Messaging is nicely organized
The Samsung S8000 Jet messaging department is an exact copy of what we saw on the Samsung M8910 Pixon12. The handset has a shared editor for SMS and MMS and a separate one for emails.
The SMS and MMS editor is the familiar intuitive application which allows you to add the recipient from your phonebook, from your recent contacts or punch it in manually. You can also add a whole group in the recipient field for mass messages, instead of adding contacts one by one.
Sending Dexter a message
The messages can be broken down into up to 15 parts for sending if you exceed their maximum character limit (standard 160).
Email support is also duly covered. There's a Gmail icon in the Google menu but all it does is open the gmail.com webpage in your browser. You might as well use it if you prefer web-based access but the native email client seems the far better option to us.
The greatest problem we had with it is that it didn't automatically detect the settings for Gmail so we had to enter them manually, but once that's done, handling email is a breeze. Still most other brands are already providing some automatic configurations for the email clients on their handsets and maybe it's about time Samsung did something about it.
The email client could not configure out mailbox settings automatically
The downloading email limit is 5MB, enough for receiving most types of files. If you receive an office document as an attachment, you will be able to view it as well.
As far as text input, the Samsung S8000 Jet has support for all three options that touchscreen handsets can offer. The first one is the traditional thing - typing on a customary (albeit virtual) 3 x 4 alphanumeric keypad.
An alphanumeric keypad is the first text input option
Turning the phone on its side automatically expands that numpad to a full-fledged on-screen QWERTY keyboard. The 3.1" display provides enough space for this layout, especially given that the number keys and symbols are in separate screens that toggle on and off upon a tap. Typing is really comfortable by touchscreen standards, once again the very sensitive display and the haptic feeback count in favor.
The full QWERTY keyboard is easily the most comfortable typing method on the Jet
The final option is handwriting recognition. While very intuitive and precise in most cases, the lack of embedded stylus is almost ruling it out as an option. If you don't mind your stylus (mind you, there isn't one in the retail box so you will have to find it yourselves) dangling on the side of the phone, be our guest.
We cannot see handwriting recognition working without an embedded stylus
File browser cuts it
True to its pedigree, the Samsung S8000 Jet is equipped with one of the most elaborate file managers you can find on a feature phone. It can display the files and folders on the phone memory or the memory card, and even both at once with matching folders nicely brought together.
There are folders for different types of files (images, video, sounds) and this allows the handset to sort the memory contents. However, you are not forced to follow this structure - you can place your files wherever you want and the phone will have no problems handling them.
There's nothing to complain about the file browser
You can copy or move files - both one by one or in bulk, and you can create and delete new folders (except the default folders, like Images, Sounds and so on).
When deleting multiple files you can choose to delete protected images, contact photos and so on. By default those options are off so you won't accidentally delete a contact photo or a ringtone.
Files can also be sent via Bluetooth, again one by one or in bulk. Throughout the whole file manager, you can pick files you would like to lock to prevent accidental deletion.
Luckily, the Jet has almost no issues handling memory cards unlike some of its siblings which we recently reviewed. Initialization and reading a 16GB memory card isn't the fastest around but it isn't frustratingly slow either.
Gallery improved
In line with other recent Samsung handsets, the S8000 Jet has two different picture galleries. They are both optimized for touch operation and very user-friendly, plus this time each sports a cool new view mode.
The first gallery is an inherent part of the file manager and accessing it is as simple as opening any folder that contains images. It allows sorting your images by date, type, name, and size.
The gallery offers grid, list and a nicely looking zig-zag view layouts. The latter is definitely the most visually elaborate but also certainly the least functional as it needs quite a lot of scrolling in some folders.
The zig zag view mode is a nice touch to the file manager gallery
Going through photos is quite fast with the Jet, we're delighted with image browsing speed. Once you open an individual image, you can sweep you fingers across the screen to see the next images without having to return to the image list. Alternating portrait and landscape modes is automatic thanks to the built-in accelerometer.
Alternating portrait and landscape modes is automatic
Samsung have also implemented the so-called one-finger zooming, which is recently getting new press hype by Samsung. It's marketed as a novel feature, but it's been around for quite some time already on the original Samsung i900 Omnia. And we just saw it implemented on the Pixon12.
