Exterior
It looks like the name Soul obliges, as the newcomer couldn’t say that it has no relations to U900. Both are made of metal and there keypad is the same – although we can say this about i8510 too, which is completely different. Assembly quality is great, there are no joint problems, it is as it has to be. Since there is no slide, the phone got much slimmer, it’s under 1 cm in thickness, its exact size is 111 x 46 x 9.9 mm and it weighs 90 grams, which is quite impressive for a handset made of such materials. The phone has inherited a not so good feature too, the fact that the metal parts are shiny, as if they had lacquer on them – this means that they get worn out in the long run.
On top of the front we can see the phone speaker and the secondary camera (CIF resolution) used for video calls. Below them the QVGA display with a diagonal of 2” is placed – U900 had a bit larger one, with a diagonal of 2.2 inches. Going downwards we can see the main controls and the numeric keypad under them. This has, unfortunately, one row less, compared to U900, as the one with the clear (C) key is missing, which caused me quite a lot of trouble, I think it has been a big mistake omitting it. The keys have a proper size, they have a good pressure point, typing is very comfortable on them. It’s interesting that the bottom of the front cover is just like on the predecessor, meaning that it’s a bit slant, which has been good for opening the slide easily on the original Soul, but here it’s only a design element.
The back is completely made of metal. On top we can see the 3 megapixel camera with fixed focus – we can rarely see such a setup –, which has a LED flash and the handsfree speaker besides it. On the bottom there is the button for taking off the back and it’s almost impossible to press it accidentally.
The top part has a rough surface, but there are no buttons on it, as we can turn the phone on/off with the call reject key. On the right we can see the charger/headset connector (proprietary Samsung) and the camera’s exposure key, which has a small dent under it – its purpose is unknown, it’s surely not there for taking off the back cover, as that pops off after pressing the button.
On the bottom we can see the hook for fastening the neck-/wristband, while on the right the microSD card slot and the volume control keys are placed. This latter one had a quite strange position on the predecessor (it has been placed too low), but in this case it’s fortunately “high” enough, so we won’t have a problem using it.
A cikk még nem ért véget, kérlek, lapozz!
