Today is the last day before I return the Samsung SGH-i550 to Samsung Mobile and BlogMob tomorrow. While I didn’t write my reviews as many as Phone Lover Ng Jun Yan or as many pictures as possible like Jolene Lai,

I have at pretty much cover the basics / selected features of the phone, mainly the GPS, 3.0 mega pixel camera, Symbian Series 60 operating system and design. I didn’t want to blog about every single feature as I still have my stuffs to be posted and the users are able to explore the phone on its own.

I like,

1) Trackball. (No joy sticks / joy pads)
2) GPS.
3) Wifi.
4) Symbian Series 60.
5) Appealing design. (To me, at least)
6) 3.0 mega pixel camera.
7) Rotate-able screen when internet surfing.
8) 2.6″ TFT LCD display.

I dislike,

1) Trackball. (Take ages to move across the screen in GPS)
2) No option to switch off wifi. (Wifi is always on)
3) Slow GPS. (Very slow in pin pointing the exact / current location)
4) Relatively slow auto focusing speed.
5) Absence of Xenon flash.
6) Battery life could be better.

That pretty much sum up my experience with the Samsung SGH-i550. Generally, I am quite satisfied with the phone, considering I was juggling between my Sony Ericsson P1i and the Samsung SGH-i550. For those who are seeking for something different (Read : Other brands.) and wants to power of Symbian Series 60 and GPS, this is the phone you should look out for. For the price, you sure get a lot of features and power punched into this hand held device. In fact, I have already found someone to buy the phone.

I would like to say a million thanks to BlogMob and Samsung Mobile for giving me the first and probably the last chance to review a phone for a period of time at no strings attached. Thanks guys!

The Samsung SGH-i550 series :
The Kick Off
The Outlook
The Specifications & Symbian Series 60
The 3.0 Mega Pixel Camera
The Summary

For the past two months, I actually met a few bloggers, which I didn’t blog about as what we did was just another day in Malacca. Same old place, same old food, same old picture but with different people.

Robin Wong of robinwong.blogspot.com. Read his side of story by clicking here.

Tho Xin Yi of a random blog. Technically speaking, I knew her as my colleague first, before knowing that she blogs too.

Mochii of michystudio.blogspot.com. Read her side of story by clicking here.

Rachel of roym1002.blogspot.com. Read her side of story by clicking here.

Pelf Yeen of pelfychen.com. I call her Mei Mei, which I got to know during the last Spirit of Penang.

I sure hope I didn’t miss out anyone.

The Samsung SGH-i550 is equipped with GPS (Global Positioning System) as well, which is starting to be a very popular feature among the higher end mobile phones. Of course, it is a phone based GPS and not a true GPS system / device, hence, the reliability is somewhat questionable. While that may not be true, I have yet to see one that is able to function as good as a GPS device.

NAVFone is pre-installed inside the phone. I don’t know how many GPS software out there and since I never use any before, I can’t make comparison. For that, I shall comment on the software based on what are the features that I would want when I get a GPS device.

The interface is pretty simple, but getting it to work is a little tricky. The map basically showed the main roads and some smaller roads, but definitely not a complete map. For the historical city, most of the major roads are labeled and displayed as it is. In fact, the map of Malacca itself is pretty complete itself. Well, am not going to do a whole print screen of the map.

Upon entering the keyword in the search box, you will have a list of results (including roads, buildings, landmarks, points and etc.) that are nearby, at or within the searched location.

For this post, it would be easier to demonstrate on the function of GPS and how to use it. For starters, I have selected my house, which isn’t not too far away from the red box and then set it as my starting point.

In this software, I can’t seem to pin point my location even though I have a “Where am I?” option. Upon clicking the “Where am I?” option, it would prompt me to connect GPS and / or enable GSM, which neither able to pin point my location except staying idle. Is it working, that function? would take up to 10 minutes to locate your location.

Dataran Pahlawan, a landmark that one would never miss in Malacca, would be our destination. Dataran Pahlawan is currently Malacca’s biggest mall, built right on the field where our first prime minister Tunku Abdul Rahman first proclaimed independence during 1957. Yes, the first place was in Malacca, not KL’s Dataran Merdeka. Today, its a shopping mall.

Starting point, set! Destination, set! Play the route and the software will guide you to your destination on its own. However, if you are connected to the GPS, you won’t have the “play route” option. Instead of constantly referring to the screen, there’s a voice that would “speak” to you, telling you when to turn, where to turn, which lane to keep to and etc.. You can switch the voice off, if you want some quiet moments in the car.

You can toggle the screen with three different views.

If you don’t like the NAVFone software, you can also use Google Maps. Yes, pre-installed as well. I am pretty sure everyone is familiar with Google Maps and how powerful it can be. It requires an internet connection to function, so, if you are on the move, GPRS / EDGE / 3G is your only option. Because of that, be prepared to pay for your hefty usage of data transfer.

Weirdly, I can’t seem to get the phone to detect any GPS satellite and hence, not able to use the GPS function to its fullest.

Well, while the phone is equipped with GPS function, it takes a really long time to pin point your location. I mean really long and you definitely need to be in open space / outdoors for the phone to track down the GPS satellite. While I welcome the GPS feature in phones, I do hope it could detect my location in, say, less than a minute?

The Samsung SGH-i550 series :
The Kick Off
The Outlook
The Specifications & Symbian Series 60
The 3.0 Mega Pixel Camera

Continuing from Kluang - Part 1, we woke up at 7 o’clock in the morning so that we could join Raymond to go back to his secondary school, Sekolah Menengah Taman Kluang Barat, for a forum.

The two hours forum was organized so that two of the top students, Raymond Lopez and Fadzlie Wong, would give some tips and pointers to the current students in tackling examinations questions, the proper way to study, time management and etc.. