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Diets are all the rage, and not just in the land of Z-list celebrities. Mobile phone manufacturers are cutting calories by the truckload to give their supermodels skinnier exteriors.
Think thin
Take Samsung’s X820: it’s a low-carb, low-fat candy bar. And, at only 6.9mm thick, it’s out to make other fashion mobiles such as LG KG800 Chocolate a touch self-conscious.
In hand, the X820 feels delicate. For the first couple of hours you’re wary of putting pressure on its waif-like chassis for fear it could shatter it into oblivion. However, the Samsung uses fibreglass-infused plastic to keep itself intact under stressful conditions. Once you stop gawping at its almost non-existent side profile it’s apparent that the X820 is somewhat of a mixed bag.
Compact and bijou
The bevel-cut keypad looks great and only adds a millionth of a millimetre to the overall profile, and its generous size means you don’t need to worry about over-sized digits. The display’s great too. When it comes to screens, Samsung are up there with the very best and, despite its relatively low resolution of 176x200 pixels, the X820 displays impressive brightness and vibrant colours. It’s just a shame that it’s so damn small. At only 1.9 inches it makes using the Samsung’s document viewer nigh-on impossible to use.
The X820’s menu system is clean, colourful and relatively easy to navigate although it doesn’t have the immediate user-friendly appeal of intuitive Sony Ericssons. Another minor complaint is that you can’t have vibrate and ring on simultaneously, which can result in a few missed calls. Annoying.
Slim pickings?
Despite its tiny frame, those clever bods at Samsung have even found room for an accomplished 2MP camera while it also supports A2DP for partnering it with Bluetooth headphones. Unfortunately you’ve got only got limited space for file storage and by ‘limited,’ we mean a paltry 80MB of memory. There’s no room for a memory card slot so you might as well forget about using the X820 as an MP3 player. But you’re buying this as a fashion statement, right?
Tech Specs
- Bluetooth
- Yes
- Dedicated MP3 player software
- Yes
- Digital zoom rating
- 4x
- Dimensions
- 113x50x7mm
- FM radio
- No
- Main camera resolution
- 355x258
- Memory card slots
- No
- Operating system
- Samsung
- Optical zoom rating
- 4x
- Quad band
- No
- Screen resolution
- 220x176
- Screen size
- 1.9 Inches
- Storage
- 80MB
- Supported music formats
- MP3, AAC, AAC+
- Talktime
- 2 Hours 30 Minutes
- Triband
- Yes
- Weight
- 66g
- Wi-Fi
- No
- Xenon flash
- No
Comments
tmax
1 year ago
Just an update: bought in June 2006 so nearly 4 years old now and still going strong, and still cool looking :)
Waiting for something thinner and sexier, it could be a while but thats fine by me
ruidurao
1 year ago
My parents got me this phone for my birthday back in 2007. Its still my one and only phone.
PROS:
*Ridiculously slim, to the point of looking for it in my pocket and not finding it, although it was there the whole time.
*Keypad is phenomenal... precision on every stroke
*Good video quality on bright daylight
*Hyper more resistant than it looks like
*Numbered commands make it easier to navigate through menus
CONS:
Does not ring and vibrates @ the same time
*small battery lifetime
*No memory card slot
tmax
3 years ago
Bought 2 years ago as a replacement for the smaller but primative GD55 (and prior to that a T28)
Slim, sleek and strong, with a beautiful black screen
Unlike previous phones I missed a good few calls due to the lack of a simultaneous ring and vibrate function - i leave it on vibrate nearly always. Even the vibrate is weak. By contrast the GD55 would nearly jump out of my pocket if I didnt answer it. Despite this I wouldnt use any other phone right now
Tempted to upgrade now to an N82 but it doesnt have iphone-like internet with youtube so will wait another year for a better zenon-flash phone