Samsung SGH-X830

Samsung are definitely capable of placing some extraordinary goods on the market, as they have proven again lately with the Samsung K5 MP3 player, fully operational by touch screen, and the Samsung i7 digital camera with its swivel screen. Also the announcements they made at the 3GSM in Barcelona caused a stir within the mobile telephone market. I have received a Samsung SGH-X830 sample for testing; a mobile phone aiming entirely at the MP3 player lovers! Extremely small, 1GB internal memory and a jog dial are just a few features on the Samsung X830. An additional and very special characteristic of the Samsung SGH-X830 is the arrangement of the buttons; however, I will come to tell you that later. No matter how small the Samsung X830 is, Samsung managed to equip it with a digital camera containing a resolution of 1.3 Megapixels. You can read how well the Samsung X830 has performed in practise in the Samsung SGH-X830 review.
Samsung SGH-X830 - Design

The Samsung X830's design is certainly very special. When taking the mobile phone in your hands for the first time, you'd think it was an MP3 player. The front of the telephone contains a jog dial for scrolling through the menu and in the centre a confirmation button is placed. To the left side of the telephone, you'll find the connection for the head set and some silver coloured volume buttons. The right side of the telephone contains the buttons with which you can operate the inbuilt digital camera. The Samsung X830 has a so-called swivel design; you have to swivel it to open it. It is very beautiful but I do get the feeling that the swivel is placed on the wrong side of the telephone. It simply doesn't feel right to open it the way it opens now. Samsung SGH-X830 - Menu

The menu is arranged differently than normally because of the telephone's extremely small size. In stead of three icons side by side, Samsung chose to put two icons side by side on the Samsung X830. Scrolling through the menu is very easy and quick once you're used to the jog dial. In the beginning you'd pass a setting or you'd touch the jog dial accidentally when trying to confirm a setting so you'd confirm the wrong one, but practice makes perfect! The menu is equipped with comprehensible icons, together with a short clear explanation which ensures that even someone using the telephone for the first time, will find his way through the menu effortlessly. Samsung SGH-X830 - Camera

The Samsung X830 is equipped with a 1.3 Megapixel digital camera. The camera's performance is reasonably okay. It is not the best camera in the world but certainly not the worst either. The colour reproduction is bright and lively. There is a small mirror on the back that lets you take self-portraits. It's a matter of trying to find the easiest way of holding the camera when taking pictures. Your fingers might cover the small lens all to easily, or just holding it with your finger tips makes the camera move and create blurred pictures for your grip is not too steady. You can also use the camera to record videos. A flash light however is lacking on the Samsung X830, which is a pity. Samsung SGH-X830 - Interval of release

When starting up the camera, one may hope the subject one wants to capture is not too fast or it will have disappeared before the camera is actually turned on. Once the camera is ready to shoot and when you press the release button it still takes some seconds before the actual picture is taken. Unfortunately the Samsung X830's camera is not the only one with a slow start-up time and a shutter release lag. Even on equipment that is twice as expensive you will encounter these intervals. The technology simply isn't that developed yet to build in super fast image processors and buffers in cameras this size. The first digital cameras also suffered from interval of release but later on technology improved and nowadays capturing pictures have been made possible with hardly any interval.
Samsung SGH X830 - Camera settings

The camera of the Samsung SGH-X830 offers nice possibilities to adjust settings to your own preference and to improve pictures. It is possible to adjust the resolution as well as the ISO values and the white balance. The Samsung offers adjusting ISO sensitivity because of lacking a flash. This is very convenient because the light sensitivity gets higher, which improves taking pictures under dim light circumstances and trying to capture moving subjects (the shutter speed improves because of the higher light sensitivity). One disadvantage is that increasing ISO level, also increases digital noise. Samsung X830 - Transfer pictures

If you possess a Samsung SGH-X830, you have the possibility to make pictures a lot more interesting by using frames and effects. You can add all kinds of nice things to people, like glasses or put them in an Eskimo suit. But you can also place a nice frame around them. There is also the possibility of taking pictures in Black & White or in Sepia. After editing your pictures you can send them to other telephones via MMS or Bluetooth. All in all the Samsung X830 offers really nice functions to make the camera function of the Samsung X830 a lot more interesting. Samsung SGH-X830 - Memory

The Samsung X830 has an internal memory of one Gigabyte. Not many telephones have been equipped with such a large internal memory so far. Of course this large capacity is meant for the consumer who is planning to use the MP3 function of the telephone to the full extent. Personally I regret the fact that the Samsung X830 doesn't offer the possibility to enhance the memory capacity by means of a microSD or a flash memory card. These cards are not too expensive nowadays, but there is still hope that Samsung will offer this possibility in the successor of the Samsung X830. The MP3 enthusiast will be able to keep a large part of his music collection on the Samsung X830. And of course your entire photo collection will fit on the Samsung X830's internal memory. Samsung SGH-X830 - MP3 Player

Naturally the Samsung X830 has been equipped with an MP3 Player. Samsung definitely planned to emphasize on the MP3 player. And they did a great job. Because when the Samsung SGH-X830 is closed it doesn't look like a mobile phone at all. Nowadays you see more 'music phones' anyway, for example the W-editions (walkman editions) that Sony Ericsson put in the market. The MP3 player can also be used when the Samsung X830 is still closed. Just keep pressing the jog dial a bit longer than usually and the MP3 player will start up. The sound quality of the delivered head set is fine. The sound quality of the telephone's loud speaker is considerably poorer, but the telephone is extremely small and obviously Samsung had no more room to spare. Samsung SGH-X830 - Exchanging files

The Samsung SGH-X830 offers various possibilities to transfer your files to your computer. Bluetooth is available if the computer supports Bluetooth and if not, you can use the delivered USB cable. Once your telephone is connected to the computer you can use the delivered software. This software enables you to copy movies, photos and music from and to your telephone, manage your telephone book and send SMS text messages through the program. Transferring 10 songs with a total size of 38.3MB took me around 5 minutes through USB cable. Bluetooth took double the time and when you're waiting 10 minutes it seems an awfully long time. Samsung SGH-X830 - Battery

The Samsung X830 uses a 700mAh Lithium Ion battery. The battery stamina is disappointing, it empties very quickly. The sample Samsung gave me needed a recharge every other day. That is quite often and very annoying when you're on the road a lot. If there is only one stripe left on the battery icon on your screen, make sure you keep the battery charger at hand because the battery will be empty by the end of your next phone call. I think the size of the phone is the main problem in this case, a somewhat larger telephone including an enhanced battery capacity would have been better and you would not have to depend on a battery charger all the time. Samsung SGH-X830 - Speech quality

The Samsung X830 definitely scores some points for speech quality. The voices sound good and the conversations come across clearly. The reception of the telephone is fine. Unfortunately I cannot compare the reception with other telephones at this moment because my provider has placed some extra antennas which have improved the reception of every telephone. When the head set is connected it also functions as hands free set. You can leave the telephone in your pocket and answer the call through the button on the cable of the head set. Also then the speech quality is of high quality. Samsung SGH-X830 - Buttons

Finally we have come to the item that is so special on the Samsung X830: the buttons. They are not arranged like they are on almost every mobile phone: no, Samsung has chosen for the X830 telephone to place two buttons side by side. This allows the extremely small size of the telephone and still offers a nice size of buttons. At first you really have to get used to the deviated arrangement of the buttons and especially when sending text messages you're bound to hit the wrong button once in a while. But once you're used to the different arrangement you're able to use the buttons just as quickly as you did when you had three buttons side by side.