Take the category of smartphone as an example. I would rate HTC for its famed Sense experience, which help to ramp up a newbie experience with Android (and Windows Mobile previously). On the other hand I see SonyEricsson being in the leader in its camera functionality having used its Xperia Arc and compared it with all the Galaxy S series. That said, HTC Sense is getting too complicated as the company tries to be sophisticated for its products to be ‘smart’. But I have digressed.

So when I read reports that raved the new Samsung Galaxy S II as the best Android smartphone to date I thought it is a bold statement. Don’t get me wrong as I think it is yet another fine product by the Korean company but that statement needs to be contextualized.

Improvement wise there’re plenty to talk about, whether we are pitting it against its predecessor (Samsung Galaxy S) or its competitors. The setup experience is more seamless now, mostly with the help of Android Gingerbread OS. All my previously installed apps were restored once I signed in my Google account. The only gripe I have on the restoration process is that the user data were not reinstated which means i have to rely back on backup apps like titanium backup. In any case, this is a default Google (Gingerbread) feature so I can’t fault Samsung for this.

The other significant improvement is its home launcher. The infamous TouchWiz, labelled as iPhone wannabe previously, may have some traces of iPhone footprint in the latest version. It may not be the best home launcher in the market today, but it definitely (and finally) has its own DNA with neat features such as its nifty widget management functionality. Hopefully the Korean continues to build on the success of its software, just as it has demonstrated for its hardware. After all, the marriage of software and hardware is what makes the phone (or any electronic gadget for that matter) smarter

The biggest improvement, as both techies and newbies will attest to unanimously,  is the speed. While the newbies may likely pay tribute to the obvious dual core processor, the more knowledgeable one would point out the plenty of RAM memory available (about 400MB). Talk to the techie, especially those who had previously owned the lag-troubled SGS,  you will be enlightened that the (other) key contributor of the performance boost is the choice of file system used in the new SGS II. No more crappy RFS, Samsung’s version of FAT file system. Samsung has finally embraced the EXT4 file system wholly, and in that light, it is a testament that they do listen to its customers feedback, especially the voices of xda-developers.

Having used HTC Desire HD and Sony Ericsson Xperia earlier (not forgetting SGS), I personally prefer the new Samsung Galaxy S II over the former two. It doesn’t mean SGS II beats both phones hands down.(eh, although the bias side of me may say that, especially against HTC Desire HD). No matter how complicated HTC has transformed its Sense experience into, it is clearly still the leader in this space at this moment with its rich features (widget offering, remote phone management, etc). New Android users, especially those jump-camping from iPhone camp, will appreciate this. What left me with a sour note on HTC products is its mediocre hardware offering, particularly its LCD display and camera. The LCD display differentiator, lies not about how many pixels the manufacturer can squeeze into that 3-4 inch of physical screen (retina display anyone?), but how it renders the color of the images (still or motion), as close to the reality as possible. The same goes for the camera compartment. This is where Xperia Arc’s BRAVIA® Engine (for its reality display) and Exmor R™ for mobile CMOS sensor easily thrash HTC Desire HD. Xperia Arc however disappointed me with its measly storage and memory (I ran out of internal storage space after restoring all my apps, and my available RAM is always less than 100MB!). Coupled that with a “fat” bloatware installation footprint, it is a recipe for disasterous performance.

Video Sample of SGS II, 720P mode

As an advanced user, I can definitely overcome most, if not all, of these software deficiencies in SGS II, vis-a-visa HTC Desire HD (and probably all the HTC products as well). SGS II’s Super AMOLED+ is a worthy competitor to SonyEricsson’s BRAVIA® Engine, so it is hard to call out who is the world-beater here, at least to my naked eyes. On the other hand, SonyErcisson’s Exmor R™ CMOS sensor is the clear winner to me for its exceptional low-light sensitivity. However, SGS II camera sensor is no pushover (except for taking photos in poor lighting condition). Thus, it was a close fight between Arc and SGS II for me, but the latter eventually won me over for its extravagant storage and memory,  dual core for future proofing, not forgetting a wider base of xda-developers support.

