Review: Samsung i780

Recently my company bought some duality server licenses for our management to keep abreast with emails.

Duality and blackberry are two similar yet distinct push mail services offered by Starhub, a local telco. They both have internet and server editions. Internet editions means the mails are pushed from pop3 mail servers like google, hotmail etc into the user mobile devices. The server editions required either a Microsoft Exchange server or Lotus notes server environment to operate in. The server editions are typically installed on a server operating system like MS server 2000 and above. Linux server editions are at this moment still not supported. Despite being similar in functions, they cannot co-exist on the same server (for server edition)

Being IT savvy, one of users bought the new Samsung i780. It runs on the windows mobile 6.0 professional operating system. On first glance, it has the same shape as the samsung i600. However there are distinct differences in appearance: The i780 displaly is on a 320 x 320 (i600's 320 x 240 )& has a small trackpad in the middle (samung called it the optical joystick). In mouse mode, a pointer appears onscreen (familiar to windows system pointer)
and can be navigated by moving on the pad itself. The touch function on the i780 is not as sensitive and required some force (did i crack the screen ahhhhh)

On the right side of the phone, there is the microSD card slot and sync/charging cable slot. The audio connector is using the samsung type and it is costly to purchase a second one. (HTC uses the standard min USB type). For connectivity ,it has HSDPA for high-speed cellular data transfers and tri-band GSM which supports EDGE. Standard ones like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are also included, completing its arsenal of wireless radios. I did not have the chance to test the GPS but similar reviews for this phone at cnetasia (http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/handhelds/0,39001708,42045188p-2,00.htm) gives some hints on the GPS usage. The i780 uses a 2-megapixel camera (do not know if can remove)

The Marvell PXA311 processor in the i780 made it pretty snappy. Its 128MB Ram also allows speedy application launch. Battery life will definitely vary between usage patterns, my user reported that he managed more than two days on a single charge which included occasional Wi-Fi connections to hotspots. Its rated talktime is 7 hours. With GPS usage though, the battery should depleted really quickly, so it's regrettable Samsung did not include a car charger in its bundle. It uses the same duality application package as the LG KS20 (another PDA phone on WM 6.0 Pro)

My user bought it at S$338 from Singtel and already he regret that he can save another S$100 if bought the same package from Starhub. I will add this to the list of phones I am interested to get this sunday (contact expire on sunday)