Not long ago I was presented with a unique opportunity (at least for me) by Dynamism.com to be shipped a Samsung i320n Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone. With all the hype surrounding the T-Mobile Dash and the Motorola Q I figured why not take a look and see if these new slim/smart phones are all they are cracked up to be. I’m very glad I did, because the first thought that popped into my head when I started unboxing the phone was … gorgeous. I was a little put off however that this was an i320n – as most of the pictures I had seen online prior to this were of the original i320 and I loved the look. The original i320 (the one pictured in almost all earlier reviews) underwent a pre-production keyboard change, which personally I’m not too fond of (more on that later). Either way, it totally for me changed the look of the device and I think I liked the older slightly more "rugged" look. 

More after the break

Here’s what I mean – note the raised/peaked keys of the i320:

Image Credit

Here’s the current i320n jellybean keyboard:

Image Credit

Please note: Those pictures are images from online and if the owners ask I can/will remove them. I’ve used those images because honestly – my digital camera is horrible and cannot produce the kind of detailed images I need. I’m fixing this little problem soon… Santa is going to be really good to my wife this year. So without further ado, let’s look at a couple of those horrible pictures of this dare I say super-sexy phone as we do the review. Nope, I didn’t say that – just sounds weird the phone is not super-sexy. It’s very nice. There, that’s better – I’d hate to have the people with white jackets stop by because they thought I had a problem.

Also Note: If you came looking for pretty images - not gonna happen. You’re going to get opinions (and lots of them) that might help you decide if this is the device for you…

Power.

All the junk in the box. Now the pictures don’t really allow for you to see with true clarity everything that’s in there and for the most part it’s standard faire (aside from the Dynamism included power adapter – thanks for that) , but there’s 3 things in this box that need your attention. The first being battery number one, second being battery number two and third is the battery carry case. Yup - two batteries and a carry case. If ever there was a hint of problems to come… it’s the inclusion of two batteries BY THE MANUFACTURER. Scary. And Necessary as the battery life on this thing is less than stellar.

Real world usage – busy day – the i320n will not make it through a full work day on one battery. Non-busy day - just don’t plan on staying out and closing the bar, because the phone won’t last longer than you unless you bring along that handy little case with battery number 2. The other issue I had with this deals along the lines of Samsung’s choice to use a proprietary cable for charging. HTC has been doing this right for a long time in that they use a standard USB connection for charging and syncing. This in itself makes life a lot simpler since USB cables are a dime a dozen and when you run low on juice there’s a good chance you can "find" a cable laying around that will do the trick. Not so with the i320n.

Again, my camera is incapable of doing this phone justice so keep that in mind. I long for the day when I can do one of these reviews with 10 Megapixels of digital love. But since I don’t have that yet, here’s the visuals in words. Reese Witherspoon or Johnny Depp – you decide – it’s that kind of hotness. I won’t get into the whole hot-or-not debate … I just know my wife loves Johnny and I acknowledge him as a threat. Reese – call me  – I forgiven you for Ryan =)  Moving on.

Keyboard. I’ve held a lot of devices in these hands, and I have yet to come across any of them that made me drool as much as the Samsung i320n does (I kept it clean). The size is nearly perfect as it isn’t a true rectangle, but slims down near the bottom much like the average human hand does. If you don’t get what I mean by this you’ll find that most phones on the market are the same width at the top as they are at the bottom. The Samsung angles just enough to allow your (my) hand to hold the phone comfortably on all edges while still being able to navigate the buttons with my thumb. Realistically you can run the i320 with a single hand and still be able to achieve a decent typing rate with the bulk of the device sitting in your palm instead of sitting on your fingers like the typical candybar phones. For some reason this just feels safer than dangling a nearly $450 phone on your fingertips. With that said, I think most females might dislike the size, since the phone is somewhat wide for a smaller hand. But since the target market is the "blackberry killer" arena the i320 is a beaming ray of hope as most Blackberry’s (not of late) are very wide compared to the i320. My wife thought it was "super wide" but then she uses a Motorola V220 which makes the i320n look like a barge.

 However, with all that said each key on the i320 is about 1/3rd to 1/2 the size of a Tic-Tac (I actually tested this). I’ve got chunky thumbs – at least this phone made me develop that kind of a complex. I got decent speed out of the keyboard typing with my thunder-thumbs but I was hitting all kinds of other keys unintentionally. Quick Note: If you look on the prior pictures of the keyboard you’ll notice some odd white lines around the keys. These are outlines that show you which 2 keys can be pressed while dialing a phone number to actually generate the number you wanted. Sort of like making the number keys twice as big and much easier to get right!