In a nutshell, is SGS II a perfect (Android) smartphone? No unless you set the right context. That said, if somebody were to ask me, I would rate SGS II and Xperia Arc highly with SGS II taking the lead over Arc by a hairline margin. As for HTC Desire HD (and probably Sensation), probably a distant 3rd.

Note: Don’t take the last statement too seriously, I am just utterly disappointed by HTC products after all these years of owning the likes of HD, HD2,  Desire, Desire HD

Other Interesting reads

• Samsung Galaxy S II Torn Down, Analyzed, and Found To Be Top Tier
• Camera showdown: Samsung Galaxy S II versus Xperia arc

Samsung Galaxy Tab

I have never had a desire to get a tablet, even when Apple introduced their iPad earlier this year. Lately, I got a Kindle for my e-reading needs. It had all I need for reading purposes except that when it comes to reading magazine, it becomes dull and boring. So when the news of 7″-sized Creative ZiiO and Samsung Galaxy Tab were released, I began to evaluate them with earnest, hoping to find one that could supplement Kindle. iPad was still out of the question because it’s supposedly “cutting-edge” size turns out to be the biggest inhibitor to be an effective e-reader.

I ended up with Galaxy Tab, which is 2.7″ smaller than an iPad (thus easier to hold as an e-book) and nearly half the weight of iPad (wouldn’t feel tired even with one hand holding the Tab).  I admit I am a sucker for latest (and greatest) technologies. Creative ZiiO, despite being competent as e-reader and general tablet purposes, did not win me over with their less impressive touch display. And with Samsung Galaxy Tab’s Super AMOLED display, the Tab was just calling for me.

Unboxing the Tab

The first un-boxing impression was not as spectacular as thought, probably because I was staring at the tablet as an oversized Galaxy S smartphone that I owned before. But the tablet won me over shortly after a initial usage. The quality of the tablet exterior is top notched, and would put HTC phones to shame really (more on that later when I blog HTC Desire HD). The white piano finishing at the back housing makes one wonder why Samsung did not do the same for its little sibling (i.e. Galaxy S) which has a black “plasticky” casing.  If I had to nit-pick, it will be the black trimming which breaks the seamless white tablet design.

Galaxy Tab is fast and responsive

Functionally, the tablet is responsive, in contrast to some of the lag claims alleged in the net. The navigation experience is smooth and snappy, the applications are lag-free and responsive. But as with Galaxy S, I could not stand the i-Phone like home screen interface, and thus wasted no time in replacing it with Launcher Pro Plus.   Even though I bought the tablet with the e-reading as the primary function, I was keen to ensure it remains competent in other aspect of tablet features, and that it is not just an expensive e-reader. Setting up google and exchange account sync was a breeze, and I could access my both personal and work emails/contacts/appointments with ease. In comparing with  my “SSD enabled, 6G DDR3 super-charged, almost instant-on” HP Envy laptop or my “depending on the time of the year” smartphone, I admit using my Tab for a quick ad-hoc email read/reply has become a natural and preferred choice these days.

Tab on Viva Casing

Switching gear to the entertainment aspect, the Tab serves well as a gaming machine and a media player. Apart from the ‘mindless game’ like Angry Bird or Farm Story (which is the only reason my wife would seize my Tab for) the Tab demonstrated its gaming ability in graphic intensive games such as EA Mobile’s Need for Speed and Gameloft’s Sandstorm.  Perhaps a 10″ tablet would be more visually pleasing in such circumstances, but frankly, if I need a bigger screen I would have gone with my Ps3 and 46″ Samsung 3D LED Full HD TV. A 7″ tablet has indeed brought the mobile gaming experience to a new level, as games were previously played in a 2.8″ to 4.3″ screen displays.

When it comes to media playing ability, the feature can and should be assessed in two folds. At the very basic, a media playing device should have hardware capable of playing most if not all HD media format, such as DivX, Xvid, AVCH. No doubt there are applications like VPlayer and RockPlayer which could play most of these formats, but you would get better quality playback with hardware decoding, especially if you are playing HD videos. Samsung, being a home entertainment specialist,  just does it so well in this aspect with the Tab, something that HTC fails to deliver even with their latest flagship product. At the next level, one should look at the gadget’s media streaming capability. If playing a local HD media well is now established as a basic function, sharing  HD media to/from a remote media player/server would be the advance feature you could look at. However, once you experienced it, I bet you would want to make sure your next gadget would retain such functionality.

