Review of Samsung's 8 megapixel i8510 INNOV8

Samsung's new 8 megapixel camera equipped i8510 INNOV8 is ready to make a big splash. This phone has hard core camera credentials, 16GB of internal storage, a big QVGA display, GPS, and just about every goody one would expect to find on an S60 smartphone. In short, Nokia appears to have some real competition.

Physical Aspects

In terms of basic design, the Samsung i8510 INNOV8 will feel familiar to anyone that has used a Nokia N95 or N96 recently. The INNOV8 sports a very similar slider form factor, has a large 2.8" QVGA resolution display, and a camera located on the back. Very Nokia like. But there are a few items that show that Samsung has chosen the road less traveled for some of its solutions. For starters, the d-pad controller has an optical joystick controller embedded in it. Think of it as an upside down optical mouse. Moving one's finger across it will navigate in the appropriate direction, and when used with a mouse aware application, such as the S60 browser, the joystick gives users a very desktop like mouse pointer control. It isn't perfect, as it can sometimes be activated when simply using the d-pad normally, but overall we're much happier with it now than we were when we first handled a prototype of the phone months ago.

Core Functions

The Samsung i8510 INNOV8 is equipped with quad-band GSM/EDGE support as well as the ability to function on the 900 and 2100MHz UMTS/HSDPA 3G networks that operate in Europe, Australia, and some other parts of the world. So while it has no 3G support here in the USA, the INNOV8 is more than capable of operating usably on AT&T or T-Mobile's GSM networks - which is how we tested the phone. In terms of call quality, the i8510 performed fine on regular voice calls. Speakerphone calls were not particularly impressive, though still usable. The built-in antenna on the GSM bands we tested seemed to work decently, but not as well as we might have hoped for.