Samsung Tocco Ultra Edition

This latest handset from Samsung builds on the company’s big success of last year, the touchscreen Tocco, with a side screen of widgets (calendar, music player and so on) so you can choose exactly what’s on the phone’s screen.

This customisable screen was popular, even allowing users to move the network name off-screen for a minimal look.

The widgets are here again with new options added but with a more conventional menu system. Of course, not everyone likes having to use the touchscreen so for this new model Samsung has added a conventional keypad as well. This slides out – Samsung is pretty much the king of slide phones – and comes in a fetching shade of red, though a blue version is also available from The Carphone Warehouse.

This keypad is neat, backlit and easy to use, though touchscreen diehards can still opt to dial or send messaging using the screen instead, with the slider closed. One problem is that if you dial using the real keypad and slip up you’ll have to use the virtual backspace key on the screen.

Usability isn’t helped, by the way, by the physical buttons below the screen, to start and end calls. Those two were fine but there’s also a Back button which is counter-intuitively placed in the middle rather than the side.

Still, this is a neat, well-balanced, easily pocketable phone that has a great screen. The screen is big (2.8in) and very sharp, bright and colourful, especially when displaying video or photographs.

Images from the phone’s eight-megapixel camera were also sharp. There’s no flash but there is a light above the lens, which is effective. The camera has some advanced features such as blink detection so subjects won’t appear to be asleep in your photographs.

The Tocco Ultra Edition has GPS satellite navigation built in, so you can find your way around without needing an extra device. There’s no ability to connect to wireless networks and as this isn’t a designated music phone, no s tandard 3.5mm headphone socket.

It is a handsome phone with a great screen and lots of neat features, let down only by a couple of usability problems.