While services such as YouTube or Blinkx Beat had kick started the craze in video sharing through the internet, I still stand by my opinion that Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) certified devices will be the one that digitise how we would capture, stored and shared our precious moments with our loved ones. DLNA defines the standards and technologies on which consumer appliances would connect with another for the purpose of sharing musics, videos and photos. I first came across this concept more than half a decade ago, and it is only recent that it caught the general consumer awareness. Unfortunately, the AllShare app found in the Tab is buggy and less functional than that found in other Samsung devices. Fortunately, it is a software-related feature, and we can therefore find software alternatives, as long as we have the hardware-dependent basic function (i.e. media player).

A quick explanation on this point;  DLNA-certified devices enable one to discover or share media content with one another. Once the media content is discovered, identified for sharing/playing, it is back to the device itself to stream (possibly transcode during the process)  or render  (to decode the format and playback) the content in question. The former can be achieved via software, whereas the latter is best accomplished with the help of hardware. For what is worth, Apple does not support DLNA, and uses its own “Air-play” to share media in “Apple universe”.

So far, I find UPnPlayer (downloadable from Android Market) the most complete software as far as DLNA feature is concerned. It is the only DLNA player that could support all type of media content (i.e. music, photo and video). The key shortcoming would be its unpolished user interface, but functionally, it is one of the best, if not the best out there.  There are other good DLNA players, such as 2Player, but they would either support only 1 type of media sharing or have certain features broken.

Kindle for Android on Tab

Coming back to my original intent of getting the tablet, e-Reading, I was so pleased when Amazon recently updated their Kindle for Android app to support both magazine and newspaper. If you recall,  magazine and newspaper e-reading was my main reason for getting a tablet to compliment my Kindle device. I was shocked when I first found out that the older version of Kindle for Android app could only support e-books (i.e. not magazine or newspapers). So the update was very timely, at the time when I got the Tab. With a 7″ Tab, a perfect size for e-reader in my opinion, I can now enjoy reading The Economist and Herald Tribune on my Tab, in full color — but only when my wife is not playing her Angry Bird and the likes.

While Galaxy Tab has met or exceed most of my expectations, it is still not a perfect gadget to say the least. There are many irritants; Battery life is probably a couple of hours weaker than what an iPad can offer; Inserting or Removal of SIM card will require the tablet to reboot (probably a Android/Froyo problem) , and it is a tad too big to be used as a voice phone. While I had subscribed a new line for the Tab, and am using it as a phone with the help of bluetooth headset (in avoidance of pressing the big screen against my face during a phone call),  it is still not a phone you would bring in every occasion. But as the saying goes, if there exists a perfect device, that will mark the end of the hunt for one.  And when that happens, it will be a miserable day for a gadget fan like me. So I would be more than happy to let the pursuit continues!

With cooking, you master the science of key culinary skills, and then with some creativity,  you venture into dishing out different cuisine. I am not a food connoisseur, so you don’t expect me to go into details on this, but you should get the point.

Now, turning over to software programming (oh my, I suddenly feel so at ease), there is alot of similarities. You need to master the fundamental programming techniques, and you exposed into different type of programming; UI programming, Web programming, Data integration programming, Kernel programming .

And yes, recently I had ventured into kernel programming, something I have never imagined in the past. The reality though is that I was just meddling around with the Linux kernel source, thanks to  Opensource.

So I looked at the various kernel source codes published by various xda-developers, each of which addresses different aspect of kernel improvements. I decided to make a kernel that takes the best of all. The end product is one kernel that incorporates sztupy‘s Universal Lagfix, supercurio‘s Voodoo display tweak (Gamma and Sharpness enhancement), raspdeep‘s overclock and undervolt, and hardcore/ykk_five 341MB memory hack.

Universal Lagfix addresses the poor performance  inherent in Samsung’s original RFS-based storage. The fix is about reformatting specific data partitions into Linux ext4 format, and by doing that, you can expect 200-300% of improvement. The applications no longer run with intermittent freezes (caused by the lag in the file system access), and responses are therefore almost instantaneously.

