If wishes were horses…the i8910 would ride

Note: this article is not factual. It’s a wishful/sarcastic post meant to highlight the potential of the i8910 and what Samsung could do with it.  I’ve included details and ideas that I mean to present to Samsung in my meeting with them. This may not be real now, bit with more pressure on Samsung it could soon be a reality.

Exciting news guys, Samsung has just released an awesome update for the i8910! Pure gold of an update! This update is packed to the brim with features and fixes I don’t even know where to begin! That’s a lot coming from me after that report and petition fiasco.

1. The browser has been overhauled. It works like a breeze now, navigating through the browser is like running your fingers across a small puddle of water, it’s pure fluid. It pans smoothly, responding to the slightest stroke with no stutter at all. Zooming in and out is far smoother, it feels more natural now, it’s almost like there’s no other way to do it better. Flash content now runs like a charm with major improvements to sites like YouTube. The browser now at least matches that of the iPhone in general browsing, beating it with flash support.
2. The camera has also been improved across the board. First off, after you press the camera button, you are greeted immediately with a transparent menu that has 4 options; Photo, Video, Galley and Cancel. These allow you to jump straight to the mode of choice or to exit in case you hit the button by accident or you change your mind. Tapping on the camera button twice gets you straight into the Photo mode. The camera itself is now much faster, it takes photos much faster. In tests it took about 5 seconds to take a picture before it was ready to take the next, a 3 fold improvement from its previous 15 seconds before the update.

   HD video recording has been improved now pushing up to 30 frames per second. When frame rate drops, it never drops below 24 frames per second and the result is possibly the best pocketable HD video recorder on the market. Sound for the video recordings has also been improved with higher bit rate audio. The result is that videos occupy more space in memory but with the price of micro SD cards so low and with video quality that good, there’s nothing to complain about. Picture quality has also been vastly improved with pictures appearing more vivid than ever. More tweaks made to the exposure settings mean that pictures appear in focus even with a shaky camera.

   It doesn’t end there. Also included is a new feature called Spot Focus. It allows focusing in video and photo mode. All you do is tap on an area on the screen and the camera focuses on that area. How it differs from other mobile phones out there is that you can focus during video recording. That’s right, as you’re recording video, if you decide to focus on something else you can do that on the fly without stopping the recording. Just tap on an area and the camera will adjust its focus to that area. Samsung went a step further and included a method to suppress the noise produced as the camera focuses such that it is barely audible. You can easily switch to macro mode in video recording in this way.

3. The messaging app has also been upgraded in a huge way. Gone is the old boring s60 5^th messaging app, say hello to Samsung Messaging+. This blows almost every mobile messaging app out of the water, literally. Messages are now threaded and colour coded. They are arranged in collapsible manner sorted by contact, date or subject. Messages from the same person appear together like a conversation with received and sent messages appearing chronologically complete with avatars. A single thread can contain a combination of SMSs, MMSs and emails sent and received between you and the contact.

   The email app within messaging allows automatic configuration for common email services such as Yahoo and Gmail with more to come. All you have to do is enter your email address and password and it will figure out the rest for you. The email app also supports receiving, viewing and sending HTML, .pdf, .doc and .docx messages together with several other common formats. Also included is a Twitter app which is on par with the rest that are out there allowing status updates, viewing timelines, direct messages, re-tweets, searching etc.

   Samsung Messaging+ was really well thought out and its additional features and customisation options make it a great stop for all your messaging needs.

4. Add to all that a faster UI with several new effects (similar to Kastor Effects we’ve seen), flawless Kinetic scrolling through out the UI, physical music controls via the volume buttons, a torch function using the camera LED, widgets for launching virtually all the apps on board, updated Java engine, customisable menus, portrait keyboard, equaliser in music player, video editing and a myriad of other tweaks and you have one of the best phones on the market once again.

This Update also comes at a time when Samsung just announced support for the i8910 in the App Store. With almost 50 top quality apps to start with including several iPhone ports, the i8910 looks set to topple its newer counterparts.

With the same hardware and face lifted software, the i8910 has proved that with a solid foundation and a bucket load of hard work, anything is possible. It makes me a proud owner of the i8910 and it gives me so much confidence in Samsung products knowing that they care. Good on you Samsung Electronics, good on you.

*sigh*