Again not the best picture, but this should give you an idea of how tightly packed (and small) the keys are on the i320n. Real world all the keys on the i320n fit into a space about 1/2 the size of the 8125 keyboard.

Navigational Keys. Here’s a flaw and for me personally a major downfall of this device. The directional keys/navigation keys are big, and that’s really nice, but they are nearly flat compared to all the keys around them and as they are on rockers I found myself going left when I wanted to go down, right when I wanted to up, back when I meant yes. Without a touch screen one uses the directional keys all the time and with my previously mentioned thunder-thumbs not having raised individual buttons to navigate menus with is like putting grease on a slip-and-slide… I can’t go the direction I want no matter how hard I try.

Key Lighting. They keys have white lights (all of them) and they work good in the dark. ‘Nuf said.

Screen. Think the first time you saw an HDTV at Best Buy / Circuit City … where ever. That’s the kind of clarity (and emotion) the screen on this phone brings to you. I can’t describe it. I knew you gained some clarity on the screen when you lost the touch sensitive layer – but I had no idea it could be this good. I’ve got a T-Mobile SDA sitting here, and while the screen on that phone is amazing, the i320 is even better. Sometimes the words just aren’t capable. Tell you what – you want to know what this screen looks like? Drive down to your local electronics store, walk over the TV section and have them turn on Discovery HD. See that Grasshopper? That’s the kind of "I want to take this home with me" emotion this screen has on it. And it’s only QVGA! You Dell x51v folks who love your screens – don’t go near this phone. You won’t want your Dell anymore. (Truth time – I sold my x51v shortly after I got this phone in my hands … and the screen on my 8125 sort of makes me think of playing Doom on a flat panel.)

Weight. Not heavy. But Solid. I honestly don’t know how else to describe it. I imagine that if you were to open the Samsung i320n up, it would be packed from plastic to plastic – it feels like there’s no free space in there what-so-ever. But at the same time it’s very light weight and easily gets put into a pocket and forgotten. Something you’ll never hear me say about my Cingular 8125. Speaking of putting into the pocket…

Screen Part 2. As much as I love the screen on the i320n – I wish Samsung would have done a little more to protect it. I’m a pocketer, meaning I tend to toss my phone in my pocket and motor. I’m a multi-tool/belt-clipper so generally when you see me I’ve got my phone either in-hand on in-pocket. What does that mean to you? Nothing. But to me it means that unless the screen is sunk down a bit it is bound to be rubbing against my pants pocket and frankly put in a lot of danger. The screen on the i320n is flush with the casing… and so for me much more prone to damage.

Height/Thickness. Bad Picture Time!!!

Here we have in stunning non-clarity the Cingular 8125 (bottom), the T-Mobile SDA (middle) and the Samsung i320n (top). Since getting the i320n I’ve affectionately come to call my 8125 the brick. And I’ve sold my Dell x51v. The Samsung is ruining me … everything I love just isn’t the same. And I can’t even make phone calls on it. (More on that in a minute) … but first – the picture below.

 Before anyone bugs me about this being a review of the Samsung i320n and not the T-Mobile SDA - it’s in this picture. Sort of like Where’s Waldo only Waldo got a lot cooler.

This picture makes the i320n seem a bit taller than it is … it’s about 1/8 of an inch taller than the 8125 ( HTC Wizard) and about 1/4 inch shorter than the T-Mobile SDA. No – the screen on the 8125 is not that much brighter than the others – I just haven’t developed my DJ Baby theme for smartphone yet and i like the grey JGUI theme I’m using on the i320n.

Speed – Twice the speed of the Cingular 8125 I own, everything on the i320n feels faster. Now that could be the processor talking, or it could be that this phone runs Windows Mobile Smartphone edition, I’m just not sure. But the phone is fast. There’s still some of the little 4 color circle thinking thing that Microsoft thought was cute happening on bigger operations, but no where near as many or for as long as I generally experience on my 8125 or the SDA.

