo is taken and dropped onto each layer.

The usual array of effects can be applied to single photos, such as sepia, negative and B&W, but Samsung also adds Moonlight and Fog effects, which give a dark Lord Of The Rings-when-Frodo-puts-on-the-ring-style look and misty glow to photos, respectively. A timer mode rounds out the D600's camera settings, allowing you a little bit longer to set up self-portraits, which are assisted by a mirror next to the lens.

A first we've seen at CNET.com.au is the inclusion of an A/V output on a mobile phone. Using the same proprietary connector as the headphones, you attach one end of the supplied A/V cable to the side of the D600 and the other into composite video and stereo audio connections on your TV or projector. Once connected, the D600's screen goes blank and the phone's display is routed to the TV. Samsung includes the Picsel Viewer for Microsoft Office documents, such as Word, Powerpoint and Excel files, JPEG images, text, HTML and PDF files, but during our tests we found it very hard to read fine print on the low-resolution output (320 x 240 pixels). It's certainly not going to replace your 1600 x 1200-pixel laptop for important business meetings -- not only is the resolution shocking, but we found no clues as to how to navigate through documents as no guides appear on the screen. It's also possible to hook up the D600 up to a sound system using the stereo audio jacks, which produced rich quality sound during our tests using it as a portable MP3 player.

More Samsung D600 images

The Java games on the D600 include a cute platformer called Forgotten Warrior in which you collect keys, fight ghouls and collect items; a soccer goal-shooting game called Freekick; and a fighter pilot game called Arch Angel. Other applications include an MP3 player, voice recorder, world clock, stopwatch, alarm, calculator, timer and converter. There's also an image editor where you can apply most of the camera effects mentioned above to photos stored in memory. The D600 has 72MB of internal memory and Samsung provides a 64MB Transflash memory card in the box for additional storage (expandable up to 512MB).

Performance
MP3s come through loud and crystal clear on Samsung's supplied stereo headphones, which doubles as a handsfree headset for calls. An inline remote control for music would have been a welcome addition, although the large navigation pad on the front of the phone is easy enough to use to change songs. Classic, Rock and Jazz equaliser presets are onboard but are subtle tweaks compared to the over-the-top 3D sound effect, which makes it sound like you're standing in the middle of a large warehouse party with sound bouncing unevenly off every wall. Although not as robust as the Sony Ericsson W800i's MP3 player, the D600 does a good job and allows you to store music into four different albums.

Images taken with the D600's 2-megapixel camera came out focused and clear, although we did experience graininess and noise in some low-light conditions. Videos can also be captured in MP4 format up to 352 x 288 pixels, although for some reason we weren't able to play these back on our test PC.

When the D600 is running low on power, i.e. the battery status indicator is flashing, the screen dims and functions such as MP3 playing and Java applications become unavailable -- to conserve the remaining juice. We averaged about three day's use of the D600 between charges, with intermittent use of Bluetooth, Java games and MP3 playback.

All things considered, we would recommend the D600 to anyone that likes this style of handset. It is quite compact, easy to familiarise yourself with, and has a 2-megapixel camera that is up there with the best of them. If you're just looking for a decent camera phone, check out the Sony Ericsson K750i and the recently announced 3-megapixel Sharp 903, the latter available only on Vodafone's 3G network.