Samsung's new SGH-U900 Soul gets its name from Samsung calling the device the "Soul Of ULtra", a fitting name for what the company says is the last handset in its original Ultra line of thin profile feature phones. The Soul has a lot of high-tech goodies packed into its metal shell, including a 5 megapixel camera with auto-focus and a new OLED backed morphing touchpad controller where the d-pad would normally be. So what's the catch, you ask? Well, the Soul lacks 3G support for North America, and doesn't even work on the 850MHz GSM/EDGE frequency band that is so common on this side of the Atlantic. But while this beauty of a phone might best suit the European market, it still is worth taking an in-depth look at.
Physical Aspects
As the last member of Samsung's Ultra lineup of handsets, the SGH-U900 Soul has a fairly thin profile of only 13.5mm (.5"). The truth is that the rest of the phone is equally compact, considering all the technology it possesses. At 107mm x 49.5mm (4.2" x 1.9") in size when closed, the Soul fits comfortably in the hand as it does the back pocket of a pair of jeans. Of course you wouldn't want to put just any phone in your back pocket - not, at least, if you didn't want to break it. For its part, the Soul feels extremely solidly built thanks to a fair amount of metal in its construction. Solidness comes at the expense of some weight, though. 113g (4.0oz) is far from heavy, but there are many other devices on the market today that are far lighter. But that is OK because few of them can offer what the Soul can.
When closed, the front of the U900 is dominated by its dual displays. The main QVGA resolution TFT screen is incredibly sharp and colorful, looking for all the world like a 2.2" diagonal sheet of paper at times. It might be only passable in harsh, overhead sunlight, but it excels in just about any other situation. The OLED touchscreen that sits below the main display is one of the Soul's most interesting components. It offers amazing contrast and acceptable haptic vibration feedback that actually makes it a fine alternative to a hardware d-pad. In certain parts of the phone, such as camera application, it morphs to show icons for controls like macro mode and flash, which makes it even better than a d-pad.
Surrounding that touchpad controller are a set of fairly conventional softkeys and call control keys. While the buttons are all part of one solid piece of metal, they each offer great tactile feedback to users. The call keys and the softkeys all share the same white color scheme and backlighting. It would have messed with the Soul's style a bit, but perhaps red and green colors should have been used for the two call keys.
The keypad is revealed when the moderately sprung slider mechanism is opened up. The keypad is made of the same bronze-gray colored metal as the exterior of the phone, and the color coordination adds much to the Soul's overall good looks. The keyboard's keys have a fair number of raised finger guide ridges surrounding them, and they offer the perfect amount of click when pressed. The white backlighting on the keypad comes through superbly and has enough contrast to be easily read in both bright and dark environments. The top row of keys on the keypad include, from left to right, a video calling button, a clear key for editing, and a shortcut menu key.
Controls for the camera and volume are set on the side edges of the Soul, directly across from each other. While the position of the camera shutter button is fine, the volume keys would be better located closer to the top of the phone. This isn't really possible, though, since that is where the battery is located. Covered power/headset/USB (charger, headset, and cable included in the box) and microSD memory card ports sit below the volume and camera buttons, respectively. The main 5 megapixel, auto-focus camera, which is located behind the display on the top of the phone, can only be used when the slider is opened up. When closed, the camera lens, flash, and mirror are completely protected by the rear metal panel that covers the battery. There is a front facing camera located above the SGH-U900's main display that can be used for video calls, where available.
I spent a fair amount of time with prototypes of the Soul when the product was first announced earlier this year, but I am surprised by how much better the device seems now versus then. It is a beautiful looking device that is solidly built, has great ergonomics, and possesses some real nice high-tech bits in its clean looking design. 5 stars all the way.
Core Functions
Like many Samsung cellphones designed for Europe, the SGH-U900 Soul only supports tri-band GSM/EDGE (900, 1800, 1900MHz) and UMTS/HSDPA on the 2100MHz frequency band, making the phone less than ideal for users in North America. As such, we were only able to test the Soul on the 1900MHz GSM/EDGE networks run by AT&T and T-Mobile. Call audio quality on the U900 was good both inbound and outbound on regular calls. The speakerphone was passable, but is not a real stellar performer when compared to some other phones on the market. Reception on the 1900MHz band seems pretty decent considering the very weak signal we have in this particular part of Florida. We were unable to test the Soul properly for battery life, and Samsung has not supplied official estimates. We wouldn't expect the Soul to manage more than about 4 or 5 hours of talk time based on our informal tests, though.
The Samsung Soul has a pretty good contact management system. Contact records can store most pieces of information that are handled by typical desktop PC apps like Microsoft Outlook, with which the Soul can sync to thanks to the software suite that Samsung includes with the Soul. Contact searching on the Soul works on both first and last names at the same time, but does not support the multi-word searching that most Windows Mobile smartphones can handle. Speed dials can be activated with a long press of the associated keypad key, but there is no voice dialing capability at all in the Soul. We find that inappropriate for a flagship product like this.
The U900 has a pretty complete ring profile system. 5 regular profiles and one offline (airplane) profile are offered, and the profile editor uses a very nice tabbed interface that makes configuration the vast number of settings less of a chore. Separate tones can be assigned to voice and video calls, as well as messages. Vibration alerts for each type of notice can be set to one of five different patterns. As is the case with most Samsung phones, the silent profile can be conveniently activated by long-pressing the # key from the standby screen.
While text and multimedia messaging on the Samsung Soul worked well, with the messaging system presenting itself with a polished user interface, we ran into trouble with the U900's email support. The Soul is supposed to support both IMAP and POP based internet email, but we never managed to get it to work with our own mail server using either protocol. The system always reported a login failure with multiple accounts when using IMAP, and never reported any kind of message, good or bad, when we attempted to access our server using POP. We assume that this is something in the Soul's firmware that will be fixed eventually, but it was quite unexpected none the less.
As mentioned above, the SGH-U900 Soul supports HSDPA/UMTS connections on the 2100MHz band used across Europe. The Soul supports fast 7.2Mbps connections on similarly capable HSDPA networks, which means that it is capable of acting as a very quick modem for laptops when used with Samsung's supplied PC client. The phone can be used with a computer over USB for USB mass storage and MTP compatible media synching. Bluetooth can be used for headsets and stereo headphones alike. The Soul worked quite well with a pair of Motorola S9 stereo headphones as well as with a pair of Samsung's own Bluetooth stereo headphones, the SBH500.
Multimedia / Applications
For a device that is not touted specifically as a cameraphone, we have been most impressed by the Samsung SGH-U900 Soul's picture taking abilities. It does basically everything right. The user interface is very intuitive, the touchpad controller only making it better, and the auto-focus camera takes wonderful quality 5 megapixel images. The flash is somewhat useless, as is the digital anti-shake function, but those matter little to us. We're just happy at this point when a phone takes nice pictures, and the Soul does just that. The U900 also supports ShoZu's mobile picture blogging system, and the camera can also record nice QVGA resolution videos, too. Score one for Samsung.
The music player on the Samsung Soul is hit or miss depending on how you decide to load music onto the device. Basically, if you use Samsung's own multimedia manager or just copy music over when using the phone as a USB mass storage device, then the Soul does a poor job of sorting and managing your music. On top of that, the multimedia manager is painfully slow at copying files for some reason. If, however, you use a MTP compatible app like Windows Media Player or Winamp, then all is good in the world and your music will transfer over quickly and you will be able to access it by artist, album, playlist, etc. Know that no matter how you load the music onto the Soul, the audio quality is top notch. I found that the Soul generated some really good bass sound for a phone.
Samsung did a good job of integrating the U900's background music play into the standby screen. As you might expect, the buttons on the touchpad will automatically change to become music controls, transforming into pause, play, and next/previous track buttons. The main display will show the currently running track, and even allows the user to browse through the currently queued up tracks. Thanks to the shortcut key located at the top right corner of the keypad, the music app can be quickly accessed from anywhere in the phone, too. The same goes for the other apps listed on the shortcut menu: call, messages, browser.
Speaking of the browser, the U900 Soul uses the Access NetFront browser to handle web tasks. While not as solid as Nokia's S60 browser, NetFront on the Soul is capable of decently rendering most full sized websites on the phone's QVGA display. As you will see in some of the screen shots, it had some trouble with the MobileBurn.com website, but did OK in general.
