By Allan D. Francisco
Doing business with the government, any of its agencies, I always look forward to as I would a root canal. Last Monday, however, I had no other recourse but go to the NSO office on East Avenue, in Quezon City, to get a copy of my wife’s birth certificate and of our marriage certificate. To my pleasant surprise, I found the place to be rather well-organized, and getting those certified true copies of certificates was, although not exactly a walk in the park, a somewhat bearable experience. After about a couple of hours, I was able to complete the process and was told to return at 12:00 noon of the same day to claim the certificates.
Nevertheless, I was really thankful that I had with me the Samsung SGH-D820, which my editor gave me that previous Saturday. While I was playing Trip to Jerusalem with hundreds of other people (readers who have been to NSO will surely know what I am talking about), I was as close as possible under the circumstances to enjoying the whole thing. With a pair of earphones stuck on my ears, and with songs by James Taylor, Billy Joel, and a bundle of 1980s MP3s as background music, I managed to smile my way through the whole process.
Toy and Tool
This 103-gram 97 x 52 x 14.9mm quadband phone from the Korean electronics giant supports the 850, 900, 1800 and 1900 GSM networks, making it one of the most flexible handsets in the GSM world. It also offers GPRS, WAP, Bluetooth and USB connectivity options.
The D820 comes with a 240 x 320-pixel TFT LCD that displays with its 32 x 42mm real estate up to 256K colors. This enables the handset to present with sufficient clarity the photos and videos that its 1.3-megapixel camera can take on the fly. While today’s higher-end mobile phones usually feature cameras with at least 2 megapixels of resolution, the D820’s camera more than makes up for this pixel-count shortage by offering digital zoom, several photo effects and frames, timer, and even single-, multi-, and mosaic shot capabilities.
The D820 totes a total of 73MB built-in shared memory, which may seem rather lame compared with those of other mobile phone models. Samsung, however, put a microSD (TransFlash) card slot, which somehow makes up for the paltry internal storage.
One feature that makes the D820 ahead of other mobile phone models occupying the same price segment is its ability to output video and photos directly to a PAL or NTSC TV set. This allows users to view pictures and moving images on a wider screen. A special data cable, which comes standard with the unit, lets the users connect the handset to the TV.
Fun and Good Looks
Equipped with dual speakers with 3D sound, the D820 supports several audio formats for its ringtone including polyphonic, MP3, AAC and AAC+. Users may also customize their units by downloading additional audio files. These built-in speakers, though barely capable of holding their own against outdoor noise and sounds, can be sufficiently capable indoors. In fact, in terms of audio quality, they are among the best built-in speakers I have come across so far. This audio performance makes its presence felt especially if one is playing MP3 files using the phone’s media player. For added aural pleasure, one can use the specialized headset that comes standard with the package. Though, I really wished Samsung had equipped the D820 with a standard 3.5mm earphone jack instead.
The D820 I had came pre-loaded with three Java games. For the past week, I might have logged too many hours playing these games it is a wonder I was able to finish this review on time.
Uptight Suit-Type
One of the best-looking GSM handsets I have ever come across, the D820 does not get by with its looks alone. The mobile phone also means serious business with its office, messaging, and PIM (personal information management) features, such as voice recorder, SMS, MMS, e-mail, calendar, Scheduler, Clock/Worldtime, alarm, and converter. Also, its keypad is user-friendly even for people like me who have pudgy fingers.
Samsung claims that the D820 offers a standby time of up to 200 hours, and a talk time of up to 2.5 hours. Results of tests I have made on the unit more or less agree with those figures.
Conclusion
The D820, aside from being one of the best in the looks department, is also a highly capable handset. Supporting four frequencies, this handset is a most flexible GSM mobile phone. This model-slim beauty from Samsung makes my heart flutter with its superlative design, good audio quality, nice keypad, and a huge bundle of features and functions.
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