The Samsung i780 is a highly sophisticated top-of-the-range PDA /phone designed primarily for business users. It includes all the usual "must-haves" including triband roaming GPRS EDGE HSDPA to 3.6 Mbps plus Bluetooth with A2DP Wi-fi and built-in GPS. Immediately striking is the 2.5-inch touchscreen which sits flush with the casing and has slightly mirrored finish. Below this are softkeys set to default as contacts and calendar and a joystick-cum-Dpad above the 37-key QWERTY keypad lit by a coloured backlight when pressed. The resolution is excellent and is pretty much sun-resistant viewable under almost any conditions. Perhaps surprisingly given the busy frontage the I780 is easy to use - including one-handed texting - and the device is really thin (12.9 mm) for its function set. The majority of buttons are dual function offering an alternative symbol or number at the touch of the Function (fn) button. The optional Dpad/joystick responds to the lightest of touches - sweep of the pad with your thumb is sufficient. In fact there is a variety of control options: touchscreen with stylus with finger and a touchpad that can control a mouse pointer or work as a conventional navigation pad. There is plenty of software bundled in including a Podcast application RSS reader and on-board GPS and A-GPS and although the camera is a modest 2 megapixels it takes surprisingly good quality snaps and basic video clips. The I780 is a 3G phone reverting to GPRS without difficulty where necessary supporting MMS SMS email and Instant Messaging plus Web browsing via WAP 2.0. Battery life will vary according to which applications you favour but at least two days on a single charge is realistic with a rated talk time of seven hours. |
