Phones.com » Cell Phones » Review of the Samsung i8510 INNOV8

Samsung has taken the usual slider design route for this landmark camera phone. The INNOV8 measures 106.5 x 53.9 x 17.2 mm, and as you might have guessed, it's very tall when open. The design of the phone, though large, was very chik. The i8510 or INNOV8 felt like it belonged in our palm, weighing a nice 140 grams for its size. The 2.8" display pleases everyone with its QVGA resolution and good sunlight legibility. Below the screen is a rugged functional keypad, with an optical trackball and firm D-pad. On the sides of the phone are a microUSB port, 3.5 mm jack, camera key and a volume rocker. Keypad was very nice to use, and offered an extra row with three keys: A 'C' key and two customizable shortcut keys. Everything that can be pressed on the INNOV8 was firm, tactile and responsive. The feel of a high-end smartphone felt.

The INNOV8 scores very high in this department. It includes an 8-MP camera with Face, smile and blink detection. There's also image stabilization and Wide dynamic range support. VGA video recording at 30 fps was present as a bonus. The INNOV8 was powered by an ARM11 processor and runs the Symbian S60 9.3 OS 3rd edition with FP2. Everything we expected on such a phone was there, full multimedia support, A-GPS and geo-tagging, TV-out and auto-rotate. The audio player supported album art and other goodies. DivX and WMV support were out of the box, and added fun. We liked the bundling of 8 GB / 16 GB of onboard memory for plentiful storage. Again there's the hot-swappable microSD card slot for us greedy ones! Furthermore there was an FM Radio with RDS and Push Email support. There was a secondary video calling camera on the front, beside the ambient lighting sensor. In fact this smartphone packed everything we need into one package we didnt mind its heavy weight or large measurements. Audio quality was superb through the DNSe 2.0 sound engine. Web browsing was a pleasure on the INNOV8, thanks to the optical trackpad. Lastly, the 8-MP camera performed exceptionally well in most imaging tests and our only concern was the lack of a Xenon Flash, much desired by imaging enthusiasts.

The Samsung INNOV8 is a Quad-band GSM phone, it works seamlessly over 2G networks anywhere in the world. There's EDGE Class 10 and GPRS support. 3G connectivity is great with dual-band and 7.2Mbps HSDPA support. The INNOV8 is available in two regional variants, one for the 850/1900 MHz bands and another for 900/2100 MHz. Local connectivity is complete with the USB 2.0 interface and Bluetooth 2.0 A2DP. Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g with DLNA was another great connectivity bonus.

Samsung i8510 or INNOV8 is powered by a good 1200 mAh Li-ion to back it up. 2G talk time was quoted at a sweet 8.5 hours. 3G talk time was strangely very less at 2.5 hours. Standby was upto 310 hours in 3G, which isn't a bad deal. The INNOV8's 8MP mammoth camera (in video recording) and Wi-Fi radio were the biggest battery juice-suckers, in our tests.

Samsung i8510 or INNOV8, an 8-megapixel camera phone is a device where you've nothing to lose and yet everything to gain for. The bonus of the full functionality over a powerful smartphone like this truly stands out when it comes to value for money.