Samsung U900 Soul

I was fascinated by the Soul’s navigation technology the moment I saw it, and even more so when I got the opportunity to test it for the first time. Of course, that was before I tested other handsets such as the LG KF600. But I’m not here to do a comparison of handsets... yet. So here’s what I have to say about the U900 Soul, which is part of Samsung’s Ultra series of handsets.

Form Factor
The U900 Soul slider is definitely a good-looking handset, no argument there. It has a 2.2 inch TFT display with a 240 x 320 pixel resolution and 16 million colors. Its touchscreen navigation pad (oddly called Magical Touch) is a one-inch OLED display with intuitive technology that customizes the pad as per the features selected.

The color scheme can be changed to the user’s preference. The volume and zoom keys are located on the side just above Samsung’s proprietary USB/handsfree slot. The dedicated camera key (it activates the camera only when you’re at the main screen) is located on the other side, just above the microSD card slot.

The keypad is large and easy to use. It has a dedicated video call key and a switch key that allow you to swap between applications. The funny thing is I thought it to be a menu that shows what applications are running in the background as it has an ‘End All’ option at the end. But that simply closes the feature, nothing more. The 5MP camera and flash are located on the rear of the handset, so you’ll have to slide the phone open to access the camera.

Features and Performance
The only thing that places the Soul apart from any other Samsung slider (of which there are plenty) is the navigation pad. Unfortunately, it’s not easy to use, especially is you have pudgy fingers. It’s very responsive and you can adjust the sensitivity as well as the Haptic feedback response. It also allows users to customize the shortcuts for quick access to features.

The U900 is loaded when it comes to connectivity. It’s a 3G-enabled handset with HSDPA speeds, and supports EDGE/GPRS and WAP. Being a higher-end handset, it has Bluetooth with an A2DP profile and USB v2.0 connectivity as well. Here’s what baffled me though: I could connect to the Internet easily using the web browser, BUT for some reason it was really slow. It's a problem with the phone and NOT my service, for when I slipped my SIM into another handset it loaded sites a whole lot faster. I liked the browser's capability to adjust the size of the viewing space, the desktop viewing option, and Smart Fit.