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By Damian Koh
Sep 29, 2008

As we break away from the 5-megapixel ceiling on camera-phones, the attention is now on the 8-megapixel models. Sony Ericsson first took the wraps off the C905 Cyber-shot during CommunicAsia in June, while Samsung later gave us the INNOV8 (i8510) in July. In August, LG's KC910 picked up where the Viewty left off with support for Dolby sound and DivX format for videos.

The newest member to the 8-megapixel league is the Samsung Pixon which steals the title of the world's slimmest touchscreen camera-phone by a hair's breadth at 13.8mm from LG's 14mm KC910. We had the chance to spend some time with the handset recently and here's what we think of the Pixon. Do note that this hands-on is based on a prototype model of the Pixon, so certain features may differ from the commercial unit.

Design

One look at the Pixon and you'd probably remember the F480 or, more recently, the Omnia. The 3.2-inch 240 x 400-pixel screen (similar to the Omnia) is flush with the entire front surface and there are only three mechanical keys at the bottom.

From the images, you can tell that the Pixon is noticeably shorter than the Omnia. This is due to the missing "chin" on the bottom edge of the Pixon and we think there's a good reason for it. On the Omnia, the center key is an optical directional pad. And as you move your thumb around the area, the additional length helps to prevent your thumb from slipping off the edge of the phone. However, on the Pixon, the centre key is a Back button. So the extra space that was needed for the thumb to move around the optical pad is no longer required.

Now, although the Pixon has a smaller footprint, the top half of the phone is thicker than the Omnia due to the slightly protruding camera module at the back. It is also worth mentioning that the blue rim which surrounds the camera lens is similar to the design approach on the Korean chaebol's own NV-series of digital cameras. The 8-megapixel INNOV8 was probably the first handset to sport the blue rim design.

In our hands, the Pixon didn't deliver the solid feeling of the Omnia, but it is still reasonably well built. We like the grooved strips that run around the sides of the phone which breaks the monotony of its design, but otherwise, there are no serious practical uses for it. There's a Hold button, together with a Shortcut key and microSD expansion card slot on the left. On the other side of the phone, you'll find imaging-related controls such as the shutter, playback and digital zoom for the camera.

Features

As an imaging phone, the Pixon has a lot to offer. Besides an 8-megapixel camera module with autofocus, it comes with a suite of other imaging features commonly found in dedicated point-and-shoots. These include a dual-power LED flash, shake reduction, wide dynamic range capability, face detection, smile shot mode, geo-tagging and an auto panorama setting.

There's also a new Face Link mode which allows you to tag faces in a picture and hotlink it to an entry in the phonebook. Once tagged, you can make calls or send text messages to the person directly from the photo. This is a nifty feature and it's similar to how you tag faces on pictures in Facebook, perhaps an enhanced version of it with communication capabilities. And rightfully so, since this is ultimately still a phone.

Now if you think face tagging is cool, the image editing features on the Pixon takes fun up another notch. Besides the standard crop, transform, level and effects options, there are two additional functions on this phone. The first is called Live pix which is basically a scrapbooking tool that allows you to scribble and draw horns on your friends' faces among other things. Taking things a step further is the motion setting which you can use to playback the strokes, or whatever you've drawn on the photo, and save it as a Flash file. However, we noticed that we can't draw on the entire picture. Instead, we were prompted to crop the photo to the size of the screen. That's a tiny limitation, but otherwise this feature could provide a few moments of fun especially if photo sharing is what you do frequently. The second function basically turns your photo into a Polaroid-style picture with a strip of white space below for you to add memos. Admittedly, this is less fun compared with Live pix.

There is an onboard accelerometer and this allows users to browse photos in the media browser simply by tilting the phone. Pictures are sorted by file names, folders, dominant color in the snaps, time and face tags. It's a pity that the sensitivity of the motion sensor cannot be configured here, a tiny point that would have made us like this feature even more. Alternatively, you can also browse pictures by "flicking" your finger across the screen. As for videos, the Pixon records motion images in two resolutions: 720 x 480 at 30fps and 320 x 240 at 120fps. File formats that are supported include MPEG-4, WMV, DivX and XviD.

On the user interface, the Pixon uses the TouchWiz software which was first seen on the F480 and subsequently as a skin on the Windows Mobile-based Omnia. Widgets are docked onto a column on the left and they can be dragged and dropped onto the screen itself. Previously, the number and type of widgets were fixed and that limited its usefulness. We are glad to report that things have dramatically improved since the F480 days.

During our product demo, we were told that there are between 30 and 40 widgets available right now which can be downloaded onto the phone via WAP. And users can expect the number to grow to approximately 100 by the end of this year. The SDK for developers is slated to be available in the first quarter of 2009. While that's a good thing since developers will have access know-how to build more widgets, our concern is, unless there is a wide range of devices that use this widget system, incentives for developers to build more of these mini applications may be quite small.

Another limitation we foresee with this interface is the size of the screen. Each widget takes up a bit of space and they don't fit together like a jigsaw, so there's bound to be a time when you run out of screen estate. Put it simply, the number of active widgets you see on the screen is constrained by the physical size of the display.

One of the complaints we had with the Omnia was its lack of consistency in the user interface at launch. This time, Samsung has managed to integrate the scrolling to the entire software. Swiping your finger up and down this list will move the page down and up, respectively, similar to the iPhone and HTC's TouchFLO interface.

Besides using it to browse pictures, the accelerometer is also used for switching the screen between portrait and landscape modes. In the case of the latter, the sensor also changes the onscreen alphanumeric keypad into a full QWERTY keyboard. You may also be interested to know that there's haptic feedback. This generates a vibration when you punch the keys either with your fingers or a stylus on the display.

Samsung is also launching a new content upload and download service with the Pixon. However, this won't be available for the first shipment of the phone and will be available out-of-the-box by end 2008 in Europe followed by the first half of 2009 for Latin America and Southeast Asia. Earlier owners will have to do a software upgrade when it becomes available. This service basically acts as an "intermediary" between the Pixon and a content site, for example, Flickr, and it will allow you to upload and download content over the air to the handset. We'll talk more about this when the service rolls out.

The Pixon is a quad-band GSM handset with HSDPA, Bluetooth, GPS with A-GPS and TV-out connectivity. It has 200MB of onboard memory with a microSD expansion card slot for added capacity. There isn't much of a downside to speak of for now except for the fact that the Pixon is missing Wi-Fi connectivity.

Outlook

The good thing is we probably won't have to wait too long to get our hands on a full review unit to bring you our final thoughts on the 8-megapixel touchscreen phone. The Pixon is expected to be available first in France in mid October followed by the other European and Asian countries. No pricing details have been announced.

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