Exterior, materials used
So, Innov8 is a top model, it practically has all the available technologies. The great competitor is evidently Nokia N96, so I will keep comparing these two throughout the review – I would like to apologize to all readers who consider some other phone as the base for comparison.
Innov8 is large. Okay, it’s not too large, but the thing is that so many features need space, so this is the reason for the 106.5 x 53.9 x 17.2 mm size. The 140 grams weight on the other hands is due to the fact that Samsung used high-quality materials when manufacturing the phone. The back is made of metal, the keypad is made of metal and the other parts are of high-quality plastics, there are a lot of surfaces with lacquer finish. Assembly quality is also good, the slider has a minimal amount of play, no matter closed or open, but the whole thing is still massive, there are no cracks or pops or gaps at joints. The phone speaker is on top of the front cover with the video call camera and the light sensor being right near it. The QVGA display with a diagonal of 2.8” is underneath them and we can’t say anything bad about its quality as it’s great from all points of view, it can be clearly read in sunlight too. It’s of course a TFT panel that is covered with a shiny layer: this won’t disturb us during use and it looks good in my opinion. Under this part we can see the manufacturer’s logo and below we can see the main controls: six buttons and the five-way d-pad which is also an optical touch-mouse. This function comes in handy when browsing of course, as we can control the mouse cursor with it, but we can also use it for getting around in the menu, its vertical and horizontal sensibility can both be set. It would be hard to tell of the part surrounding the front if its metal or plastic with lacquer, but the point is that it provides a feel of quality.
The back reminds me of Samsung digital cameras, which is no wonder as Innov8 has an 8 megapixel image sensor, which is a big deal to tell the truth. In the top part we can find the flash, the lens and the stereo speakers, accompanied by tons of labels and logos. The middle part (that can be taken off) is made of metal, we have to push the plastic part below it downwards – practical.
There is nothing on top, in the top left corner we can find the hook for fastening the wristband. Below it the volume control keys are placed, along with the 3.5 mm jack output and the microUSB connector that is protected by a cover. These parts are made of the shiny plastic that doesn’t collect fingerprints that much.
The bottom part is also empty, on the right there is the camera’s exposure key, the microSD slot and the slider that helps us quickly switch between picture taking/camera/playback modes.
The sliding mechanism is great, to tell the truth we can expect this from the manufacturer if they have launched so many sliders in the past years. The numeric keypad is on the bottom – this looks just like the one on U900, but it’s of course physically larger. It’s really easy to use and elegant, I have only been annoyed a bit by the multimedia hotkeys M1 and M2 (I never use these), as I have accidentally pressed them sometimes when writing an SMS and then I had to exit the music player/RealPlayer.
These buttons can be configured, just like the two black ones on the front – the difference is that the multimedia keys can launch the programs assigned to them anytime, while the softkeys on the front work as hotkeys only in standby mode. The function of the silver keys on the front cannot be changed; the left one takes us to the menu, the other to the gallery – no matter where we currently are.
A cikk még nem ért véget, kérlek, lapozz!
