Samsung Jet review

The Jet's on-screen keyboard switches from an alphanumeric version when you hold the phone in portrait mode to a Qwerty keyboard in landscape mode. The keyboards are both fast and responsive, but we hate the layout. For example, the key to switch languages is given as much space as the other keys, although, unless you're an MEP, you'll probably rarely use it.

On the other hand, we like the fact that you can run several applications at once -- a long press of the jewel-like centre key brings up everything that's running. We also like the widgets on the home screen. They're basic, but there are some good ones, like the one that controls the music player. Unfortunately, there's no way to lock them in place, and we often accidentally moved them when we were trying to slide around the home screens.

The Jet also offers some innovative user-interface ideas, such as Media Gate 3D, which is essentially a spinning cube of shortcuts that gets its own launch button next to the camera shutter button. You can tap it or control it by shaking the phone, but it's pretty pointless in our opinion.

Another new idea is gesture-based unlocking. When the phone is locked, you can draw a letter on the screen to unlock it. You can also set the letter that unlocks the phone to act as a speed-dial number so that, once you enter the letter, the phone rings one of your contacts. That's handy for phoning home, but we wish it worked with simple cursive, rather than capital, letters, which often require several strokes.

Quality camera
We were impressed with Jet's 5-megapixel camera, despite its 3-second shutter lag. Our snaps were clear and showed good colour reproduction, and photos and videos looked striking on the Jet's 79mm WVGA-resolution screen.

The camera suffers from a 3-second shutter lag, but the results are good

The Jet supports MPEG-4, H.263 and DivX video formats, but we struggled to get videos on the phone using Samsung's syncing software. Videos didn't get automatically converted to a format the phone could read, so we ended up wasting time transferring files that we couldn't play. We'd suggest downloading videos over the phone's built-in Wi-Fi or 3.2Mbps HSDPA instead. There's plenty of room for downloads, thanks to a microSD memory card slot that supports up to 16GB of storage.

There's also support for heaps of music formats, and a built-in FM radio. You can listen to your tunes at their best, thanks to a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, the inclusion of which always gives us a warm, fuzzy feeling inside.

Case logic
The Jet reminds us a great deal of the 5800, from its resistive touchscreen to the Symbian OS. But the Jet far exceeds the 5800 in terms of looks, working a bigger screen into a slimmer, more solid-feeling body. The rounded back features interesting shiny red stripes, which remind us of the red-hot bars in an electric fire. But a big drawback of the case is that the bezel around the lens and the raised speaker keep the Jet from lying flat, which is a pain when you want to tap with both hands when playing games.

Conclusion
The Samsung Jet's speedy processor doesn't deliver much oomph in the real world, but we can forgive its average speed. What we can't forgive is its unresponsive resistive touchscreen and occasionally confusing interface. Despite a stunning AMOLED screen, customisable home screens and a good selection of features, the whole package feels unpolished and full of irritating quirks. Little jewels like the standard headphone jack are tarnished by mistakes such as the poor Qwerty keyboard layout, leaving us disappointed overall.

Edited by Charles Kloet