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There is a front facing camera for two-way video calling, and the main camera shoots stills at 5-megapixels. It has a flash, and features face detection technology and an image stabiliser. Oh, and smile mode. This, bizarrely enough, only shoots a photo if it detects that your subject is smiling. Even more bizarrely, it worked. You just hold the shutter button down and wait for the victim to smile. The camera software does the rest.

There is no specific macro mode but on test the camera did well with close ups. The pink flowers were shot at close range and definition is good. They are a slightly deeper hue than the photo suggests, but the image is pretty good.

The cat photo is quite clear and sharp too. But it does show up one problem with this phone - a slight shutter lag. She was actually looking up in the air when I clicked the shutter button.

Indoors with the phone set on auto mode, and under normal household lighting, the camera fared less well. The coloured dish photo is good, but not outstanding. Its background should be white and its colours aren't quite as vibrant as they could be. The outdoor chair photo is, not surprisingly given what has gone before, very acceptable. Detail is good, and the camera didn't have too much trouble dealing with the parts of the subject that were in shade or bright sun.

There is no Wi-Fi which is a real pity on such a sophisticated handset. Samsung would do well to look at including this on its higher end mobiles in the future.

Verdict

The Tocco is easy to use, the Widgets feel gimmicky but actually work quite well, and the camera, apart from its shutter lag problem, is good for a mobile phone. As I've come to expect from Samsung, battery life is impressive too. This is Samsung's best touchscreen effort to date, but the company needs to refine the web browser - why no full screen view or widescreen mode? - and add in a touch-QWERTY keyboard to accompany the T9 effort.

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