Additionally, it has a slow motion shooting mode, capturing QVGA resolution clips at 120fps for smooth slo-mo playback. Handy video editing software is included too.

Impressive music player

The Pixon has good quality media player functionality too. Its 200MB of internal storage is boosted by a 1GB MicroSD card supplied in-box, though cards up to 8GB can be slotted into the side of the phone.

The music player has a familiar set of track sorting categories, and onscreen playback touch controls are conventional enough for intuitive fingertip operation.

Sound quality is very good through the above average supplied bud in-ear earphone, with good depth of sound and solid amounts of bass. Although these earphones connect to the phone via a typical Samsung USB/headphone/charger multi-connector on top rather than a standard 3.5mm headphone socket, there is a 3.5mm adapter on the two-piece headphones, so you can upgrade your own ear-wear (even if you can't charge the phone while listening). Stereo Bluetooth 'phones are supported too, and there's a loud loudspeaker option.

The video player is a decent bit of software too, with full screen view looking good on the large display. It supports DivX and XVid as well MPEG4 and WMV video.

GPS navigation

With GPS inside, images can be geo-tagged with exact positioning data, so you can view exactly where pictures were taken on maps on suitably enabled online services or software packages. Also, the Pixon has a Google Maps app included, which can be used in conjunction with the internal GPS receiver.

This neat application looks good on the large screen, providing over-the-air search options for locations, points of interest, addresses and services, as well as instant mapping for your exact position. It's not, though, a voice guided turn-by-turn Sat Nav package, so doesn't offer the full functionality that you can get from smartphone-style satellite navigation software.

Additional features

The NetFront web browser on the Pixon, powered by HSDPA, provides a reasonably quick and effective way of checking out full web pages, with onscreen (or volume button) controlled zooming, and finger touch panning. Again, not as delightful as the iPhone's browser, but it does the job reasonably well. RSS feeds are also supported.

Samsung has naturally included a good spread of tools and organiser functionality. Email attachments or files copied to the phone can be read by the document viewer, while there's a voice recorder and the usual rundown of calendar, memo, tasks, world clock, timer, stopwatch, alarms, calculator and convertor.

A selection of trial games and a motion-controlled set of dice are chucked in too.

Decent battery life

As well as the fancy stuff, the Pixon does voice calls really well too. The virtual pop-up keypad onscreen works effectively, and scrolling through contacts is quick and simple (aided by an alphabetical tab you can drag down the side of the screen). Call quality is top-class.

Battery life is estimated to be better than the Tocco's, with Samsung figures of up to 4 hours talktime on 3G or 430 minutes on GSM networks. Standby is reckoned to be 280 hours in 3G coverage or 310 hours on GSM.

While battery life will depend on exactly how it's used (particularly power hungry features like GPS), its performance is acceptable for a touchscreen device. With average usage, we usually got 2 days between charges.

Limited smartphone

Good quality imaging may not be all about pixel count, but the Pixon 8-megapixel cameraphone delivers with an excellent shooting performance and a well thought out, well featured, and easy to use imaging touch control system.

Samsung's touchscreen user interface has been improved on this model, too, making it a comfortable finger-driven device. It doesn't have everything though, the lack of Wi-Fi and smartphone functionality, and limited in-box storage compared to higher end heavyweight mobiles, lessening its non-photo appeal for some users. In that respect, it's more an upgraded Tocco than a touch-i8510.

Still, the Samsung Pixon M8800 has plenty of picture taking appeal for the image conscious phone users looking for a sharp-shooting touchscreen handset.

Network availability: O2, Orange

Looks: 4/5
Ease of use: 4/5
Features: 4/5
Call quality: 4/5
Value for money: 3.5/5