Review: Samsung's U600 - 10.9mm Thick Slider

Main menu

Standby screen

uGo standby wallpapers

Settings

User Interface

The U600 belongs to the Ultra II series, and here Samsung has continued to modify the user interface from the older Ultra Series (e.g. D900). The company has listened to some of the feedback received from users about the earlier models, but not all. For example, Samsung still insists that the center d-pad select key bring up the WAP browser when pressed. As such, the menu has to be called up with something else. In the case of the U600, that something else is the left softkey.

Once getting into the main menu, the most striking change is the new 3x4 icon view that has replaced the older 3x3 format. Common features such as Bluetooth, alarm clock, and the music player all have become new standalone icons on the first layer of the menu. A list view of the menu is also available. There are two great things about the list view of Samsung menus: one is that the selected item gets enlarged, the other is that the associated sub-menu may also pop up when you highlight the item. This looks similar to the pop-up menu you get by right-clicking on a PC, now users can technically bypass the layer in the middle and save time. For example; when I am in Settings, if I highlight Display Settings, I can jump right into adjusting my wallpaper without clicking into the Display Settings sub-menu itself.

Another great thing about the user interface is the ability to adjust the font size. Users can choose between small, medium, and large fonts depending on need and habit. Interestingly, the smallest font size does not give you more lines of the menus, it only makes the rows of the list look more spacious. When in the message viewer, users can change the font sized used using the volume control on the side of the phone. The font size can be increased in the message viewer to the extent that only 2.5 lines of text will fit on the screen instead of the regular 8 lines. On the Hong Kong market U608, users can choose between Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, English, and Korean for menu languages. No matter which language you choose, you will get the same number of lines on the screen.

The interesting uGo screen from the D900 has also made its way to the U600. The uGo screen is essentially a standby screen that reacts to system information. The wallpaper will change according to the country you are in, for example. In Hong Kong, the Victoria Harbor front will show up, and the sky will also dim down at night. When signal strength is poor, the clear sky becomes cloudy; when there is a new message, you either have fireworks at night or you'll get stunt airplanes during the day. All in all a very interesting way of changing the stand-by screen experience, and it's excellent for those who have always found it difficult to pick the right wallpaper.

With this great interface, it is a pity that the company has not left users with many customization options. Themes are there, but you can only choose between the two default ones: black and white. Both of them look attractive enough and should not offend anyone, but they can get boring if you like a bit of color. The downloading of new themes is not supported. There is a customizable My Menu which can be called up by pressing up on the d-pad at standby. You can choose 5 of the 20 preset functions to add to the My Menu. Users can also modify how they want the 4 direction d-pad shortcuts to work, selecting from the same list of 20 functions used in the My Menu.

I am quite happy with the user interface of the Samsung U600. The menu seems logical and everything is reasonably attractive. Apart from the camera viewfinder, button response is near instantaneous. Assuming, of course, that you manage to hit the touch-sensitive buttons properly. They are actually not that bad as long as you are aware that they are touch sensitive.