The Gal – Nicole

After reviewing the features of the Innov8, I had to get my hands on the Samsung Pixon. And I did, thanks to Daniel from Samsung.

The whole package came in a small and neatly bundled…

The Pixon is available in Pink, Red and Black, and I had the black review unit then, and one thing that struck me is that the back of the phone is metallic, giving it a nice finishing, without attracting more fingerprint and smudges at the back of the phone.

The end of the phone is slightly raised, and it gives one’s hand a good and firm hold of the phone while using the camera function. Gives me the secure feeling of holding the unit, and not fear it dropping.

And having the shutter button placed near the end of the phone allows me to shoot pictures comfortably with one or both hands. Makes it easy to whip it out and snap at a frenzy

Apart from that the phone is sensitive to one’s touch and the screen boasts bright and vibrant colours…

I feel that the highlight of the phone is the camera features, which more or less makes it up for the lack of wifi. But for shooting pictures on the move, this camera packs a good punch.

Shot this right outside Samsung Building at Church Street… using normal settings…

Another picture highlight would be the photo shot at GeekTerminal, and that I shook the camera by quite a bit, to test out the anti-shake function…

Slightly blurred, but not bad, compared to the amount of shaking I did… and the camera did its best to compensate the shakiness

The macro shot didn’t fail either…

For more pictures shot with the pixon, here’s the embedded slideshow

So much for raving about the camera… Let’s move on to the other features of the phone…

Though the Pixon runs on its own proprietary OS, it;s still pretty easy to use, and the qwerty keyboard interface is a breeze and joy to type messages… I also manage to try out the Browser, which displays pages properly, and allows one to tilt to landscape mode as well.

Now you see the complete package with the lanyard, and the USB cable… Tried the lanyard with the phone, but found the lanyard cumbersome.

A optional stylus came with it… though I must say I didn’t use the stylus throughout the review period, but I find the design cute, and looks very much like a wand…

This is how it looks like when opened…

and when its closed.

The call quality of the phone is fantastic, and also the quality of sound from the FM Radio and MP3 is pleasant to the ears, and that one can use your own earphones should you not like the ones that came along with the Pixon.

And last but not least, let me touch on the Software.

The USB connections go here, same as for the charger and earphones plug. Note that the USB cable comes with its own proprietary connector, which means a generic USB cable won’t do.

The PC Studio, allows your phone data to be backed up and synced in a jiffy. In fact the phone allows 3 modes of data transfer when you plugged it into the computer.

You can treat it as a Mass Storage device (the Pixon must have an Micro SD card inserted), Media Player to put in music, or the PC Studio mode to sync and backup data.

The PC Studio runs on Flash, and has loads of icons, making it intuitive and easy enough to perform all the tasks.

Here you see me transferring the photos out of the Pixon to my Hard Disk, and the visual indications gives me a clear idea that a data operation is still in progress… The data transfer rate is very fast, and my 40 odd pictures were transferred within 5 mins.

To top it off, the battery life of the Pixon is decent, to say the least. Moderate usage of the FM Radio, or the Music Player, taking pictures and for calls and sms allows the battery to last for about 2 days. Heavy usage of taking photographs will reduce the battery capacity to almost about a day or less.

I enjoyed using the Pixon, though the lack of wifi can be forgiveable, if you have a data plan. But hey, this phone packs in the music player, radio, camera all in one. Perfect for a lazy day without the usual gadgets.

Nicole