For those who are fervent about slim slider phone U600 is a wish come true. Part of Samsung’s new Ultra edition range II the U600 has 11mm thick casing and weighs only 81 grams.

Although U600 is only 2 mm thinner, 2 gram lighter than Samsung’s last ultra thin slider D900, a visual makeover makes it look completely different. The best part of its features is its camera which has been changed from 3.0 to 3.2 megapixels. But it can disappoint some of its users with its slowness in taking pictures. For people who don’t like to wait one or two second after clicking the picture it is futile. Its slowness disallows it to take fast moving subjects.
On the other hand the U600 has an excellent Video camera with high resolution display (240 x 320 pixels) and 262,144 colours. But apart from this don’t expect anymore changes. Samsung has not taken the pain to make big changes inside the phone. In-fact it’s battery is less powerful than the D900’s, but Samsung claim that battery performance has actually been improved due to a new technology called OPUS (Optimized Power Usage Solution).

The user memory of the phone has also been reduced to 60 megabytes from 70 megabytes which is not an attractive offer for those who want more space in their phones. With its incredibly stylish looks in either open or closed position U600 can be a class style statement for fashion conscious mobile users. With its shiny casing the phone is available in either a sapphire blue, garnet red, platinum metal & in a copper gold colour. The other colour variation expected to arrive in the market at the end of this year. And for all those who find it difficult to fit in a phone in to their tight jeans pocket U600 can be and ultimate answer for your problems. Talking about its additional features the phone has navigation, tool and navigation keys which can be only used when the handset is closed.

The U600 comes with a large 2.2 inch colour screen which can be used in both open and closed position of the handset. The screen works as a view finder for the camera & video feature which provides up to 262,000 colours on a 2.2 inch LCD colour screen. Samsung promises the perfect shot or recording with assistance from the camera & video setting each time the capture button is pressed by the user. Another important change is that the external buttons (the ones that you can see when the slide is closed) have been made into touch-sensitive buttons (like the Samsung E900). But only few find it cool and it can alienate a certain percentage of users.

The phone is also a boon for the music lovers as its music player supports a wide range of formats - MP3, ACC, ACC+ and e-AAC+ - and has very good sound reproduction. Samsung also provides a stereo headset or a wireless Bluetooth headset with the handset.
The music can also be enjoyed through the built-in loudspeaker which features a Bang & Olufsen digital power amplifier. U600 gives you the luxury of using the player with playlist of up to 30 tracks. But the phone falls back in the user memory section as it can only store around 15 music tracks. But you have the option of buying a Micro SD card to store music in the phone. A 512 Mbyte card costs around £15 and will enable you to store over 100 tracks. The largest memory card possible is a 2 Gbyte card, with storage for around 500 songs. U600 comes with a PC data link kit which enables you to transfer music to the phone from the PC. The U600 hundred also offers the messaging options, with support for email attachments and a document viewer for viewing (but not editing) MS Office, PDF and HTML files. Other features that we like to include is the EDGE connection for fast downloads, the quad band operating frequency, wireless photo printing with PicBridge?-compatible printers and the TV-Out connector for viewing your photos and videos directly on a TV.

The user also has an option of adding their favourite ringtones which can be heard in MP3 or polyphonic format. The ringtones can be downloaded from the internet to suit the style, taste and mood of the user. The vibrating alert of the handset will let the users know that they need to check their handset for missed calls & messages, if the ringtones have been put in optional switched off mode. With all these qualities and few drawbacks the phone deserves 9.5 points out of ten.
Demand for the U600 is already sky high which has driven prices down.

Features of the Samsung U600 include:

3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus, flash and 4x digital zoom

Video camera (MPEG4 format)

Display: TFT, 262,144 colours, 240 x 320 pixels

Music player (MP3, ACC, ACC+, e-AAC+ formats) with digital power amp

64-voice polyphonic ringtones / MP3 ringtones
Voice memo recorder

Integrated handsfree speakerphone

Messaging: SMS, MMS, email (POP3, SMTP, IMAP4, SSL, TLS)

T9 predictive text

Document viewer for MS Office, PDF and HTML files

Mobile printing via Bluetooth (PicBridge?)

Java games

Flight mode

Personal organiser functions

Memory: 60 Mbytes plus MicroSD memory card slot (expandable to 2 Gbytes)

Connectivity: Bluetooth 2.0, USB 2.0, TV-Out

WAP 2.0, GPRS Class 10, EDGE

Quad band

Size: 103 x 49 x 11 mm

Weight: 81g

Talktime: 4 hours

Battery standby: 270 hours

Labels: Mobile, Samsung

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