Samsung Z105

£TBC

The lowdown
The Samsung Z105, is being groomed by Vodafone to feature as its launch phone for its consumer 3G service. Vodafone customers who have been specially selected to participate in Vodafone live! 3G Customer Trial are currently the only ones able to get their hands on one.

What’s good?
Well the clamshell phone is about average size for 3G phones. It is roughly the same size as the NEC e616 (available via Three) and slightly larger than LG’s upcoming U8100. It is a very simple phone to use. The buttons are kind of half Samsung and half Vodafone (the lay out is a little reminiscent of Voda’s Sharp phones). The interface is fairly simple to use and access to Vodafone Live! service is a one-button press. At 240 minutes talktime and 110 standby time, battery life is good for a 3G mobile. Video calling is phone’s strong point in that it sports an excellent 256k colour screen, which delivers top quality moving images.

What’s bad?
There’s no Bluetooth, POP3 e-mail or MP3 playback. The LG U8100 has all three. To make video calls you have to don a headset, which is highly annoying as you have to carry it around with you everywhere. There’s only 3MB of storage and no expansion card slot. The 3MB will fill up very quickly with videos and images.

Do you need it?
This isn’t a bad phone. The screen and the video quality are great. However, upcoming handsets from LG and Motorola are likely to put it to shame. If you are Vodafone customers and are thinking about upgrading to 3G it might be good to hang on a while until other handsets are available.
6/10

Vodafone