Windows Phone Thoughts - Daily News, Views, Rants and Raves

"Up close, questionable engineering decisions start to come out of the woodwork. Take the d-pad, for example: sounds like an awesome idea, but the screen the Ice uses is so dim you can barely make it out under normal lighting. Not that you'd have to make it out, since -- as far as we can tell, anyway -- the only thing it ever shows is the d-pad, which begs the question why they're using a display here in the first place (we'd figured that opening Windows Media would trigger a transition to music controls, but no dice)."

There was a time when specs like that of the Ice would make it the top-of-the-heap. Now, it's at best middle-of-the-road. 528Mhz processor - check, 128MB RAM - check, 3MP camera - check, AGPS - check, accelerometer - that's so 2007! The d-pad looks funky, but as Engadget demonstrate it looks more like a gimmick than anything else. The only real distinguishing feature here is the TV-out, but that probably needs a separate dongle. All in all, not a bad outing - finesse will probably come with more experience.

"The i780 looks and feels gorgeous. It is made of a strong black plastic. The battery cover was simple to remove but a little tricky to put back on. Powering up for the first time, allowing the i780 to create all my data and voice setup then reveals a lovely Samsung today plugin. Everyone I have shown the i780 to, is amazed."



The i780 is a rare beast - it features a 320x320 screen, a first among Windows Mobile device. Software compatibility isn't as a big a problem as it is with WVGA screens, though I'd still expect some apps will have trouble especially games. As you can see, the reviewers were quite taken with the device and it certainly looks solidly built. The i780 features HSDPA, 2MP camera, BT, WiFi, FM radio, aGPS, and 128MB RAM, which is finally becoming a standard feature at least among higher level devices. Sadly for our US friends this one's triband GSM, though I wouldn't rule out Samsung coming up with a quadband variant. Read the review for more info, or hit up Shaun McGill's Samsung i780 blog for even more.