The Samsung review
Fri 5th Feb 2010
The Samsung Tocco Lite aims to take the touchscreen to the streets. Its biggest drawback is its lack of support for 3G, but it's a surprisingly good phone, considering its bargain price. Its resistive touchscreen is vivid and snappy, and it's got some fun widgets to keep things interesting.I have now had this phone for a week, can't stay off it. The widgets include facebook, myspace, bebo.
Games are included with it for most are only trial and to un-lock is a price of £4.50 a game, so if your on pay as you go then it's going to be expensive. The default option is contract when you first puchase it at £80.00-£90.00 and is moneys worth.
The other things is a 3.2 mp cam but has no light built into it so taking pics at night isn't pratical.
The screen is bright, with bold colours -- although it's no match for the AMOLED screen of its much more expensive cousin, the Tocco Ultra. It's also a resistive touchscreen, you need to exert pressure to make them respond, and they feel rather squishy, so they seem less responsive than capacitive touchscreens. But the Lite impressed me with its responsiveness. I've found typing and dialling pleasant and quick, and i didn't feel the need to press hard with a fingernail or stylus. For such an inexpensive phone, the quality of the screen was a very pleasant surprise.
Some of the widgets available are more useful, such as the weather widget, which shows live updates, or the music player, which lets you control your music from the home screen. We just wish that live updates from sites like Facebook had been included too. It's also easy to accidentally slide the widgets around the screen with your finger. A lock function to stop you from acedently pressing any of the screen.
Conclusion
Compared to other phones in its price range, Samsung's Tocco Lite is an impressive handset. Although its touchscreen is resistive, it's pleasant to use and responsive, and dialling and texting poses no problems. The user interface is confusing in places, but, for the most part, Samsung has kept it simple. The biggest drawback is the Lite's lack of 3G support, which sometimes leaves you feeling like you're slowly plodding through a muddy field in a pair of wellies.