Rather than taking the convergent approach with their latest range of handsets, Samsung focuses on a  salient feature with each device.

Whilst the Omnia line-up offers Windows-powered smart phones and Tocco was the original mark of a Samsung touch-driven device, the Pixon brand is all about snapping and papping with a great camera.

The Samsung Pixon 12 follows up the original M8800 Pixon, giving close to dedicated camera functionality in a mobile phone by being the world’s first to offer a 12 megapixel lens.

Does size matter enough to stand out in the market, or is the Pixon12 putting all its pixellated eggs in one basket? Let’s find out!

Design and specs:

Despite sporting the now ubiquitous rectangular form factor that typifies a touch screen phone, the Pixon 12’s flipside gives away the camera credentials straight away.

The front is home to a nicely sized and refreshingly responsive 3.1” AMOLED touch screen, with the staple three buttons beneath for call answering, ending and menu selection.

The burnished metal finish on the keys and metallic detailing on the edges are nice, but admittedly the only distinguishing features of the handset from almost any other in Samsung’s touch phone range. The Jet, Tocco Lite, even the original Pixon bear more of a passing resemblance to this new addition.

Whilst we are big fans of the ‘if it ain’t broke’ mentality when it comes to form factor, one would have expected a slightly more striking design from a supposed flagship handset.

It certainly attracted some indifference from friends when whipped out in public…until they saw the back, that is.

The rear of the device is the spitting image of a digital camera to all intents and purposes as the huge 12 megapixel wide lens dominates the form by jutting an inch from the handset, whilst a handy rubberized grip at the base keeps the slick Pixon 12 firmly in the clutches.  

The lens is blessed with a protective cover, and the camera is also considered special enough to have it’s own dedicated little red button (adjacent to the shutter key) to spark it into life. Great for that quick-as-a-flash photo opportunity, a little pointless the rest of the time…

On the right side of the device this emergency button is joined by the volume rocker/zoom bar, whilst the left is home to the microSD card slot and lock key.

The top is home to a microUSB slot, which doubles as an audio jack for the proprietary headphones. A 3.5mm port is only available via an adaptor unfortunately, but it is supplied in the box.

Despite looking sturdy, the Pixon 12 weighs a surprisingly light 120g and is only a shade larger than its finger-friendly stablemates at 108mm x 53mm x 13.8mm, no mean feat considering the amount of camera phone tech on board.

Booting up the device brings us to the now-familiar Samsung TouchWiz interface, replete with the widgets, swiping and graphical flourishes we have come to expect. This ‘2.0’ iteration is a little faster than that found on earlier devices offering 3 screens to fill with customisable home screen apps, a la the i8910 HD.

From clocks to calendars, Google search to games, widgets can be placed to your convenience across these panels. The initial promise of plenty more downloadable widgets to the device is present, yet not fully realised.

Some are alternative clocks or weather apps, others merely shortcuts to websites rather than bringing a genuine sense of individuality and fun to the handset. Hopefully the Samsung Application Store can fill that gap when support is rolled out to other devices in their range.

A traditional grid menu does the honours as far as general navigation goes, with everything clearly set out and quick-access shortcuts to messaging and calls at the bottom. Far more practical than the 3D trickery and MotionGate waggle controls of the Samsung Jet, we think.

Battery life was impressive, the flash and gaming tended to drain the juice far quicker than usual, and despite nearer 7 hours of talktime than the touted 10, a hard weekend of snapping and chatting still saw plenty of power left over.

Imaging

Let’s face it, this is sole the reason that the Pixon 12 has come to market, and the camera quality does not disappoint.

The first handset (in the West, anyway) to sport a 12 megapixel lens, the Samsung Pixon 12 is equipped with image stabilization, object tracking auto focus, and both a power LED and Xenon flash to ensure the highest quality images in low-light conditions.

This camera on the Pixon 12 is nothing short of phenomenal. The detail, clarity and richness of colour in images easily rivals a dedicated digital camera, whilst eliminating those endemic problems found on phones like slow shutter speed.

The Pixon 12 takes, processes and presents the picture in just over a second, and almost as quickly as you can press the shutter button without the image preview function on.

The digital zoom also fares very well, with image stabilization seeming to counter much of the shake often found in pictures from camera phones with slow shutter speeds.

The touch interface is the usual Samsung layout; the various settings flank the left and right edges, and the myriad options are fairly quick to get the hang of.

