Life of A Phone Lover: April 2008

I almost forgot about income tax !

Written by ImagesLab.net on Wednesday, April 30, 2008

I was working midnight shift last night and only reached home this morning at about 8:45am. Got myself a packet of mee hoon goreng for breakfast. Surfed the net for a while then I went to bed. So sleepy...

Suddenly the alarm from the i550w woke me up at 12 noon. Argh... I still want to continue sleeping!! And I thought I've set the alarm at 4pm?

Gazing at the phone with those drowsy eyes and then IT suddenly strike me! OMG!! Today is the last day to submit my income tax. I almost forgot about it. Luckily I have previously set a reminder (to-do) using the i550w organizer. Thank god !

So this is the time for me to coincidentally blog about the organizer function of the i550w. You may create you own reminder such as meeting, memo, anniversary, and to-do list on a specific date and set an alarm to remind you. The calendar has three different types of view - monthly, weekly and daily- I personally prefer the monthly view. The calendar/organizer are quite user-friendly I would say.

I'm actually submitting my income tax through online (E-hasil). I've finished inputting all the information two weeks ago but I'm just too "lazy" to pay to the government. :P After deducting this and that, this is the amount that I still need to pay:

As a good citizen, I paid RM42.98 via internet payment using Maybank2U immediately. And voila, I'm done! It's time for me to continue with my sleep and I shall continue with the organizer part tomorrow which will cover the mobile office applications, alarms, calculator and also converter.

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Samsung i550w - The Music Player

Written by ImagesLab.net on Wednesday, April 30, 2008

The music player function looks exactly like other mobile phones running on the Symbian 3rd edition. The shortcut key is located on the right side, just beside the trackball.

The music player looks simple and easy to use. To play tracks just press the trackball. For volume, scroll right to increase the volume and the other way to lower down the volume. Scroll up and down to select next or previous track. Easy?

Let's have a look at some screenshots of the music player and some other functions.

The i550w supports audio formats including MP3, AAC, eAAC+ and WMA. To transfer track to the phone, you can use either the bluetooth, the USB cable or even more "canggih" you can download track from the internet via wifi spot. (I just love the wifi function so much!) Audio quality is okay but it would be greater if the speaker can perform louder. I can't hear the phone ring (with mp3 tones) when I put the phone in my pocket or pouch, I'll need to feel it... yeah feel the vibration. :P

Other than the music player, the i550w is also pre-installed with Real player (remember I view you tube with this?) and Flash player. With the 2.6" large screen display, I personally prefer viewing videos in landscape mode for a better experience.

You can also listen to the radio using the i550w. When you turn the radio on, it will automatically scan and save the stations in your area. The quality of the radio is good and clear enough (stereo) . I especially like the auto tuning part. However, if you prefer, you many choose to save your favorite radio stations.

The only comment I can give is that there are no equalizers and visualization setting like other phones, where you can change the equalizers to enhance the audio quality and visualization for better viewing pleasure (show off perhaps?).

What's next? Come back and you'll see for yourself...

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Samsung i550w - The Camera

Written by ImagesLab.net on Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Frankly I think that the i550w camera's quality is just averagely passable in view of the fact that it can't really beat that of my Nokia N73. I suppose Samsung categorize this model as a business phone that's why they don't really focus on a better quality camera. Do correct me if I'm wrong, Samsung.

To start the camera, press and hold the silver button (on the right) for about 3 seconds

The interface of the camera is user friendly enough for me. Photo quality in low light condition is below average I would say without build in xenon flash. Luckily there are still functions like the auto focus, white balance (automatic, sunny, cloudy, incandescent and fluorescent), effects, flash settings and self-timer. The negative part is that it doesn't have the "scene select" function where you can set what kind of pictures you want to take i.e macro mode, portrait, landscape, sports and night shot. Maybe Samsung would like to consider including these functions in their upcoming model?

Some of the camera's setting.

If photos are taken outdoor with enough brightness, the quality is quite acceptable. Here are some of the photos I took with the i550w's camera. Why not you do the judging by scrolling through these pictures?

Photo taken at Starbucks Pavilion

Photo taken at office. Yes, that is my tag.

Photo taken at the BlogMob event. Low light condition?

Trying to do macro shot without macro mode. Haha.. Funny eh?

The USB cable and the laptop.

Photo taken in Langkawi at the apartment's balcony

Different setting of sunny, cloudy, incandescent and fluorescent effect. I love this picture!

So, what do you think of the picture's quality taken by the Samsung i550w? Overall, I think the quality is not bad if photos are taken under sufficient lighting.

Oopss.... did I forget the video recording part?

The Samsung i550w uses the QVGA display. Videos taken will be save in 3gp format and have a frame rate of 15 frames per second (fps). Video quality isn't great enough as most of the videos taken will have tiny little boxes during playback, not as clear as you imagine. Again I'll let you judge the video quality for yourself.

Video taken at my house.. that's the TV set. :P

Well, with a phone that has great functions like the i550w, I wouldn't want to complain on the pictures and video quality. I believe Samsung are aiming at a specific target market, mostly targeting business owners or technophiles like me that has some kind of craze for the mobile phone technology.

Up next will be the music player...

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Samsung i550 - Wifi

Written by ImagesLab.net on Sunday, April 27, 2008

It's weekend again! But I've got nothing to do. So I went to Black Canyon Cafe again to try out the Wifi of the Samsung i550w.

For those Wifi phone novice, this is how you define your access point.

Press the web short cut key, then choose the web page you want to go in. It will then start searching for the access point. Remember I define "Black-Canyon" as my access point just now. Yeah, it is in the list now. Select it and you are on the go.

The default vertical look.

It looks nicer when I change it to horizontal. Blogmob looks great on it. When I press "back", it will show the last 2 pages you viewed. Better than any other explorer. Just kidding... :P

Using msn with the phone. I can't live without msn I tell you.

I downloaded ring tones, games and themes from Zedge.

Accessing "You Tube" with Samsung i550w

And I watched it with the pre-installed Real Player. So cool !!

After that, I tried "facebook-ing" with it. Had fun poking all my friends. Haha...

Lastly, I checked my phone bill online.

Downloaded the bill in PDF format and view it with the pre-installed Adobe Reader.

I think I wouldn't want to talk much about the option for the browsers. Generally it has the function of zoom in and zoom out, bookmark the web page, history, refresh, clear history and so on. I think you should try exploring the options, trust me it is user friendly.

Of course there are many more things that I can do with this phone. Wanna know what I'm going to do? Stay tuned as there'll be more coming soon!

ALL I CAN SAY IS I LOVE SAMSUNG SGH i550W !!