Samsung D600 review

Features
This is a quad-band handset, so anyone who travels often should find it works wherever they go. There is 81MB of user memory, which is healthy at first glance, but if you start taking lots of pictures or you want to feed the built-in MP3 player you'll undoubtedly want more.

You can have your wish if you invest in microSD cards (you may also see this format referred to as TransFlash). Samsung has done the right thing and put the card slot on the edge of the casing, so you can swap cards very easily.

The built-in music player can handle both MP3 and AAC formats. The quality of output to the handset's stereo speakers is not bad, but not the best we've heard. There isn't a lot of volume, but sound is clear and fairly sharp.

The four equaliser settings (normal, classic, jazz and rock) have a notable effect, and there is a 3D sound setting, although this is unimpressive. Through the provided stereo earphones it made our test tunes sound like we were in an echo chamber.

Two more things of note about music playback: the earphones use a proprietary connector, so don't lose them, and this being a Samsung handset, the MP3 player is visually rich and bold -- we might even go so far as blingy -- and there are a couple of skins to choose from.

The phonebook can cope with 1,000 contacts, which is a sign that this handset is designed as much for work as play. If you use desktop software you can synchronise contacts and your diary, and copy Word and Excel files across to view -- if you can bear to look at files like these on the tiny screen.

The camera is easy to use. You start it running by pressing the button on the right edge, then use the navigation key to control the zoom (maximum 4x) by pushing it up and down, and the brightness by pushing it left and right. It's a convenient system, and you can do it all without opening the slider, but you may want to turn off the accompanying sound effects as they become irritating.

Ease of use does not equate with simplicity of features, and the camera has quite a range of these, including the ability to fiddle with the ISO settings, choosing between 100, 200 and 400, or leaving things automatic. It's unusual to see this degree of control on a phone camera. There's also a mosaic shot mode -- you choose a template then take as many shots as are needed to fill it.

There are a couple of annoyances with the D600. It is irritating that it doesn't have infrared. Bluetooth is present for wireless connection to other devices, but we like using infrared for beaming things like images to other devices, because you don't need to go through a pairing procedure.

More important for many perhaps is the absence of voice dialling. If you are upgrading from an earlier handset and have enjoyed this feature in the past, you'll almost certainly be annoyed that it isn't on the D600.

Performance
The D600 impressed us at almost every turn. From the hardware slider to the on-board features it did well. The music player isn't bad and with the slider closed the camera is beautifully easy to use, and capable of taking good-quality snaps.

Call quality was fine too. Volume was okay -- though perhaps we'd have liked slightly more at the top end, and we didn't experience any dropped calls during testing. When you dial a number or write a text message, digits appear on screen rather larger than you might be used to, making seeing what you are doing easy.

We weren't let down by the battery either. We managed to avoid charging the handset for a couple of days at a stretch.

Edited by Michael Parsons
Additional editing by Nick Hide