Fighting The Flab

Firstly I would like to welcome Alex to the team... He will be starting to blog with us soon. I hope you  like his first rant objective review of his new phone...

Samsung Tocco Ultra Black Addition on Orange Network

OK so I got this phone on contract about 2 months ago, at first it everything seem quite neat, it’s a very suave looking phone, and it comes with some interesting little apps, which become an annoyance later on.

So let’s start with the positives:

It has a very good camera, 8.0 mega pixels. The only true redeemable feature on this phone, although the camera on the front of the phone can ONLY be used for video calls.

Its looks, this phone is no doubt stylish, the design and paint finish is very nice, but this has now become so standard with most phones recently that it becomes just that, standard.

And the screen is quite durable (There’s a reason for this).


Now on to the negatives:

The battery life first. It is pitiful; if you make a lot of calls during the day, say more then 10. Then this phone isn’t for you. The battery life is drained enormously by every application and feature this phone has to offer. Internet browsing will have drained the battery completely within an hour easily for example. Calls and texting alone will have you charging it at least twice a day.

The touch screen (i.e. half the phone) is sloppy and dull to respond, which is made worse by the fact that the setup for each menu and text/messaging application is compacted so much, you will often find yourself screaming at the screen as you have to press back up constantly. When you compare it to ... almost any other touch screen on the market you soon realise how bad it actually is.

The widgets
 These are supposed to be useful for quick access to your favorite applications correct? Well not on this phone, all because of, once again, the touch technology. You can place these widgets on your screen for easy access and will soon find that this is just another annoyance as the phone constantly misreads your selection, quite often dragging the widgets instead of selecting them, oh, and these widgets can also be accidentally dragged off the screen never to be returned, seriously. To get these back you have to do a complete system restore. These are also set widgets; there is no way of adding new ones.

The Internet
 This was supposed to be quite good according to the reviews, I’m not sure how they came to that conclusion, it may be fast but that’s only when it actually responds! Often the Internet will cut completely and the whole application has to be reset and restarted. The "squeeze everything into one screen" approach is applied here as well, add the god awful touch technology and you're in for a world of anger and annoyance. The browser will fail to acknowledge 70% of selections and as the unresponsive nature of the phone continues you will find yourself mashing at the screen. Then you will come to entering text, for some reason it believes it can fit this on the screen as well (note: If you struggle with reading small text this phone will not be forgiving).

The Applications

Now I can only speak for the orange customers out there. First…

- Orange Messenger , what a crock, they expect you to pay for a messaging service that’s slower in service and usage , more awkward and free with any other phone capable of downloading apps of the Internet.

- Orange Maps, once again you are charged for this, this is exceptionally basic, to the point of it being completely useless. Any other map app would be preferable. But because of the operating system on the phone you are incapable of adding anything that may be of use.

-Games, these are not free, none of them. They give you several demos, one of which, when downloaded will not even work because the phone isn’t capable of running the full program! When you finally download the ones you want you will hit the brick wall that is the touch technology, it will make the games near impossible to use properly and you find yourself often returning to the keypad which because of its size can make things very difficult.

-Music Player , you would assume that something as basic as this couldn’t go wrong, and for the most part it doesn’t, there’s one little flaw that soon becomes much more noticeable through use, it will double up any track played…. That’s right every time you play a track it will double it and add it to your play list , so even with 15 songs on your phone you can end up with it saying you have 30 tracks, then it will double them again giving you 45 and so on.

The Setting and Menu system
 Samsungs poor quality shines through here, the simple features of the phone are still simple but as you find yourself wanting to change more you will spend days searching for the menu’s to get to these settings. Many things cannot be changed or altered, often coming up with a “More” or “Settings” option this will give you minimal to no control. This is made all the more difficult by once again the touch screen.

There are many more issues with this phone but I have left the main offender for last just to give you an idea of the terrible programming.

The Fake Call
 This seems at first a nifty little app, you hit the volume button on the side while the phone is locked and it will set your ring tone off, you can also add a voice message to be played so it appears that you are actually speaking to someone. I loved this at first, then I got tired of it and decided to switch it off. Went into the settings for it and found an “Off” setting … but this isn’t for the app, no this is for the voice that comes through. Perhaps I overlooked it? So I went through again, before finally reaching for the manual, no help there either. At last I finally caved and rang Samsung, and apparently there is absolutely no way of turning this feature off, your phone will continue to ring if the volume button is hit. Those that keep their phone in their pocket will have this happen to them numerous times during the day. It becomes annoying very quickly and like Samsung have said it CAN NOT be switched off. For those that keep their phone in handbags/cases etc I can’t say what this will be like, but if there is any pressure placed on the volume button it will ring. This may seem quite trivial but it isn’t, this will cause great amounts of annoyance and for people like me who are on contract and have to put up with this phone for at least 12 months will soon discover what a moronic design it is.