Samsung Tocco review

Average user rating

7.1

very good

Average user rating from 15 users

See all user reviews

Agree? Disagree? Write your own review of the Samsung Tocco

Rate this product

Samsung Tocco user reviews

August 27, 2008

Posted by: Strange Visitor

"Hotter than a heatwave"

What I like:

Fast responsive touchscreen, haptic feedback, good call quality

What I don't like:

Cannot view uploaded images full screen, variable signal strength

Review:

I was looking for a mobile phone to replace my iPod and PDA. While this doesn't quite hit the mark, it comes close.

The Tocco is small and slim, but with a generous 2.8" screen. Larger screens, such as on the iPhone or Viewty make for a bulky, unwieldy handset. The resolution is a little outdated at 240x320 but the icons and photo's look clear and sharp enough. The screen is bright at it's highest setting, but not as bright as the iPhone. I've heard some folk can't see the screen well in direct sunlight, but I've had no problems.

After having a Viewty before, the speed of this UI is lightning-fast in comparison. It's also very sensitive, but only to fingers - fingernails or a stylus won't work, but all options are large enough to choose, unless you have huge fingers :-)

I have some concerns about signal strength, in that I get 1-3 bars in the house, 3-5 at work, and 5 outside. Even on one bar, however, I've found the call quality to be clear. I've never lost a signal or had a call end prematurely.

My main disappointment is the fact that photo's cannot be viewed full screen - there is always a grey option bar at the bottom. A nice touch is that you can move to the next photo in the folder with a sweep of the finger. The slideshow also puts the file name in large font on the photo's which ruins the experience. Similarly on videos the filename appears throughout.

These are minor quibbles, and are more than made up for by the size, build quality, responsive screen and call quality. I like the large text in messages as I wear glasses for reading and computer work, but at no other time, and it's easy to read messages without specs. The size can also be altered using the volume rocker but not saved as default.

The camera is decent in good lighting but poor is low light, the flash is next to useless. Pictures taken can look blurred on the phone, but fine when transferred to PC.

Call volume is fine for me, but may be a problem if you're in a particularly noisy environment. Ringtone volume is also adequate, and the vibrate is strong and pretty unmissable.

The widgets are a nice touch, and the shortcut screen, but both would have benefitted from being more customisable (changing or adding shortcuts / widgets).

The embedded browser doesn't support landscape, but downloading Opera mini solves that problem.

I may have concentrated on the niggles, but that's because there's not much to be said about the basics that this phone does well: Perfect size, good call quality, fully customisable ringtones and alerts, texting quick once you get used to the touchscreen, strong vibration, haptic feedback, large clear screen, decent camera and fast 3G web access.

This is my 33rd phone and would definitely rank in the top 3.