Samsung Player One

Samsung's Player family of mobile phones continues to grow with the addition of this new touchscreen phone, the Player One, which joins the Player Addict, the Player Pixon and the Player Tocco.

Much more of an entry-level handset, the One is 'only' compatible with Edge networks rather than 3G.  It has a discreet, minimalist look that will suit almost everybody, and a 240 x 480 pixel resolution 2.8 screen.

Armed with a 3.2 Megapixel camera and just 50 MB of internal memory, the One does seem to be aimed at users who are looking for a touchscreen phone that doesn't break the bank rather than something more advanced. 

Déjà-vu, anybody?

We've already seen a phone just like the One, but it had a different name.  Discreet, and certainly not showy, it was lacking a little originality.  Let's have another look, then, at the LG Arena, which, the colour and three buttons at the bottom of the One aside, is very difficult to tell apart.


The whole unit is well-built, with solid components everywhere.  The touchscreen (not capacitive and multi-touch like the one on the iPhone) is responsive.  However, it's a little tough sometimes using the glossy screen in bright sunlight because the reflections make it difficult to see anything. 

Handling

The One uses Samsung's proprietary interface, Touch Wiz, which has already proved itself on several generations of phones.  It's useful enough, but could certainly do with a little update.

One small update is that the launch screen has been extended to better organise the features.  Now, when you slide the main menu form right to left, a second page with more options follows.  You can customise this yourself, creating one workspace for communications (with contacts and messaging, for instance), another for multimedia (with photo and video options) and a third for web applications.  As before, all of these widgets are situated in a special menu on the left-hand side of the screen and can be simply dragged and dropped onto the screen.

Thanks to the accelerometer, the virtual keypad extends to become a full QWERTY keyboard if you turn the One round to landscape orientation.  It's not as easy to use as a real keyboard, of course, or even the virtual keyboard on a phone with a more precise touchscreen, but it's not at all bad and isn't too far behind the competition.

Decent Multimedia

The One proves that it's perfectly reasonable to take the multimedia specs of an entry-level phone like this at face value.

It doesn't promise the Earth, but it's by no means a total flop.  This is a phone that's so easy-to-use that you'll really want to.  It certainly won't replace even a very basic digital camera, nor will it leave your dedicated MP3 player by the wayside.  The One isn't really the place to spend hours surfing the web, either.

That said, the One does allow you to take a few snaps while you're on the move and upload them straight to Facebook, for instance.  In low light, the camera begins to struggle, but the One handles sound well enough.  The audio output--whose proprietary headphone jack is a real shame--lacks a little detail, but is far from dreadful for a phone in this price range.


Finally, a set of Google tools gives direct access to your Gmail account, look up addresses in Google Maps, and, of course, search for content online.  The One wasn't born for the web, but it will do at a pinch.

We found the Player One lasted two whole days between recharges.  The Edge network requires less power than 3G, and, given its more limited capabilities, you're much less likely to spend as much time using the One than the HTC Magic or the LG Arena, so, naturally, the battery lasts a little longer.