Samsung Tocco vs Apple iPhone 3G: Price, features & performance

Aiden says:

Why is it that all phone reviews sound like they’ve been written by a dyslexic 3 year old? I’ve got a Tocco and pretty much hate it. The reason I got it was I wanted a touch screen phone, I wanted it to be small enough to fit in my pocket (something the Iphone just doesn’t do comfortably) and I wanted it to have a decent camera as I take quite a lot of opportunistic photos. The Tocco scores on all 3 counts but has some pretty fatal flaws. Firstly the menu system sucks a big one. Scrolling through the contact list each entry unfolds to twice its size to show details whcih means that the unfolded part covers what’s coming up next. This means that scrolling through a list to get to a particular item involves a large amount of luck. Next the screen has a number of scratches on it already although it’s not been mistreated - I would have thought it would have been a little tougher. Next Audio quality on calls is absolutely dreadful - nothing to do with signal strength - and a lot of the time I really do struggle to hear what people are saying. You can turn the volume up to compensate for this but the volume has to be almost at a painful level for this to work. Next the onscreen keyboard has the language button next to the MNO key which means writing anytyhing results in you changing the language to Italian before you know it. I’ve only got small fingers so those with big hands would really suffer and believe me this is very infuriating. And lastly got a voicemail while you’re out in the pub, shops, park just about anywhere really? Want to listen to it? No chance: you call voice mail and immediately you will need to press a key to access your mail. Unfortunately your screen is locked whilst you are in a call so you have to take the phone away from your ear, unlock the screen and then press the appropriate key. Then you have to lock the screen again before putting it back to your ear otherwise your ear is working away at the touchscreen. You can of course turn the speaker on so you can hold the phone away from your ear but then everyone can hear your phone. This may be something unique to touchscreens in general but the Tocco does nothing to assist you in your futile attempts at navigating any kind of telephone menu system and frequently makes me want to throw it on the floor and jump up and down on it. The one ok thing about it is the camera. Pictures are as usual on Phones pretty awful in low light but daylight pictures are not bad at all. I’ll be looking (through rose tinted glasses) at this purchase (which I have for the next 18 months) as a camera that happens to be able to take some phone calls and make some texts. If I could get out of the contract I would and under no circumstances would I get a Tocco ever again. It’s a stupid phone but at least it’s not as big as a house.