Samsung S5600 Preston deals & review

Overview

As you´re no doubt aware, the Samsung Tocco Lite was one of the best ever selling touchscreen phones, and rightly so. It bought lots of the very best of touchscreen technology to the mass market, making full-touch interactivity available at a very reasonable price, and for that reason we´ll always have a soft spot for it. Now though, Samsung are about to make a lot more of you even happier by releasing the S5600 Preston, which is basically all the goodness of the Tocco Lite, with even more for your money. 3G, GPS and a better camera have all being strapped onto the already impressive handset, and we think it´s going to be a real hit.

Specs

• 2.8-inch QVGA TFT capacitive touchscreen
• 16M colors, 240 x 320 pixels
• TouchWiz User Interface
• Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotation
• “Gesture Lock” feature
• Mobile widgets
• Full Internet browsing support
• GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
• 102.8 x 54.8 x 12.9 mm
• 96 g
• Music player and FM radio with RDS
• Music Recognition usingShazam’s “Find Music” service
• Downloadable polyphonic, MP3, WAV ringtones
• microSD (TransFlash), up to 16GB (verified)
• GPS
• EDGE connectivity
• 3G
• HSDPA, 7.2 Mbps
• Bluetooth
• Multi-codec support including H.263, MPEG4, and WMV
• 3.15 MP, 2048x1536 pixels
• LED flash
• Geo-tagging
• Fast picture sharing options
• Video recording
• Standard battery, Li-Ion 1000 mAh
• Available in Black or White

Details

As with the Tocco Lite – but even more so with the S5600 – the first thing to hit you about the handset is how good it looks, and how great it feels in your hand. The body is very slim, the design sleek (whether you choose the black or white version), and even though it´s light it feels very solidly built indeed.

But it´s what´s under the hood that sets this thing apart, because while the Tocco Lite featured enough to make many millions of people choose it, the S5600 features even more. The HSDPA at 7.2mbps is probably the main attraction for many of you, meaning that all your internet browsing, downloading and other connectivity tasks are going to be taking place at blazing fast speeds. The GPS is also a very useful addition, meaning you´ll be able to download and use a whole array of mapping and navigational applications. So whether you want to find a local pub, a restaurant, or even just your way home, you´ll be able to do it all through your phone. And the camera has been given a welcome boost too. It´s still not a world-beater, but it´s very much a decent mid-range camera now, and with options like geo-tagging and face recognition, you´ll be more than satisfied in just about all the occasions you´ll be using it.

And, of course, everything that the Tocco Lite had is still there for you to enjoy too, including the excellent TouchWiz interface, something that we get more impressed with every time we use it (and even more so as we see other manufacturers fail to create a user interface anywhere near as fun to use)

Conclusion

The only sad thing here is that the S5600 is available only on Orange. But if you´re an Orange customer already, or if you´re happy to make the switch, then you´ll be a long way from disappointed if you choose the S5600.