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Samsung Tocco Ultra Edition (GT-S8300 / UltraTOUCH)

 Samsung Tocco Ultra Edition Discontinued
9th February 2009

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The Samsung Tocco Ultra Edition (also known as the Samsung GT-8300 and possibly the UltraTOUCH in some markets) is an eight megapixel touchscreen phone with a slide-out numeric keypad.

Although it borrows the "Tocco" name from the Samsung F480, the Samsung Tocco Ultra Edition is a completely different and much upgraded handset.

At a time when touchscreen phones were beginning to look identical, the design of this S8300 handset is a little bit different, the "stretched slider" design gives the handset a distinctive look - albeit a tall look at about 139mm when the handset is open.

A tour around the features of the Samsung Tocco Ultra Edition show that this is an impressive looking device. One notable feature is the 8 megapixel camera with dual LED flash, autofocus, face detection and geotagging using the Tocco's built-in GPS. The S8300 can also record video at 640 x 480 pixels at 30 frames per second.

 Samsung Tocco Ultra Edition Closeup

The display is a 2.8" WQVGA (240 x 400 pixel) touchscreen panel with haptic feedback, using Samsung's Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode (AMOLED) technology to deliver a clear, bright display. In terms of capabilities, this is certainly more advanced than the original Tocco, but it lacks the high resolution of the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic.

The user interface has been upgraded to TouchWiz 1.5 which seems to be a very usable way of controlling the phone. It's worth remembering that the Tocco Ultra Edition is not a smartphone, so software upgrades will more limited than for some of the competition. However, it's likely that the built-in software will be more than enough for most users.

 Samsung S8300 UltraTOUCH Samsung say that the GPS on the Tocco Ultra Edition provides navigation with detailed maps that can take users "from door to door". The precise features are not clear, but the large display has the potential to be an excellent aid for SatNav users.

Multimedia support is a strong point of the S8300 / Tocco Ultra Edition. It can play back MP3, AAC and WMA audio plus DivX, XviD, MPEG4, WMV, H.264 and H.263 movies. There is also support for stereo Bluetooth, and the Tocco Ultra comes with an FM radio. We don't know whether or not the S8300 comes with a 3.5mm audio jack or not.

Underneath it all, this is a quad-band GSM phone with dual-band 900 / 2100 MHz UMTS. The Tocco Ultra also supports HSDPA with a maximum download speed of 7.2 Mbps. There appears to be no WiFi support. The S8300 is powered by an 880 mAh battery, which is surprisingly small for a phone of this high specification. Internal memory is 75MB, expandable up to 16GB using a microSD card.

Other features include photo blogging, video editing and a high degree of customisation using repositionable widgets.

So, overall this appears to be a good looking phone with a lot of features. Perhaps it isn't as flexible as the Samsung Omnia or a smartphone, but it is certainly an impressive and powerful device.

No word was given on price, but we expect to see the Samsung Tocco Ultra Edition to hit the shops from March onwards.

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Samsung Tocco Ultra Edition (GT-S8300) at a glance

Available:

Q1 2009

Network:

GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 +
UMTS 900 / 2100

Data:

GPRS + EDGE + UMTS (3G) + HSDPA

Screen:

240 x 400 pixels, 16m colour

Camera:

8 megapixels

Size:

Large slider
110 x 52 x 13mm

Bluetooth:

Yes

Memory card:

microSD

Infra-red:

No

Polyphonic:

Yes

Java:

Yes

GPS:

Yes

Battery life:

Not specified

 

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