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Samsung Tocco Ultra S8300 Review
| Author | Sandra Vogel |
| Published | 1st May 2009 |
| Manufacturer | Samsung Mobile UK |
| Price | From free depending on tariff. £350 PAYG |
| Latest Price | Click here |
| Design |  |
| Features |  |
| Usability | |
| Value | |
| Overall | |
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TrustedReviews NewslettersSamsung's Tocco did quite well in my hands last July. The full frontal touchscreen was really gaining momentum and Samsung managed to differentiate itself by coming up with the idea of widgets for you to pull onto the screen from a sidebar. This allowed you to personalise the phone but let Samsung retain control of how.
The Widgets remain in the Tocco's follow-up, the Tocco Ultra S8300, but much else has changed. The Tocco Ultra is Samsung's flagship handset for 2009 so I expected great things from it.
Every major operator has this handset free on various contracts. Vodafone is doing it free on £20 plans, for example. You can get it from around £350 on Pay As You Go.
When you first pick up the phone, it looks like a standard touchscreened slab. Mine had a thin frame of red down its vertical front edges and around the bottom of the screen. The red really comes into play when you expose something the original Tocco didn't have - the numeric keypad.
Yup, this is a slider phone and the concept of adding in a numeric keypad is a good one. It caters for those who want a touchscreen but aren't sure they can cope with using it for on-screen text entry.
The red - actually a vivid, vibrant pinky crimson - also shows up on the back panel section that's exposed when the slide is up. O2 has a blue version that looks just as in-your-face vibrant.
The slide adds a bit of height to the handset, which increases the height to a shade over 135mm. Closed it measures 110mm x 51.5mm x 12.7mm and weighs 122g. This makes it taller, thicker and heavier than the original Tocco but a little narrower (The Tocco comes in at 98.4mm x 55mm x 11.6mm and weighs 106g).
Build quality is superb. This mobile feels very solid and durable. The flat numberpad is easy to use at speed. Its keys are large and I had no trouble entering text at a fair old lick. The screen and frame are scratch resistant, and the slide mechanism is smooth. It delivers a very reassuring thunk when you open and close it. However, I did find that I had to press on the touchscreen to open and close the phone, and this sometimes meant I made selections when I didn't really mean to.
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Ian Porter said on 23rd August 2009
dolores said on 29th August 2009
Ron, to increase the text size while you are reading a text you can press the volume button on the side.
Bev said on 9th September 2009
I've just got the Tocco Ultra and when using the radio and music player the the stop start function appears on the wallpaper and I can't figure out how to remove it any suggestions... more
Brendand said on 29th September 2009
Hi I just bought the Samsung S8300. Is it possible to set up contacts on speed dial ??? I would appreciat any advice on this matter . Thank you
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@ Sandy
With due respect Sandy, you are commenting on a British website which lists this phone in Pounds Sterling(£), not US Dollars($). It is not usually conv... more