Sim Card/MicroSD slots. When I first slid a sim card into the (yes I checked) correct slot I thought I was going to break either the slot or my card and I wasn’t sure which. Tight squeeze doesn’t even begin to describe it. Why oh why does everyone seem to think I am going to lose my MicroSD card and that it’s best for me if they tuck it nicely into the battery compartment? Could someone please tell the manufacturer’s that I might, (and maybe it’s just me) but I might want to take the freaking card out without having to shut off the phone!!! Plug-and-play started when I was a kid… I know it and don’t always love it, but dang it I want to use it!!! ALSO – the cutesy little covers for the power and headphone jacks need to go. I cut my finger nails pretty short (ok ridiculously short) and I more than once found myself hunting for a toothpick to pop them off with.

Can I get a scroller? Well obviously not. Biggest gripe from me on this phone (besides the lack of 850, the buttons, and the battery life) is the lack of a scroll wheel or a couple of buttons that can serve the same purpose. It can’t be that hard to include and especially on a device without a touch screen it makes everything that much easier.

Application locks suck. Plain and simple, and honestly if there wasn’t a way to application unlock this phone I wouldn’t have kept on reviewing it. The application lock affects almost everything that you would want to do with this phone like installing software – not always but a couple times it tried to stop me. Installing Exchange certificates gave me a privileges error – and this really frustrated me – well what if you need them to run push-email???!!! I don’t have the money to buy certificates for SSL so I use a free certificate service. But since I do this I have to export the certificates from my server and import them to the device (article on the way to the tips section shortly for how to do this) which the application lock prevents. TIP: Google search for "application unlock HTC Star Trek" to find the way to get this phone application unlocked. I know it’s not designed for this phone but it works a treat!

Tips & Tricks. The application unlocker mentioned above is step one. Don’t do anything else with this phone until you’ve done that. Unless you enjoy beating your head against a wall… in that case just leave the application lock in place. Step two (Thanks Solsie) is stop by JGUI Professional and pick up a couple of the stunning themes available on this site. JGUI is one who definitely has an appreciation for the Samsung i320 and it shows. Step 3 – and I hope you never have to use this… but you will eventually is this excellent tip: To hard reset there is no option in the menu to "Clear Storage" … so hold the space bar while you power on the device. When prompted enter the password "1234" and follow the prompts.

Now – BE WARNED – there’s a chance that if you live in the United States it’s very possible that this phone will not work for you. You definitely need to check with your carrier prior to purchase to verify that a Tri-Band phone like the Samsung i320n will work for you. As it turned out it was not useable in my area (North Denver) at least not on Cingular or T-Mobile. But I’m a sucker for a good device so it still came on the city tour with me for a couple weeks and got to see the sights.

Wrapping it up. So it’s time for the Samsung i320 to go back to Dynamism and time for me to get off to bed as it’s now 4:30 in the morning. I want to thank them for giving me the time with the phone… because they definitely didn’t have to. I have to be honest yet again and say that if the phone worked in my area – I would have had them ship me a keeper. But it doesn’t and that’s sad. Way down below you can find the specs (no sense in beating them to death in the review since they are pretty standard). And here’s my final thoughts:

Pros: Overall size was excellent, weight was really good and it’s thin as a fine-line sharpie. I haven’t seen a better screen out there and overall the device felt really natural in my hands.

Cons: Battery life was just short of horrible. There’s buttons for everything but no scroll wheel. Proprietary headphone and power jacks. Mediocre camera and mediocre navigational key definition. Hope you like Tic-Tacs.

For anyone who wants to pick up an i320n - Dynamism is your place. Not because they were cool enough to help us out with a review device, but because they were very friendly, they stand by their gear and the process is about as painless as they come.

Samsung SGH-i320n Specs:

Network Type
GSM: 900/1800/1900

Storage Card
Micro-SD only – Not included

Wireless
EDGE, Bluetooth v1.2, GPRS (Class 10)

Display
QVGA 320 x 240 65k colors

Camera
1.3 MP, 1280 x 1024 pixels, video

Battery Life
Talktime: 3.5 hours
Standby time: 140 hours

Storage
ROM – 160MB (122MB user accessible)
RAM – 64MB (58MB user accessible

Size
4.3 x 2.3 x 0.45 [inch]
111 x 59 x 11.5 [mm]

Weight
0.20 lbs / 95 g

[Tags]Samsung, SGH-i320, SGH-i320n, Cingular 8125, T-Mobile SDA, Dynamism, Smartphone[/Tags]

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