Zooming is extra simple and takes only a single move of your thumb - you just need to hold it on the screen for a second and then drag up or down for zooming in or out. This method works in both galleries (as well as the web browser) and at first glance it even seems more convenient than the pinching gesture on the iPhone.
The one-finger zooming is a nice little feature to have onboard
The alternative to the picture gallery is the Photo browser. Strangely, the Media browser that we found on the Pixon12 wasn't present here and we really liked it a lot more. At least the images are ordered chronologically by default unlike the previous versions of the app we have seen. You can also opt for some other filters such as the usual "by file name" or the more intriguing "by color".
The Photo browser app
As usual the two galleries also have another Samsung proprietary accelerometer-based feature. It lets you browse pictures in fullscreen landscape mode by simply tilting your phone up and down.
The sensitivity of the tilt scrolling has been improved to a point that it is acceptable and quite usable. It is a great improvement over the rather annoying implementation in previous handsets that we have tested. But still, that feature is more of a gimmick and among the less practical things we've seen in the image gallery ever since it was first introduced on the original Pixon.
Minor facelift for the music player
The music player usually found on Samsung devices has received a light refresh on the S8000 Jet. It sports slightly different icons when browsing your tracks and a new way of displaying album art in Now Playing mode.
There're not much new stuff in the music player
The music player allows filtering tracks by author, album, and genre. Automatic playlists (recently added, most played etc.) are also generated and can subsequently be used as filters. If that doesn't seem enough, you can create your own custom playlists. The music player can naturally be minimized to play in the background.
The music player widget allows you to operate the app straight from the homescreen
The new option here is the '5.1 ch' button which, when activated, makes the player do its best to emulate 5.1 channel sound on normal stereo headphones. There are quite a few equalizer presets available, but no option to set up a custom equalizer.
Further on, the three different visualizations are a nice touch to the music player and the album browser (quite like the one on Omnia HD) takes after Apple's Cover Flow, something we quite appreciate.
Last, but certainly not least, the player is nicely touch-optimized for fast forward and rewind, just like the Pixon. This adds up to an excellent music application that can fully replace your portable MP3 player.
The music player widget is cool, allowing quick access to the full version of the application by only a single tap. You can also start, stop and skip tracks straight on the home screen if you prefer.
FM radio and RDS on board
The Samsung S8000 Jet features an FM radio with RDS. The advanced RDS allows displaying the station name on one row and some additional info on the other. It is complemented by a user-friendly and easily thumbable interface with several large buttons appearing on screen.
The Jet can automatically search and save all the available stations in your area. Alternative frequencies of a given station are automatically detected too, so you don't have to retune manually when traveling. There's an option to record radio broadcasts as well.
We are pretty pleased with the FM radio interface
The Samsung S8000 radio comes complete with an integrated music recognition feature called Find Music, which works much like Sony Ericsson's TrackID.
If you won't bother hitting the menu, the Radio widget on the homescreen gives you more immediate access. Tapping on it brings up the radio or you could just use the widget's controls to start/stop the radio or change the station. It can only jump saved stations though, and if you want to search you'll have to do it in the application.
Speaking of stations, you can save stations but they are labeled by just their frequency and can't be renamed. There's a separate list for your favorite stations.
Video player up to scratch
The video player has a nice touch-optimized interface and all the essentials are covered. It can play video files in fullscreen landscape mode (auto-rotated of course) and you can fast-forward and rewind videos in the same way as the music player.
The video player even provides the same 5.1 channel option when you plug in a headset. It also allows direct uploading of a video on the web.
Thumbs up for the video player
The Samsung S8000 Jet has no problem playing VGA or even 720x480 videos at 30 fps. Not a great surprise but worth noting since compressing videos to view on mobile devices can be a time-consuming business.
One of the best parts about the Samsung S8000 Jet video player is its DivX and XviD support. This means you no longer need to convert your videos to play them on your handset - just get them onboard and you are good to go.