If even the idea of variable aperture speeds and dynamic ranges is enough to send your head spinning, the Pixon 12 thankfully has a Smart Auto default mode, which intelligently chooses the best settings based on current surroundings. It is very clever, and still produces excellent photos without you having to take an amateur photography class first!

Zooming into pictures taken on the largest 4000 x 3000 resolution does admittedly show a fair amount of noise in darker blacks and stronger colours tend to become muted in low light, but photos like this just did not come from anything other than a high end camera before the Pixon 12.

The strength of the flash makes shooting after dark a breeze, with bars and clubs that normally make mincemeat of lesser camera phones easily being illuminated by the Pixon's powerful Xenon flash.

Video, however, is less than stellar. Not bad by any means, the Pixon 12 is able to take D1 quality videos at 30 frames per second, and they were perfectly serviceable. 

Spoiled by the impressive still image quality, the moving pictures fell far more in line with standard camera phones, paling in comparison to a dedicated camcorder but still looking pretty good.

A second camera on the Pixon 12 enables video calls, which are still as expensive, jerky and impractical as ever, although through no fault of the device itself.

Sample Images

Full high res images to come!

Multimedia

The media management is very reminiscent of the i8910 HD, with an array of audio and video formats supported and nested in easy to navigate folders.

The music player was fine with MP3, AAC and the like, whilst the video player was happy with even the most obscure formats that we threw at it, playing back clearly and stutter-free.

However, the 150MB of internal memory was not nearly enough for the media we put on it, so an large memory card is a must, particularly if using the camera at full resolution.

Image browsing ‘takes advantage’ of the accelerometer, meaning that tilting the handset scrolls through pictures, and it is still a frustrating experience to see the desired picture slide off into the ether just because the handset was on a wonk.

However, a swipe on the touch screen itself made for a more pleasant navigation method of cycling through pictures

Also, there is a ‘thumbnail’ view that fills the screen with 16 photos at a time, just like a digital camera and making the process of looking through hundreds of photos for a particular set far easier.

Calling and connectivity

Yes, it is still a phone after all, something than Samsung has not overlooked with the Pixon 12’s feature set.

The handset is fully connected with 3G HSDPA, Wi-Fi support and Bluetooth v2.0 for users to go online wherever they are, as well as transfer those larger photos wirelessly if required.

Naturally, the old-fashioned USB way is available, and more than a little quicker when each 12-megapixel photo is over 3MB in size!

The new Samsung Jet shares the Dolfin browser, and the results here are equally above average. Novelties like flash support and one-touch zooming are supplementary as opposed to hindering the experience, and made surfing the web far smoother than expected.

Over both 3G and Wi-Fi sites loaded up relatively quickly, and the Pixon 12 had enough memory to render all but the most bloated of websites in its internal memory.

Calling and messaging share equally as much as the Jet, competent touch-driven software allows contacts to be scrollable through Rolodex-style images, texts and e-mails can be rattled off with little difficulty on the virtual QWERTY or alphanumeric keypads, and the call quality was trouble free, even in areas with notoriously poor signal pick-up.

The widgets are cleverly integrated with calls and messaging, as new and missed ones pop up on the display, and the turn-to-mute feature is a simple one, but still more than a little cool when performed at an opportune moment…

Verdict

Focusing on offering an excellent camera phone above all else, Samsung has managed to pack almost every required feature and the Pixon 12 ends up besting even the mighty Nokia N86 8MP in terms of sheer performance.

Whilst the traditional digital camera still has enough tricks up like an optical zoom to keep daylight between itself and the Pixon 12, the fact that the device can stand up under comparison to a point-and-shoot and come out favourably is an amazing feat.

To wrap a great mobile around a camera, complete with all of the features and functionality one might expect from a smart phone, makes the Pixon 12 all the more impressive. 

The strong camera credentials force the Pixon 12 to trade blows with Symbian-powered smart phones like the forthcoming Sony Ericsson Satio and Samsung i8910 HD, so the lack of applications, customization and ‘wow’ factor certainly work against it, especially with a slightly hefty price tag.

However, at a time where ‘convergence’ has become a buzzword and many phones are attempting to offer all things to all people, the Samsung M8910 Pixon 12 is a welcome respite.

It might not appeal hugely to the mass market, but those looking for a camera phone to the core will find the Pixon 12 a handset that stands head and shoulders above the competition.