So one would think, with a 200-300% improvement in performance, what is there to optimise further?

Now Samsung Galaxy S comes with 512MB of RAM, as you would expect from a top tier smart phones in the market. The problem with Galaxy S, is that the amount of RAM available for end user, is only 304MB. There are more than 200MB of RAM reserved for the system, such as video, android OS, etc. It didn’t help when Android has a bad habit of loading installed applications and widgets on start up, which means by the time your phone boots up successfully, you would be lucky to have 80MB RAM free for use. Now in Froyo, the memory management is far more robust than Eclair, but still, with a limited amount of free memory, you end up having frequent memory clean up performed by the OS, resulting in unnecessary instability in the system.  Both ykk_five and hardcore researched and figured out the kernel configuration for reserved memory. With some trial and error (as eliminating memory reservation causes problem with certain applications such as video recording or 3G video call), the folks in xda-developers established the optimal memory configuration. The result is 341MB of available memory (as compared to 304MB). That ensures some stability much needed in the Samsung Galaxy S.

And you would think by now; Samsung must have done something wrong if any more tweaks can be uncovered. You bet! The question now is how much have we optimised the  Cortex A8  processor, i.e. the brain of Galaxy S.  When looking at the kernel source code, folks have figured out that there are compiler flags we could use to compile the kernel to take advantage of the A8 Cortex CPU architecture. Not only that, the team has figured that the CPU can be over-clocked, just like how the PC geeks would have done to their desktop processors.  Additionally, the CPU is currently running at a voltage level that can be further tweaked, i.e. reducing the voltage consumption value  for each CPU frequency step. The end result, is a turbo-charged but super “air-cooled” (and efficient)  Galaxy-S. Unfortunately, there is no real tool out there to measure CPU voltage consumption scientifically, so one can only rely on feel (e.g. lower temperature) and experience (battery consumption level). That said, the under-volt tweak is still being refined as we speak, just to determine the optimal level of voltage that is low enough but not at the expense of CPU running reliably at the desired frequency.

The final installment of the tweak is display. supercurio had definitely done far more research than anybody in xda-developers, and probably even in Samsung development team, to improve on the display gamma and sharpness. More explanation can be found in his web-site, so I wouldn’t regurgitate what has already been documented.

And of course, there are some minor tweaks I did along the way, as I touched the source code for the above tweaks. However, these are experimental at this point, it’s probably not smart for me to disclose until I can conclusively determine the value of such tweaks.

Did I mention the code name of the kernel I have customised? Yet Another Optimised Kernel (YA OK!) … So go flash this kernel  if you happen to own a Galaxy S (sorry only for Europe and Asia Galaxy S owners) and want to turbo charge your phone. You will be surprise how buttery smooth your phone is, and it is definitely much faster than the Voodoo’ed Galaxy S I had awhile back.

Here’s a quick video capture of my Galaxy S running on YA OK Kernel. Enjoy.

Well, I thought my recently acquired Galaxy S was bricked yesterday.  It’s almost unthinkable that a surreal phone sitting in front of me was staring at me like a brick. I had previously flash a corrupted kernel or interrupted the flash process, in all cases, the phone will just show a broken flash icon when I tried to power up the phone. The phone was recoverable in every incident, since I could bring the phone back to the “download mode” (i.e. bootloader mode),  which allows me to re-initiate a firmware flash.

But not yesterday. I updated one part of the firmware, the flash process was successfully executed as indicated by the Odin flash application, and the phone was expectedly rebooted. But lo and behold,  the phone did not wake up at all after the reboot. It stayed powered down, no display, no sound, no sign of phone trying to “breath”. Not even an icon on the screen that says corrupted firmware. The phone did not even react when I attempted to put it back to the “download mode”.

Thinking that the phone has just coincidentally run out of battery, I decided to put the phone on charge but but it was still no go after few minutes. As I tried to recap what I have done, I realised that I had done something a noob would not have done. I had ticked on “re-partition” option prior to the flash process in Odin. Coupled with the fact that I was flashing the CSC image (one part of firmware that provides operator specific configuration and/or software).  Consequently, the phone had its entire system storage re-partitioned and end up with just that CSC code, without the remaining code, not even the kernel.