Audio quality
The audio quality of Samsung S8000 Jet is pretty decent. The only concern we are having about its audio reproduction capabilities is about its somewhat shaky frequency response. It tends to deviate from the perfect for large parts of the audible range.
The rest of the scores however are excellent. Both the noise level and the dynamic range of the Jet can easily rival dedicated music player, and so can the stereo crosstalk. We have no grudges against the distortion levels either.
Here go the results so you can see for yourselves how the Jet compares to its competition. Things seem pretty equal between it and the LG KM900 Arena, with the LG winnig by the slightest of margins.
| Test | Frequency response | Noise level | Dynamic range | THD | IMD + Noise | Stereo crosstalk |
| Samsung S8000 Jet | +1.01 -2.03 | -87.9 | 87.0 | 0.015 | 0.060 | -85.9 |
| LG KM900 Arena | +0.09, -1.61 | -91.6 | 91.7 | 0.0017 | 0.101 | -90.4 |
| Samsung S5230 Star | +1.02, -2.41 | -88.0 | 87.8 | 0.0045 | 0.222 | -82.3 |
| Apple iPhone 3GS | +0.01, -0.05 | -92.1 | 92.1 | 0.0035 | 0.011 | -95.0 |
| Samsung M8800 Pixon | +0.54, -1.25 | -86.4 | 85.7 | 0.0048 | 0.0165 | -38.3 |
| Sony Ericsson W995 | +0.04, -0.40 | -89.1 | 89.0 | 0.0033 | 0.048 | -88.7 |
A pretty decent camera indeed
The Samsung S8000 Jet is equipped with a 5 megapixel autofocus camera that can take photos with a maximum resolution of 2560 x 1920 pixels. A dual LED flash is supposed to improve the low-light capabilities of the handset but as one might expect it hardly has a spectacular effect.
The camera also has a number of nice built-in features including the Samsung proprietary wide dynamic range option, the anti-shake digital image stabilization, geotagging, face detection, smile shot as well as viewfinder gridlines.
The camera interface is nicely touch-optimized and is certainly one of the most comfortable camera interfaces on a touchscreen device so far. The only complaint is that the auto focus settings are not visible in the viewfinder but are instead buried in the 3rd screen of the settings menu . Since this is one of the most frequently used controls it's pretty strange that Samsung didn't give it a more convenient place.
The camera user interface
The camera snaps photos quite quickly and is ready for the next photo without much delay. Disabling the automatic preview reduces the shot-to-shot time even further and makes taking photos with the Jet a very enjoyable experience.
As far as the image quality is concerned we are very pleased with the Samsung S8000 Jet camera results. The images have nice contrast, precise colors and good amount of resolved detail. The noise suppression algorithm is very mature, resulting in relatively noise-free photos, without too much fine detail loss. It still eradicates all detail in fine foliage, for example but we have seen cameraphones do far worse. Here go the samples so you can see for yourselves.
Samsung S8000 Jet camera sample photos
Synthetic resolution
We also snapped our resolution chart with the Samsung S8000 Jet Star. You can check out what that test is all about here.
Samsung S8000 Jet resolution chart photo • 100% crops
As you can see the Samsung S8000 Jet fails to deliver as much detail as the Nokia N97, while its noise reduction is obviously more aggressive. Still the difference between the two devices isn't too great so it probably won't even be noticeable in most cases.
Nokia N97
Nokia N97 resolution chart photo • 100% crops
Video recording - D1@30fps
The Samsung S8000 Jet can record D1 videos at 30 frames per second but unlike some phones where the video looks choppy even at 30 frames (some of the frames are interpolated so it's not really 30fps), this is pretty decent with vibrant colors and high levels of detail.
The camcorder viewfinder
Unfortunately the compression applied to the videos is a bit too strong, even at the highest quality setting, resulting in some artifacts.
Here goes a sample video for you to check out.
The S8000 Jet is also capable of recording slow motion video shot in QVGA resolution at 120fps. The quality of those isn't really impressive however with even more artifacts visible.
The general camera performance of the Samsung S8000 Jet is good, although of course it is no match for the Samsung i8910 Omnia HD or the M8910 Pixon12 imaging monsters.
