S8500 Review Continued 7 & Final Thought

choose page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

connectivity

As with the older i8910 all contemporary means of data transfer are supported.

GPRS, EDGE and 3G with HSDPA (7.2Mbps) HSUPA (2.0Mbps). pretty much the same really

The GSM/EDGE networking of course comes in quad-band and the 3G in dual-band - 900/2100MHz. unlike the i8910 which supports all 4 bands

But saying that the Wave is the first to support the new Bluetooth version 3.0. Naturally, A2DP is also supported.

as withthe i8910 the S8500 also packs a standard microUSB port. You can choose from 4 connection modes - Media player, PC Internet, Mass storage and Samsung Kies. Samsung Kies is the new software used to connect your Samsung mobile phone to a computer. So goodbye pc studio and hello Kies

As before in mass storage mode the phone mounts its internal memory (2 or 8 GB, depending on the device) but might not to the memory card inside it. ??

Wi-Fi with WPS is also at hand yet again taken from the i8910. WPS stands for Wi-Fi Protected Setup and it's a hassle-free way to pair a wireless device with your secured network. As long as your wireless router supports the feature, pressing the dedicated button on it allows it to pair with the s8500.

Web browser

From the outset it looks like there has been a big improvent to the web browser which for us i8910 users was and is long over due

The S8500 Wave packs a Webkit-based Samsung Dolphin Browser 2.0. You can have multiple pages opened at the same time and there is Flash video support on board.

The web browser interface is reminiscent of the Samsung S8000 Jet. There's multi-touch support, so you can make use of the pinch-zooming feature. That's only one of the three zooming options, though.

Now some of the other similarities start to show You can double tap a block of text or an image and will automatically zoom in on it. Another double tap and you are back to the previous zoom level and there comes the one-finger zooming.

The web browser also offers kinetic scrolling and fullscreen view mode. The text search option is also there.

Unfortunately, there is no text reflow (dynamic refitting of text to match the width of the display port). Its job is to make sure the text won't run too wide, so that each line of text will fit horizontally on the screen (hence no need for horizontal scrolling).

Another letdown of the s8500 web browser is the lack of auto-complete when typing the address of already visited websites. The only help you get here is the ".com" button which can, eventually, save you 3 extra taps, nothing more.

  
Browsiing the net 

Applications

This is a nice feature which i wish i had on the i8910 and the System Manager was the first telltale sign the Wave is actually a smartphone. It consists of three tabs. The first one shows the battery info, while the second and the third inform you on the CPU usage and the memory status, respectively. Along with the CPU usage you can also see the currently running apps and you can start the Application manager.

  
The System Manager

The Voice Command application does what its name suggests. but has been tweaked again and now seems more desireable with its help you can dial a contact from your phonebook or a phone number. You can also load a playlist into the music player or make the phone tell you what's on your schedule and which events you have missed.

Using the same app you can also start the Voice recorder or activate the Driving mode. If the Driving mode is on the phone will automatically read out all new notifications.

  
The Voice Command app

as with the i8910 GPS is still there Route66 is available but i should imagine if orange uk get hold of the phone they will no doubt put orange maps in place of routee 66.

The GPS nagigation software

The Mobile AP you can turn your S8500 Wave into a wireless router but this is something i need to look into.

  
The Mobile AP

Final words

Well ive got to say im in mixed thoughts here, the s8500 is a great looking phone but in so many ways reminds me of the i8910.

when putting this review together i found my self constintly saying "as on the i8910" or "similar to" it just kept coming back to them same words.

its hard to call on which will be the best, the i8910 is a year on now and i guess next to the s8500 is starting to look a little old but in retrospect the s8500 doesnt have some of the same hardware features and is been released with a new OS bada so that puts doubts in my mind.

overall the s8500 is proberly the next phone to get if we are to move forward from the i8910 and think its time we realised like samsung thats the i8910 is a lost cause and a chance that has been missed. i think what samsung have done is taken all the best bits from the i8910 and put them in this new s8500.

when i started to write the post i was a bit miffed they where trying to do this but as i went on through the review i found my self starting to like this phone more

thing is will i be ordering one ? well to be honest i think i will be, i love the i8910 and truley wished it had taken off but its not happened. ive never once regreted getting the i8910 and in some ways i think i will miss it (corney i know) but the s8500 is now better looking has alot of the same features plus some nice new ones and the hope of getting off the ground.

i know the s8500 is to be released on ALL NETWORKS in th UK which again the i8910 never got BUT no doubt Orange UK will debrand the hell out of so my next task is to get the original firmware lol here i go again

Brett

S8500 Specs Sheet