Samsung Ultra Edition 9.9 D830

Samsung’s Ultra Edition series are all about ultra thin devices, but just as the 6.9 X820 stands out as being the slimmest candy bar handset, and the 12.9 D900 slider stands out for its feature packed specifications including a 3 megapixel camera, the 9.9 D830 clamshell just ends up trying to take a swipe at the RAZR without any success. Is there any reason to choose it over the RAZR?

Design
As mentioned before, the 9.9 D830 is a slim clamshell which simply looks RAZR-inspired. The phone opens up to be a little too big, even bigger than the RAZR, but then you’ll realize that its even slimmer than the 6.9, when it isn’t folded. But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s still quite a broad phone for any normal sized hand. 85 grams also makes the phone feel a little weighty, despite the slimness.

The keypad–once again RAZR-inspired–is brushed metal with etchings on it. But unlike the RAZRs, the keys are extremely flat and offer no tactile feedback, so you’ll have to rely on the keypad tones to assist in fast typing, which wasn’t a very pleasant experience. The key arrangement is also flawed: the OK/i key in the navigation pad is large and comfortable, but the ring around it, which has the four direction keys, is too small. Even the number keys are not big enough, even though they are wide.

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There are only volume keys on the side; no shortcut for the camera or voice recorder, so you will need to flip open the phone for any of those functions.

Display
The display on the 9.9 D830 is a large, 2.3-inch QVGA (240x320) LCD, which is great for pictures and generally the user interface quality, but it’s not too good when taken outdoors in sunlight. Due to the high resolution, the pictures taken by the camera look very good on the screen.

The external display is a letdown. Not only is it a tiny 96x16 resolution mini-display, it’s also a monochrome OLED like the older Samsung E700 series. This phone is pricier than the RAZR it’s essentially going to be pitted against, but it actually skims important features like the external display – this isn’t good. On the other hand, the display is a bit more readable than the RAZR’s.