Samsung S5230 Tocco Lite Sim Free Mobile Phone - Black

I saw this phone advertised on Carphonewarehouse website and couldn't decide between the Samsung Beat DJ or Samsung Tocco Lite mobiles. So did some research on the internet.5 days ago, I got this phone on Virgin PAYG tariff for £99 at CPW, and glad I choose the Locco Lite. It's a touchscreen and easy to use, there is a widget section on left hand screen. Touch it, it opens up a range of shortcut icons, such clock,create messages, date, mp3 player, radio, youtube, alarm, calendar etc. In the Phonebook - "favourites" section you have a 12 speed dial section (inc. voicemail). When texting you can either type in normal mode or turn phone width ways and a full qwerty keyboard touchscreen comes up making texting easier. The phone also has Google maps in the games section. Download music to the phone is easy and can be played in speakphone mode. I would recommend this phone battery life is good lasting 4-5 days depending on 1 hr use of mp3 player and radio.

After my phone died a death I decided on the Samsung Tocco Lite, and what a good choice I made if I do say so myself. Opening the box (which was smaller than what I expected) there it was; the shiny new phone just itching to get out of its wrapping. Along with my shiny happy phone I had a battery charger, the battery itself, a travel adapter, headphones/hands free and the user manual. After fully charging the phone for the first time it was time to check out what this bad boy could do. Apologies for the long review but this is what I would want to know about if I was thinking about buying one.

~Size and Weight~
First off the dimensions (104 x 53 x 11.9mm) make it a pretty sleek phone sitting nicely in the palm of your hand. The weight (93.5g) seems just perfect, not too heavy and not too light. The Tocco (meaning Touch in Italian) is just that, a touch screen phone with a lovely bright 3" display screen. I do not by any stretch of the imagination have nimble fingers and I am usually more likely to be too rough with things but this phone is excellent. The screen is really responsive to touch, but beware if you have large hands as it can get quite fiddly. I have since picked up a touch screen pen that can be attached to the corner of your phone. The cost for these pens does vary, but they are very inexpensive.

~Features~
Contacts: Now sadly this is a feature that I use heavily and expect each new phone that I get to let me store a lot of info on each of my contacts. Luckily for me Samsung haven't let me down. You can store up to 2000 numbers on the phones memory. In addition to the standard numbers feature in your address book each contact can have up to three numbers against their name, a photo, a group (which you select, ie. Family), email address, address and even their job title.

Camera: The phone has a 3 mega pixel camera which in `Phone World' isn't that great compared to other brands that offer up to 8 mega pixel cameras. In all honesty though I have two cameras myself and I am not too bothered about the camera that comes with the phone. The quality of the pictures is good enough for snaps on a night out when I have invariably forgotten my camera. Like other phones that I have had this phone also lets you video record with one switch of a button on the camera function.

Music: This phone has an MP3 Player which plays multi-format music files. Music Recognition is a feature that recognises songs for you. What you need to do is record a few seconds of a song on your phone and then sends it to the server, and the song will be found. It has a Music Library which is very easy to organize and you also get an FM Radio. I don't use any of my phones for music as I use my own music player so to be honest would not be the greatest judge when it comes to features.

Widgets: No I do not mean the things that fly around annoying people. The widgets are a feature of Samsung's touch screen phones. The simplest way to explain is that you can touch an area on the front of the screen and all the icons that you want (you can personalise the widgets) will appear in front of you and can be accessed with one touch of the screen. I have on occasion used the widgets feature but don't rely heavily on it.

Internet Access: This is the one area that I feel the Tocco Lite is inferior to other phones. It doesn't have Wi-Fi or high-speed 3G mobile connectivity, relying instead on quad-band GPRS/EDGE mobile data. To be honest I am with Orange and haven't found accessing the internet that bad. No it isn't as quick as some others but I don't rely on this phone alone for internet access (thank goodness). You can however access Google Maps relatively easily via the games section of the phone.

Other Features: Obviously there are other features of the phone that maybe don't have as much explanation attached to them and they are: - Bluetooth, Games, Timer and stopwatch, calendar, memos, calculator, converter for currency length and weight etc. and task lists. You also have all the usual suspects like being able to check through an entire call history as well as using alarms and changing profiles for ring tones etc.

~Opinion~
I buy a phone for just that, a phone. It is nice to have some extras along the way but I don't yearn to have all the latest and greatest. I have a perfectly good music player which I am happy with and an even better camera meaning I don't rely on my phone for the extra features that the new iPhones have. The phone itself looks really nice as it not too bulky but also not so tiny I can't find it in my bag. It takes a while to move from `buttons' to touch screen especially for the heavy handed, but I'm doing okay after a couple of weeks and the touch pen definitely helps. The navigation around the menus is very easy and I would imagine that it's pretty straightforward for most people, even the touch screen novices like me. If you are after a fully packed gadget type phone with all the extras then maybe the Samsung Tocco Lite is not for you. However if you want a phone that does most but not all things and is a reasonable price then maybe try it. I think Samsung have tried to corner the market for a cheaper price but this is only if you are in the market for a Pay as You Go. Most phone contracts will offer this phone for free with an 18 or 24 month contract. I am enjoying using this phone and think it suits my needs perfectly but before considering a purchase you need to weigh up how important all the relevant extras are to you.

I got this phone a couple of days ago and I was very suprised about the phones high quality and features. I have owned touch screen phones in the past which i've had bad experiences with so I was a bit reluctant into buying the tocco lite but I am glad I did. The touch screen is very responsive which is very useful when it comes to texting, although you have the option to write by hand on the screen (which is amazing!).
The phone itself is light and very stylish and easy to use, and I would definately recommend this phone =]