It was 1.30am at that particular moment, I reckon my sleepy head must be the reason behind this stupid action of mine.  What I couldn’t comprehend, is how can this screw up impact the bootloader, which is responsible for controlling the phone action during the boot up. One thing certain though is that I had completely woken up as a result.

For a good 15 minutes, I have been thinking all possible remedies, including removing the battery (albeit doing it very quicky) and putting it back to restart the phone.

I was almost resigned to the fact that my phone has become a $950 paper weight. But being a stubborn person (or one who perseveres, depending on how you look at it), I did not like the idea of throwing in the towel. I remembered how my father would spend the entire night till morning, just to fix some simple computer glitches when I was a young boy. I think I might be like him for that night.

Then I was enlightened. I observed that in those attempts when I was trying to put the phone into the “download-mode”, the phone might already be in panic-boot mode. While I had removed the battery and put it back to restart the phone, it was done so quickly that the state of the memory may not have totally erased.

So there I went, took out the battery, left the phone for a minute, put back the battery, and powered on the phone into “download mode” right away. Lo and behold again, phone is alive again! I almost yelled with joy .

And the moral of the story?

Never do any “not for weak heart” tasks, and firmware flashing for that matter, in the wee hours of the day. You would end up staying wide awake for the whole night, regardless of whether the end result is positive or not.

On a lighter note, it appears that it’s impossible for Galaxy S to end up as brick. Not unless you literally make it to be so.

I have been asked a number of times which phone is better, Samsung Galaxy S, or HTC Desire, both of which I had done some review on in the previous blog posts.

Here’s my thought.

At the end of the day, the choice is very personal, there’s no good or bad device, it’s more like if its right choice for you, based on your requirements.

For me, Samsung triumphs in the hardware department (except for maybe the lack of camera flash), whereas Desire wins hand down in the software aspect.

For me, you can address software gap with workaround (sometimes better, sometimes not as good, but its a good workaround), but you can’t say the same for hardware.

For e.g. I was blown away by Samsung camera capability, whereas HTC Sense mesmerized me without a shadow of doubt. I can emulate HTC sense in Samsung Galaxy S via Launcherpro (much better than Sense imho!) and widgets like fancy widget (not as functionally complete but its a good bridge), but I can’t emulate the video taking capability *anywhere near* Samsung Galaxy S in HTC Desire.

In my short 20 minutes hands on, I was deeply impressed by its form factor and its captivating Super Active-Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode (Super AMOLED) screen. First of all, it’s thin with a 4″ wide screen, a size that I feel more comfortable after having used to HTC HD and HTC HD2, which have screen size of 3.8″ and 4.3″ respectively. I just find the 3.7″ screen in the HTC Desire, a tad too small for me.  The Galaxy S has  just the right size, and to top it all, it is only 9.9mm slim and weighs only 118g. My only gripe is its piano-finishing battery cover, which is going to be a fingerprint magnet. The fact that the battery cover is made of polyurethanes material, doesn’t make it any more “cheap plasticky”, as I thought the overall build quality is solid.

Now the screen; it looks  stunning to the naked eyes, but once I put it side by side against HTC Desire, with the brightness level maximised for both devices, I find the difference is marginal, if any. I suspect the main reason behind this nano difference, is Samsung’s decision to maintain similiar brightness level, so as to maximize the power consumption efficiency. Afterall, a Super AMOLED screen is statistically capable of achieving 20% better brightness at 20% lesser power consumption level, in comparison to a AMOLED screen.  So if Galaxy S is designed and manufactured at the same brightness specification  as the AMOLED screen, then mathematically one can achieve 33% reduction in the power consumption. Not bad!  (Note: I did observed that the power consumption in Galaxy S much better than that in Desire. It’s not scientifically proven though that it is due to the above mentioned theory, but if anybody can confirm that, please let me know)

In the end, the brief experience was enough to lure me into the Samsung Galaxy S camp. So I got a set a few days later, and begin my Android journey, ehm,  officially. Afterall, the HTC Desire is technically a “T-loan” unit from yeez, and my other Android experience was really Android Cupcake half baked into my old HTC HD.

