Review: Samsung Tocco SGH-F480

<< Intro, TouchWhiz UI, and widgets

Camera

Perhaps we shouldn’t get too distracted by the Tocco’s touchscreen UI and focus instead on where the device really excels: Its all round media production capabilities. Turn the phone on its front and you’d be forgiven for thinking it was actually a digital camera, and a pretty good one at that. There’s a generous 5 megapixels, along with an LED flash and 4x digital zoom. There’s also face recognition for autofocus, and the slightly gimmicky feature in which the Tocco will attempt to sense when the person in-picture is smiling before taking a shot. The Tocco is also capable of shooting MPEG4 video.

However, it’s what you can do with your photos and videos afterward that impressed us the most. This includes basic editing (cropping, cutting and effects) and the ability to publish to various photo and video sharing services, such as Flickr and YouTube, thanks to the built-in Shozu application.

Media playback

The Tocco is a competent media player too, not least because of its sharp 2.8 inch screen. Video playback includes support for MPEG4 and H.264 video, and on the audio side there’s MP3, AAC and WMA. The included earbuds are also pretty decent, and there’s a microSD card slot for ample expandable storage. The Tocco also has an FM tuner with RDS.

Web browser

If there’s one area where phone makers really need to catchup with the iPhone, it’s the mobile web experience. The Tocco’s Access browser renders the ‘full’ web very poorly, and is slow and awkward. Zooming in and out is done via the device’s volume keys. In single column mode, the browser is usable and sites optimized specifically for mobile work best.

Verdict

The Tocco is fun device and its touchscreen UI certainly gets the job done. But it’s no iPhone killer, nor is it really designed to be, evident by the device’s sub par web browser and lack of an on-screen QWERTY keyboard. However, if viewed as a camera-centric feature phone with strong all round media capabilities, that just happens to feature a touchscreen, then the Tocco performs admirably.

Pages: 1 2

,

last100 is edited by Steve O'Hear. Aside from founding last100, Steve is co-founder and CEO of Beepl and a freelance journalist who has written for numerous publications, including TechCrunch, The Guardian, ZDNet, ReadWriteWeb and Macworld, and also wrote and directed the Silicon Valley documentary, In Search of the Valley. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.

8 Responses to “Review: Samsung Tocco SGH-F480”

  1. Dreamworks says:

    This fucking phone is very picky with video formats!!!!! i hate samsung with video players!

  2. John Macleod says:

    I have a Mac and use iSquint and converting movies is easy and they play brilliantly! use H.264 codec, crop the video to 320×180, use 22 fps and 250 bitrate and not only is the file size small ( 900mb .avi file down to 400mb) but the video playback on the fullscreen is just the best i’ve tried on any phone

  3. Smartphone says:

    Looks nice. What price of this smartphone?
    2Dreamworks: Why don’t you like Samsung video players? Do you mean the quality of video files?

  4. John Macleod says:

    Not sure got mine as an upgrade. The video quality is great playback and recording are both brilliant, and make full use of the large screen, my partner has the c905 and the Tocco is by far better!

  5. Dude22 says:

    I want to fuck this phone! She’s so sexy!

  6. abcyesn says:

    A fun but under developed feature of the Tocco is the standby screen’s use of widgets, similar to those found in Vista (gadgets) or the Mac’s dashboard. Users can customize which of the seven widgets to have on display by dragging them from the widget sidebar. Choices include a clock, calendar, birthday reminder, photo browser and music player. It’s just a pity that Samsung doesn’t provide a way for third-party developers to write their own widgets, so you’re limited, at least for now, to those that come pre-installed.

    I found a fans website http://www.Tocco-Samsung.com enjoy.

  7. venkat2009 says:

    Nice article About the Samsung ..I am very Happy to read the Article Becaz..I am also a Samsung User..I want to unlock My Omnia I900 Mobile i got the Unlocking Instructions In the site mobileunlockguide i want the Unlocking code Help me Please.

  8. stringg says:

    Awesome Mobile Beautiful Mobile..It's Nice Mobile..i am happy to use the Mobile..i got my mobile unlocked usng the site Samsung SGH-F480 model Unlock..

Leave a Reply