Yesterday Samsung unveiled the G600, a 5-megapixel camera phone with auto-focus and an LED photo light. Everyone loves a superlative, and this is the thinnest 5-megapixel camera phone to hit the UK -- fact.
Like most of its Samsung slider bredren, it has a glossy black finish and trademark styling, including a keypad that looks a lot like the one on the E900. Fortunately, unlike the E900, there are no horrid fiddly touch-sensitive keys.
Using the camera is straightforward and there are a few adjustable options, such as image file size, white balance and different shooting modes. The G600's 2.2-inch (56mm) screen displays 16 million colours and is easy on the old optical receptors.
You can store all your many-pixel pics on a 1GB microSD card -- generously bundled with the phone -- and you can send them to your jealous, not-as-many-pixels friends via MMS or Bluetooth.
We were disappointed that there's no xenon flash, which would make taking pictures on a night out much better -- LED photo lights usually suck at this -- and we're gutted there's no 3G. No high-speed Web browsing here, folks.
If you're not bothered by the lack of those features, the G600, at only 15mm thick, is a pocket-friendly camera phone that takes half-decent pics. It'll be out in August for free on a monthly contract with all major networks and we'll have a full review soon. A good alternative would be the Sony Ericsson K810i, which comes with 3.2-megapixel camera, xenon flash and 3G. -Andrew Lim
Update: We now have a full review of the Samsung G600 live in our mobile phone reviews channel.
The G600 has mechanical keys instead of touch-sensitive ones making it much less fiddly to use than Samsung's E900 or U600.
The back of the G600 is minimalist and, as you can see, the camera is protected behind the slide, so you won't scratch it when it's in your pocket.
At only 15mm thick, this is the thinnest 5-megapixel camera phone in the UK.
When you want to take a picture you can hold it in landscape mode, as you would with a standard digital camera.
The G600's camera comes with auto-focus and an LED photo light.
Our first impressions of the picture quality were good, but we'll wait until we do the full review to see how it competes with the other 5-megapixel camera phone, the Nokia N95.