Off late there has been an assault of new handsets from Motorola, Nokia and LG. Sharp has introduced a handset or two, Sidekick II is out and RIM Charm will be hitting the stores soon as well. However, if you are a GSM user like me, I would urge you to wait for Samsung’s new swivel-swing phone, the P735. I have one of the early prototypes with me – which means it does not have the requisite headphones or a cable to sync that with computer and all that stuff. What I do have is the actual handset, which is simply gorgeous. Oh it better looking than Catherine Zeta Jones itself. (Drooollll!)
I have often argued that the reason Samsung makes great phones is because they give a lot of attention to the user interface. Well was I in for a surprise. The user interface has gone through a major facelift. The already cute icons have been replaced by more “mac-like” icons. 
The screen of this phone is gorgeous – shiny, bright and colors are truelife. The radio is so good that it is picking up signals in elevators; the sound is crystal clear, and the keys are generous, and spacious. The four-way navigation pad is simple and easy to use. The middle-button takes you to the T-Zones in a breeze, and the internal memory helps give an appearance of faster downloads. It does everything you expect a great phone to do – polyphonic ring-tones and all that. What is most remarkable is the megapixel camera which is one of the best I have used. It takes great pictures and thanks to the MMC slot, it is easy to download the pictures to your computer. I hate emailing them to myself or doing MMS or moblogging so I really don’t care about that stuff. But even someone like me was going click-crazy because the photos are brilliant.
What else do I like about this phone? The MP3 player. Good bye IPOD, hello P735. A lot of folks are going to like other features like speakerphone, video recorder, and all that stuff. (I have not tested the camcorder functions yet!) People will also like the fact that you can move the screen around and flip it. But being of the older set, I think it is the flip-phone functionality along with everything else that I like. Even I would spend $500 on this. The best multipurpose phone you can get your paws on. My rating: 9 out of possible 10.
holy crap! i’ve had a sony ericsson t610 for a year and i’m loving it, so here are a few questions:
– does it do bluetooth
– can i “link it” to OS X addressbook via bluetooth like with the t610?
– does it work with iSync?
thanks for any info you can provide! 🙂
-chris
well here we go – it does not do any of the three things you say. which means its mac unfriendly and does not have a bluetooth. now despite that i would buy this. so this is a pretty strong endorsement from my side. i like the fact that it has speaker phone and all those things. as a t610 replacement, i suggest you go for nokia 6620 or the sony z600 i think. samsung does not do anything bluetooth it seems. someone needs to write a USB driver for samsung addressbook
The S700i might not be a bad upgrade for you either Chris. It just got finished by Sony Ericsson, and is up to T-Mobile whether or not they are going to carry it. It has Bluetooth and should work fine with iSync.
Dont you like to run this and lots of others like it? http://www.wayfinder.com/products/index_en.php
go for a symbian!!!
If you want a t610 replacement, the K700i is a great model that does pretty much all this samsung model does but doesn’t have an mmc slot. the z600 was a good model (I upgraded from it) but it didn’t have mp3 ringtones and speakerphone, which the k700i does, and the K700i has a better camera and icons. Oh and of course it has bluetooth and works with mac os x fully. Did I mention it even has additional functions in mac os x, like navigation in mac os x and the ability to control iTUnes/keynote/powerpoint WITHOUT additional software? Apple have provided the functionality already!
Dave
It’s expensive. It has no bluetooth. I bet you can’t install 3rd party software to it. I bet you can’t beam images & sound files via IR to any nokia phone and vice versa.
I agree with @vishi… go for symbian phones! You won’t regret it. º
See there are such limited symbian options in the US. sign up with AT&T and you can get nokia 6620 which i actually like. Cannot afford the P900 as yet. So that is why I always go with the phone that does the most – i.e. 9 out of 10 things for me. Maybe when the Nokia communicator comes out, I will totally switch to symbian!
Wow! Does this have Speaker phone? you mean built-in hand free loud speaker? @.@!!!!
When do we get to see this phone in U.S?!!!
hey! you guys know samsung is a korean company? well they have this in korea and it came out a year ago! and I had it when I used to live there and it was great!! this is the best!!!!!!cell phone you can ever get!!so just wait until it comes out and save your money!! you don’t need no ipod or a digital camera or a camcorder!!and the camera on the phone I had in korea was 350zoom!! that is awsome! well do you know then this comes out in the US?