Having used the phone for the last few days, my conclusion of Galaxy S and Desire comparison is basically  hardware versus software. It is without a shadow of doubt that Galaxy S just shines in almost every aspect of hardware departments, except maybe the flash-less camera (and if I want to be nitpick, lack of LED notification light). I can however forgive the lack of flash, for its superb video taking capability. On paper, it can take 720p video at 30 frame per seconds,  but what counts at the end of the day is the actual quality of the video captured in reality. And I have to say it is almighty impressive, as it  could take a good video without any ghosting effect. Probably the best video capture capability I have come across for a smart phone.

Now, when it comes to software arena, HTC Desire is the clear winner by a mile. HTC sense  and its  home screen widgets,  spice up the otherwise default boring android home screen. One can draw the similarity from the  Windows Mobile devices; that without the Windows Mobile version of HTC sense, it is ladened by a functional but very dated Today screen. HTC has established itself as a smartphone leader, not because of its superior hardware specification, but its ability to mate the hardware and software (regardless of Android or Windows Mobile platform) to address the different needs of various mobile market segments. Samsung, on the other hand, has tried too hard to emulate iPhone, loosing it s own DNA. Its  TouchWiz user interface and the bubble style conversation for text messagin, are just some examples of that. Thankfully, there are applications like  LauncherPro, which can reinstate the iPhone wannabe back to the real android Galaxy S where it should be.

More review of the phone and the service in a short while, have too many teleconferences to attend this week!

Few points to note;

1. Currently the patch will keep the LED blinking for SMS notification only. Both Palm threading message application and default Pocket Outlook, are supported. Although the program is designed to support other 3 notifications, namely missed call, voice mail and email, they are currently disabled due to lack of testing.
2. Default duration that determines how long will the LED light keep blinking before it times out, is 60 minutes. If you want to extend or shorten the duration, you have to manage this in registry (sorry, no GUI at this moment!)  Go to HKCUSoftwareZenyeeNotif Blinker and change the key value Duration to the desirable length, in minutes. Of course, if you happen to read or dismiss the new message notification before the time limit, the LED will stop blinking. Becareful of setting a long duration(e.g. 240 minutes), because it may drain the battery unnecessary (see below for further explanation).
3. You can personalise the colour of the LED to your liking, but this is device dependent. For Samsung i780, the colour index for the LED is as follow;  Green (1), Blue (2), Red (3), Yellow (5). The index should be updated in the registry HKCUSoftwareZenyeeNotif BlinkerLED Color. Take note that if you choose yellow as the blinking LED colour, it will not show up if your device is connected to a power source.

Lastly, it is important to understand how this patch is being delivered. Essentially, it is created to keep the device in unattended mode, rather than sleep mode, during the notification process. The latter effectively suspends all running programs (including system programs) except for selected hardware-specific/relevant programs. That explains why LED light stops blinking after a while without the patch software. The patch utility is designed to keep the LED blinking, while due diligence is taken to ensure it consumes minimal power during the process of blinking. However, it doesn’t stop other program from running havoc in the background, which would otherwise be blocked when the device is in suspend mode. In anycase, when there’s no notification occuring, the patch software will not stop the device from getting into suspend mode.

Anyway, enough of geek speak. If you own a Samsung SGH-i780, and you are baffled by the non-blinking notification, you may want to try this Notif Blinker v0.1.

Update

12th July Notif Blinker v0.1a fix some bug where new message either couldn’t be detected, and/or LED light stops abruptly.

13th July Notif Blinker v0.2 (build 0713) fix a bug that cause new message notification not to trigger any LED blinking. Also added multi-notification support.

14th July Notif Blinker v0.2 (build 0714) fix a bug that affects Palm Messaging App users.

18th July Notif Blinker v0.2 (build 0718) bug fix and code improvement

Samsung launched its flagship qwerty product, Samsung SGH-i78,0 a couple of months ago and it has been the talking point in the “geek” town. Having tried its previous qwerty models, I had my reservation. The impressive technical specification and corresponding internet reviews, however led me to take a huge step. I finally sold my trusty Motorola Q9h and got myself a Samsung i780. So is this ultra slim Microsoft Windows Mobile-based smart phone liveing up to its reputation? After using it for a few days, here’s my take;

My first visual impression on the phone was decent, although it does not exactly have that “wow” impact on me. The front has a full glass finish surrounded by a piano-black trimming, while the rear cover plate is coated with a rubberized-like material. The glossy buttons felt a tad cheap-skate though, probably a biased perception after using Q9h’s keyboard for the last 5 months. The WM6 professional phone comes with the usual suspect features, such as micro-SD slot, volume control buttons. Like Q9h, the qwerty keyboard has a few function keys that are mapped to camera, messaging and GPS applications by default, making quick access to one’s favourite applications a snap.

As I turned on the phone, I was greeted by a slightly customised home screen. It is not fantastic although it is still better than the dull looking Windows Mobile’s Today screen. I ended up installing PointUI software, which is by the way, one of the better looking and functional shell program you would find for a Windows Mobile device.

Like many other smart phones, Samsung completely ignored the needs of bilingual users like yours truly, where the ability to read and write English and Chinese text is becoming a necessity than a nice to have feature. Luckily, there is third party software available, PlumSIP, which was not available for my previous smartphone platform. The Microsoft bluetooth stack, as expected, offers limited bluetooth management functionality although the essential bluetooth profiles such as A2DP, PAN, etc are available. The background noise level, when connected to a bluetooth handsfree car kit, is acceptable but my previous Q9h did a better job. Qwerty keyboard layout, as a result of a narrower phone design, makes texting a tad challenging. Luckily for me, having own the likes of Treo 500v and Dopod C730 previously, helps to transition alot. Thus, it didn’t take too long for me to get used to the “squeezy key buttons”. What really annoyed me is the change of the keyboard layout, which had some of the basic keys like “Return” and “Cap-lock” buttons re-positioned. So I always ended up hitting the “Enter” key when trying to type a capital “A”, for example.  Can’t the manufacturers agree and standardize on a common (basic) keyboard layout in the first place?

What really caught my attention is the optical sensor in replacement of the conventional 4 way d-pad. The optical sensor can be used in two different way; a mouse function, or 4 way navigation. All these are achieved through swiping of one’s finger on the sensor to simulate a mouse movement or a d-pad click. Without having a physical touch of a d-pad, or a mouse, I had my reservation on how this ‘revolutionary’  navigation control would be effective. Having used to Windows Mobile Standard smartphones for the last 9 months, I also have the apprehension to switch to a touch-phone because the former had the entire user interface designed based on keyboard navigation. I find it counter productive when you have to switch between keyboard and touchscreen just to access a certain phone function. With the mouse function, it totally eliminates the need for me to use my fat finger to ‘poke’ on the screen. However, not all applications respond well to the new mouse function. On the other hand, the 4-way navigation actually does a good (navigation) job very well most of the time.  Thankfully, someone created a mouse toggle utility so all I need to do is to map a hardware short-cut key to toggle the control mode depending on the need. Now I can switch to mouse function with just a key touch, if the keyboard becomes a pain to navigate for that specific application.

The other big plus I have observed is the phone’s excellent file system and graphic processing capability. Running Garmin Mobile XT with a 3D map, is a breeze, and there was no sign of lag at all. The software could render 3D view of the map during zoom-in and zoom-out without any glitches, something that my previous Q9h could not afford to do.  Hardwarezone and Zol.com.cn had previously done some benchmark comparison, and Samsung i780 outperforms the like of HTC Cruise and iMate 8502 in various department (File system, CPU, GPU, etc). Not even the HTC Diamond or Tytn II come close to i780, if the following SPB benchmark report were to suggest anything.

In a nutshell, despite the mediocre offering in some departments, i780 has already starting to win my heart due to its excellent optical mouse function and graphic processing capability. The two essentials are enough (for now) to make the whole experience a notch higher than some other “bare-bone” WM Professional phones you would find in the market. Samsung SGH-i780, certainly scores more than the literal meaning of its chinese brand name, “三星”, which means “three star” in English.