After the crushing disappointment that accompanied the world premier of the new ‘mind reading’ contextual touch pad on the LG KF600, we weren’t holding out much hope for Samsung’s rival version.
Sure, the U900 Soul may trounce the KF600 on the feature front with a five-megapixel camera and supersonic HSDPA download speeds, but if its ‘Magic Touch’ navigation followed LG’s fickle performance, its superior power would amount to absolutely nada.
So thank whatever divine being you worship because the Samsung Soul’s morphing touch window is an unqualified success. We’ve finally encountered a touch phone (that isn’t an iPhone), and is highly responsive to every tap, strokes and prod. The idea behind the contextual touch UI is that its controls handily adjust to suit whatever function you’re using, be it the music player or camera, and the Soul works its voodoo magic to the letter.
But, the Soul isn’t completely touch-sensitive and Samsung brilliantly combines the ticklish witchcraft with mechanical soft and call buttons and keypad for smooth operation. You also won’t have failed to notice the Soul is somewhat of a looker too. And as a last hurrah for the brilliantly designed Ultra Edition series, it naturally flaunts the range’s signature streamlined physique and slick skater action, with metallic flourishes giving it sturdy build.
The five-megapixel snapper is straight from the G600’s posh school of photography and while it doesn’t pack a Xenon flash, you get the next best thing, a power LED, along with autofocus and macro focus. Picture quality is lucid and vibrant but the Soul really shines when it steals in for close-ups, skilfully picking out acute detail.
With a built-in Bang & Olufsen ICEpower amp, the Soul’s music player has some really thrust behind it and it pumps out quite a big sound. The nine-mode equaliser also helps to tweak the sound while it goes without saying that Stereo Bluetooth is poised for wireless escapades and a built-in FM radio offers a tunage alternative.
The Soul is also pretty deft on the web browsing stage with zippy HSDPA download speeds nicely quelling the absence of Wi-Fi and loading pages darn quickly. The 2.2-inch display isn’t the biggest for viewing full fat web pages but the NetFront browser deals with this limitation by letting you brilliantly zoom in and out or alternatively pruning the pages to fit the screen.
Verdict
The Soul sports a princely design, has a highly attentive ‘magical’ touch UI and comes bearing stand out features. We think that’s recommendation enough, don’t you.
Best features
Stunning design
A slick ‘Magic Touch’ UI
Top quality camera
Great sounding music player
Not so good
No Xenon flash
Disappointing QVGA-quality video capture
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