Visually appealing, the Samsung E950 is a feature-rich handset that takes Samsung’s idea of touch sensitive interface one step further. Fitted into a compact slider body you get a 3 megapixel camera, microSD card slot, FM radio, stereo Bluetooth and a 2” TFT display with a QVGA resolution. The handset is equipped with a novel input solution – a dedicated touchscreen that serves as a navigation D-pad. That feature alone was enough to get us itching with impatience to lay our hands on one of those phones. Join us as we explore the Samsung E950 slider.
Samsung E950 official photos
Key features
Unique touchscreen navigation solution
Compact size and weight
3 megapixel camera
262K color TFT display with a QVGA (320x240 pixels) resolution
Bluetooth with A2DP
microSD memory card slot
FM radio
TV out
MS Office documents viewer
Data cable and a 512MB card included in the retail package
Nice web browser
Main disadvantages
Touchscreen navigation sensitivity is dodgy
Camera lacks autofocus and produces average quality photos
Office documents viewer is slow
Choppy animation in the main menu
Java applications can be installed only through WAP
Only preset message ringtones
The Samsung E950 is obviously the successor of last-year’s Samsung E900. Both handsets feature full touch sensitive navigation throughout the phone’s interface. Besides being among the first handsets with touch-based navigation, the E900 failed to impress with technical specifications when compared to the other high-end Samsung handsets at the time. The same holds true for the E950 now. Samsung have more advanced handsets currently, so we guess the E950 will mostly count on exciting technology (unique touchscreen pad) and fashion appeal (this baby just looks great).
Having had our deal of Samsung reviews in the past month, we were still excited to see how far Samsung would go with that touch-pad, touch-screen and touch-everything extravaganza. So, we got busy with an early pre-release version of the Samsung E950.
Perhaps this is the right place for a little disclaimer. Being a pre-sales piece , our Samsung E950 suffered from some serious bugs. We do hope though they‘ll be fixed in the retail version .
You know the drill
The Samsung E950 measures 98 x 46 x 15 mm, which doesn’t make it the slimmest slider currently available, but in terms of size the Samsung E950 is pretty compact and even light. The mobile makes good use of metal and matt black plastic. We like the design and the construction itself seems pretty solid. Thanks to the touch-sensitive elements on the front panel, the surface is smooth and there are no keys sticking out. The touch-sensitive navigation display is inside a silver frame at the lower end. A slight recess above the display nests the earpiece.
Samsung E950 makes good use of metal
When the handset powers up you will see that the touchpad display has red backlighting and white fonts unlike the one shown on advertisements (black with white fonts). Personally, we don’t like the choice of red for the backlighting. Our guess is that they used it to match the dark red styling of the user interface, but, who knows…
Samsung E950 lighting all up • the red touchpad display looks strange
The alpha-numeric keypad is really flat, but keys are large enough and have sufficient press feedback, so typing is easy and precise.
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