First impressions of Samsung SGH-V200
During a short time I had an opportunity to use and test a first phone from
Samsung with an integrated camera. Probably, you have a question why it is the
first model, the company has already launched some other ones. But v200 is the
first phone, which we can buy, the other ones are already taken out of production.
The dimensions of the new folder type phone are 91х48х23 mm, it is really handy.
May be it's a little bit thicker than other modern folder phones from Samsung
but it's not noticeable. The weight of the phone is less than 100g, it weighs
96g. You can find two batteries in the standard kit as usual. The standard battery
is lithium-ion accumulator of 850 mAh capacity. The phone works 3 days with it,
it's an acceptable result in case of active phone use.
First, what you can see, is a camera, which is situated on the hinge of the
phone. So, the camera can rotate at the angle of 180 degrees. It allows to make
shots of yourself and the others. A focus distance is 20 cm, our practice tests
showed that it's better to take pictures at a distance less than 50 cm. Camera
matrix has 350000 pixels, what allows to get images with the resolution of 640x480
pixels. You can set 2 types of picture quality (high and low), all pictures are
saved in jpg format. A picture resolution could be the largest or lower to use
in MMS-messages. Later we'll probable see an intermediate resolution of the images.
A phone has a special memory space to keep received images. It is rumored that
up to 3Mb of free space would available for this purpose.
A phone screen is used as a viewfinder. The peculiarity of the phone is that
you can flip the image at the angle of 180 degrees simultaneously. This is a unique
feature of this model, which you can't find in the phones of other manufacturers
or other models from Samsung. It is possible to adjust a contrast and brightness
of the picture. You should only press a key under the screen to take a picture.
One can view the images in the special folder, send them via IR-port to another
device or download them to PC with a help of cable and a software, which are included
in the standard kit. The V200 is also the first phone from Samsung, which support
MMS-messages. Unfortunately we didn't have such an opportunity in our sample,
because we have only the first prototype of such phone. But it would appear in
January or February when first lots appear in Europe.
Features of the phone resemble those of T400. It is still a dual band phone
with a 40-tones polyphony. An internal display (TFT) shows up to 65000 colours
and has a resolution of 128x160 pixels. The interface of the main menu was changed
but here is all about the changes.
 
Samsung SGH-V200 supports GPRS (4+1). You can view pre-installed video clips
on this phone. The quality is not bad. Subjectively, approximately 6-8 shots a
second are displayed. The sound is very loud but handsfree mode is not available.
Probably we'll see this function in next phone versions.
In the whole the phone is rather interesting. Camera doesn't offer extraordinary
possibilities but it is quite sufficient to everyday use. There are no possibilities
to associate a photo to a name in the phonebook. As for me, the specifications
of the phone, which available today, could change a little bit in the commercial
version of the phone and now it is early to speak about the accurate features.
There are no doubts that the phone is enjoyable and we describe it later more
elaborately, when first commercial samples appear on the market.
P.S. Before November a CDMA version of this model was unveiled on many exhibitions.
It differs from a GSM phone by the menu and "inside" capabilities except the body
of the phone. Only now first real prototypes of v200 appear.
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