Samsung Pixon 12 review

Do more megapixels make for a better mobile?

The Samsung Pixon 12
The Samsung Pixon 12

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The Samsung Pixon M8800 was woefully poor on battery life, and we're sorry to report that another year of development and the addition on an OLED screen hasn't helped things much on the Pixon 12 M8910.

The first day we used the Pixon 12 we were on the train for a fair while, so we spent around 30 minutes browsing videos. That was followed by an hour and a half's FM radio use, and some (minor) web browsing, as it was too basic to hammer too hard. A couple of photos later, and the battery was starting to bleep at us. This meant that moderate use we forced on the Pixon 12 meant that it gave up after 15 hours of use - not the best.

The samsung pixon 12 m8910 battery

And not only that, it also got fairly warm after using the FM radio for an extended period, which was around the time the battery started to give up the ghost as well, so although we couldn't reproduce it again, it's something to watch out for as overheating phones will quickly eat the battery in general.

The organisational functionality on the Pixon 12 M8910 was average as well, but then again we can't imagine you'd spurn the best of the Nokia E-Series to choose this phone - you want a phone that has a cracking camera on the back, not one that gives you 15 minute alerts before appointments.

Well, that's not a strictly fair criticism of the Pixon 12, as you can actually do that - it's just not the most efficient in terms of use.

Things like a customisable alarm (with the ability to set up to 10 different alarms, each with its own ringtone) are pretty cool, although having to swipe left and right to turn it off became something of a mission early in the morning.

The samsung pixon 12 m8910 calendar

The calendar has a few options for adding in new appointments, but as far as we can tell Exchange support doesn't go as far as putting new items in the application.

We could wax lyrical about the advantages of a stopwatch, world clock, converter or calculator, but essentially they time things, tell you the time in Tokyo, tell you what 'x' is in feet and calculate numbers. And that's about it.

Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief

Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.