I Love This Phone... Review on Samsung i450

This phone, the Samsung SGH-I450 (also known as the BEAT450) Samsungs double slider with a touch wheel at one end - made famous by the Aamir Khan ads where he turns around his head listening to every bit of sound) - has the distinction of being my personal best friend nowadays.

Warning: This one is a Music Phone. If you equate Mobile Phone Performance = Camera Performance, this one is not for you. There are more things on Heaven and Earth to Mobile Phones other than the cameras on them

I have had this phone for more than one and a half years now. And it still simply rocks, literally. It has been my trusted companion on many a lonely boring Volvo journey, delivering its promise of pure unadulturated sound, making me swear I will never buy an overpriced iPod any such stupid Mp3player as long as this baby is alive and kicking.

The I450 is a departure from Samsung's usual style, with a Symbian OS (3rd ed, v1) - for unititiated users, this is the same user interface that is found on Nokias major phones - starting from the 6600, all N and E series phones and so on. Symbian OS is licensed by Nokia and Samsung seems to have struck a deal with Nokia of some kind for this. And this is what made me buy the phone in the first place.

Second place being I was looking desperately for a music phone. I had to travel all over the huge state of Karnataka (Official) and regularly between Karnataka and Kerala (Personal) and was tired of not having any music to keep me company. I considered an iPod and then dismissed it as those are too overpriced and I need to carry around my laptop to charge it and change songs! And I dont have time to wait for iTunes to decide what songs should go in!

So, as I was pretty irritated with my N73 I decided to go out for a new phone and then, seeing the ad, bought this. never regretted it.

PHONE Awesome. Great but clean looks, Dedicated Call, Call end, Menu and Delete/Cancel buttons, A superb browser and a huge crystal clear screen. No background noise, easy user interface (Nokia interface) two days battery life, and everything you need of a phone.

MUSIC Lets face the music :) This is basically a music phone on a Symbian platform. Sorry all you SE fans buy the Walkman Series cant hold a candle to this one. Slide it down (not up) and reveal the speaker and the scroller wheel that does not turn - It is touch activated. You can tap on the wheel to scroll through and start/stop/pause tracks. The screen displays a neat categorization of all songs you have by Artist, Album, Track, Genre and so on. (Make sure you have tagged all the songs before uploading using Winamp etc). The down slide also reveals the high quality ICEpower speakers (by Bang & Olufsen nonetheless!). The speakers are just pure awesomeness, delivering crystal clarity high volume sound without any distortion whatsoever [Once the sound woke up an entire bus full people when I accidentally removed the headphones :)]. Try the sound on top volume in a silent room. It even delivers good Bass, not the tinny sound you hear on other phones.

The Icing on the Cake? A 3.5 mm audio output jack! Meaning? You dont have to depend on the stupid earphones they bundle with the phone. You can now plug in any of your high defenition

headphones/earphones/hometheater/carstereo in to your phone! Use the equalizer option on the phone, upload your favortie tracks using drag and drop (Just as you do with any USB device - no hassles using any special software and stuff - you can even use bluetooth to transfer). Use the equalizer option to select between surround options - The Dynamic Surround being my favorite. The

audio quality is the best I have heard on any phone, especially with the headphones it can beat any Walkman or iPod. just as Aamir Khan tells us :)

PERFORMANCE Lightning fast, everything opens faster than you can think if it to open. No slow lagging, hanging etc. Looks like the RAM and processor are quite fast.

EVERYTHING ELSE The camera is decent enough but not that great. No flash. But anyway this is not an imaging phone. Supports all sorts of apps and games any Nokia Symbian phone supports. Battery life is also good, I once kept the music player on for 8 straight hours before it ran out of battery! I charge it once every day, even now after 1.5 years!

THE BEST THING? The price tag. Rs.9900 currently in Bangalore, this is runaway value for money!

If you love your music and you love it good, go for this! If a DJ runs out of songs for a party, just take out the connector from his/her console, plug it in this phone and volia!~ The chicks are gonna love you!

Rock On!

Vadakkus.