There are a wide selection of other applications included on the Soul. The normal organizer apps are accounted for, and some of them, like the calendar, can be synchronized with a desktop PC by using Samsung's included PC suite. Some people will find the image and video editor apps of use, while others might prefer the handy RSS news reader that is included. A couple of games are pre-loaded, including our favorite thought provoking way to pass the time: Paris Hilton's Diamond Quest.
The only thing that we found truly lacking was the file manager. While it allows the user to move pictures and other media files around from the internal memory to the memory card, it is awkward to use and limited in functionality. Speaking of memory, the U900 has about 120MB of built-in storage space. Our Soul didn't appear to be able to handle 8GB microSD memory cards, but worked just fine with 2GB cards.
User Interface
While we still believe that there are better overall user interfaces available on feature phones than Samsung's, we can at least say that there are none that are any slicker than that found on the SGH-U900. The combination of a fantastic QVGA display and some simple but effective animations make the UI on the U900 Soul a real stunner. You can get a pretty good look at some of the best aspects of the UI, on both the main display and OLED touchpad display, in the video that is at the bottom of the first page of this review.
Let's start with the main display user interface. The UI makes use of subtle, but very effective animations on the main menu, which slides in from the right side of the screen. Nothing too fancy goes on, but the subtle size changes the icons go through when they are selected works well. The added icon labels are also a nice touch. For those that prefer more traditional menus, the main menu can be configured in a traditional list mode, which better matches the other menus in the phone.
The Soul's UI uses a number of different input types. The two most common are radio buttons and left/right select boxes. When there are only two options available, the option that is not currently active will be selected by default so that a quick tap on the OK button on the touchpad is all that is needed to activate it. When there are more than two options, the currently active option is highlighted. In the left right select boxes, moving left or right on the touchpad (which will then show left and right arrow heads) lets you change an option. Pressing the center button on the touchpad saves the currently configured settings page instead of bringing up a list of the available options that we would have rather seen. Though in its defense, the Soul's touchpad shows the center button as a 3.5" floppy disk icon, the universal symbol for save.
This is a fine example of the Soul's touchpad at its best. The way it morphs constantly to the task at hand is fantastic. No guessing is required. Even better is how it is used in the camera, where the settings shortcuts show right on the touchpad itself when they are available for use. It makes the entire photography process much simpler for novices and experts alike. It simply makes sense.
We are also quite impressed with the Soul's support of themes, especially user created themes. Many Samsung feature phones have rather weak theme support, but the Soul has a theme editor that is beyond pretty much anything else we have seen. While not all of the functionality of the pre-set themes can be duplicated, users can select from multiple menu icons sets, change font colors and styles, edit background images to use new colors, and more. It is very impressive.
The only real downside we see to the Soul's user interface has more to do with hardware than software. While we truly love the new touchpad, with its constantly morphing OLED display, we find that there is a bit of a mental disconnect when we move back and forth between the hardware softkeys, that move and click, and the touchpad, which doesn't move and causes non-localized haptic vibration on the phone. It isn't a major problem, but we do believe that it slows us down a bit at times. Overall, though, Samsung has done a fantastic job with the user interface on the U900 Soul.
 Samsung SGH-U900 Soul (ZOOM) |  Samsung SGH-U900 Soul (ZOOM) |  Samsung SGH-U900 Soul (ZOOM) |  Samsung SGH-U900 Soul (ZOOM) |
Conclusion
The SGH-U900 Soul is a fantastic all-around multimedia cellphone. The camera takes photos that are far better than even Samsung's own photo-focused G800 can muster, and the music player and most of the other major functions work equally well. Except for the email client, that is. When you add to that a very slick and customizable user interface, and the new morphing touchpad controller, you have yourself a capable device. Package that into a slick little metal body, and well, you have yourself a winner.
And that, quite simply, is what the Soul is: a winner. We're not quite half way through 2008 yet, but it looks like we might have found a contender for the best non-smartphone of the year. The Soul is really that good. As such, we give it a "Highly Recommended" rating.
You'll find additional screen shots and sample photos shot with the Samsung SGH-U900 Soul's camera on the following pages.
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