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Samsung's SPH i700 Pocket PC smartphone with integrated camera has a lot going for it, a sleek, lightweight chassis, a very good 65,536-color TFT LCD screen and excellent radio and network performance.

It's no champion, but it's definitely a contender.

The i700 is a dual-band, single-mode device that works on 1900 and 800 MHz CDMA/1X networks. It has been available from Verizon in the United States and is also now offered on the Telus network in Canada.

It's no powerhouse as a Pocket PC, but the i700's 300MHz Intel XScale processor and 64 MB of RAM are adequate and let the i700 hold its own against competition. For example, the competing Hitachi SH-G1000 Pocket PC smartphone from Sprint features a 400MHz processor, but only 32 MB or memory.

The i700 also has 5.6 MB of NAND flash memory which saves device settings in a hard reset. And it has an SD (Secure Digital) flash memory card slot that is SDIO (SD Input/ Output) compliant - meaning it can accommodate peripheral devices, such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth network interface cards, as well as memory cards.

Easy-to-Use Camera

The integrated VGA (640x480-pixel) digital camera and slick, easy-to-use picture taking software push the i700 into the very cool category.

The camera lens, mounted in the top edge of the body, swivels 270 degrees. It can swivel into the body of the i700 for protection, restoring the clean lines of the chassis. In fact it's difficult to tell there is a camera when it’s folded away.

The lens also swivels all the way around so you can hold the unit up in front of you, look at the screen as a viewfinder and shoot ahead --or you could hold it down low for more candid shooting.

With the Samsung DigitALL Camera software running, the top half of the i700's screen becomes the view finder - a bigger LCD viewfinder than most dedicated digital cameras.

The lower half includes an at-a-glance settings menu. You can choose the picture storage location, change the image size (160x120, 320x240, 640x480 pixels), adjust exposure (Normal, Brighter, Brightest, Darker, Darkest) and select image quality (Normal, Fine, Best). A Settings menu on the main menu bar also lets you adjust White Balance.


i700 Side View

To the right of the quick Settings menu is a big shutter button that is can be pressed with an index finger instead of the stylus. There is also a self-timer (3, 6, 9 or 12 seconds).

From the View menu on the main menu bar you can choose to look at the picture you just shot or thumbnails of all recent shots. Once you're viewing an image, you can use the Send menu to send it as an attachment to e-mail or by infrared.

Don't expect great quality from the i700's camera - you certainly won't want this to be your only camera. The pictures I took at the largest pixel size and best quality were fuzzy and noisy and often poorly exposed. But they're good enough for taking fun pictures to e-mail or to remind yourself what something looked like.

As with most phone cameras, the lack of a flash somewhat reduces the value proposition. It will be difficult, for example, to take useful pictures of products at a trade show because of the low indoor light.