Connectivity packs it all
The Samsung S8000 Jet is perfectly usable worldwide with its quad-band GSM support. The 3G network compatibility is not as complete with just the 900/2100 bands supported. The phone provides 3.6 Mbps HSDPA speeds.
Bluetooth is also available and comes with A2DP, which is no news on even lower end phones.
The microUSB port is quite welcome as it's a lot more popular than the proprietary port the previous gen Samsung phones used to come with. You can set up the phone to connect in mass storage mode or PC suite mode (Media player) or to prompt each time it's connected.
In mass storage mode it gives access to the memory card but not to the internal memory and you cannot use the phone for calls or data in this mode.
To round it all off, the Samsung S8000 Jet is WLAN enabled. It sports a nice Wi-Fi manager that makes it easy to add an access point to your list, while throwing some nice graphics in the same time. The problem is that you need to update each application's profile every time you want to use it with a different access point.
The Wi-Fi manager
This means that if you are at work and you have set your browser to use your office WLAN, you will have to reach for the profiles when you go home and switch to your own network, or if you want to use it over 3G. We really hope Samsung will come up with a more intuitive solution to automatically handle the networks currently available.
Almost perfect web browser
Samsung S8000 Jet is among the pioneers of the new WebKit-based Dolfin web browser, which is an in-house developed application. With full Flash support and the new one-finger zooming, it is one of the finest web browsers we have seen so far (especially on a feature phone).
The new web browser allows up to 5 pages to be open at the same time. Multiple downloads in the background are also supported and there is also a built-in AdBlocker. Unluckily, it tends to run out of resources pretty fast, displaying a warning with only three not really heavy sites opened at once. We cannot quite see it managing the promised five pages but we don't really use that many on a cell phone anyway.
The web browser is just great
The one-finger zooming works like a charm. Of course you can also rely on double tapping a block of text or an image and the handset will automatically zoom in on it. Another double tap and you are back to the previous zoom level.
On top of Flash and Java support, the new web browser also offers kinetic scrolling and fullscreen view mode. In all fairness, the kinetic scrolling is somewhat bumpy and not as smooth as on the iPhone but it still does the job. The lack of auto-complete when typing the address of already browsed websites is a bit of a letdown, though.
One of the Jet's web browser coolest features is the full Flash support, including Flash video
Organizer in full gear
The Samsung S8000 Jet has a good number of useful time-managing applications.
For starters, the calendar offers three views - daily, weekly and monthly. You can choose which calendar view should be default and you can pick the starting day of the week - the options are Monday or Sunday. However, with the Jet there are only two types of events available in the calendar. You can set the starting date and time of the event and set an alarm to act as a reminder.
The calendar is pretty standard
The alarm is widely customizable. You can set up to 10 alarms, each with the following configurable options - custom ringtone, volume, repetition days and name.
You can set up to 10 alarms with the Jet
The calculator of the Samsung S8000 is pretty much as basic as it gets. Among the other organizer offerings are a voice recorder, a world time application and a unit converter. The voice recorder limit is 60 minutes. A countdown timer and a stopwatch come in useful too.
Some more of the Jet's organizer apps
There are also to-do and memo applications for taking down tasks and notes. You can also use the memo widget to place a memo on the homescreen where you're unlikely to forget it. The widget and the application are separate so don't expect your memos to automatically pop up on screen. There's a to-do widget as well.
The Video editor also deserves a mention. It can handle videos of up to D1 resolution and there's the option to edit them - trimming, splitting or inserting text. You can even use photos instead of videos - you just set the time for them to be on screen (from 1 to 30 seconds).
The world clock allows you to quickly check out the time in any given time zone around the world.
The world clock app
Finally, one of the most important applications of the Samsung S8000 Jet organizer is the office document viewer that supports Word, Excel, Powerpoint and PDF files. It's an application developed by Access and is one of the nicest additions to the software package.
The document reader is one of the nicest we have seen
The document viewer is quick enough when opening files; however, panning is rather slow. The document viewer also works in landscape mode (once again, rotating the screen automatically), which makes reading a little easier.
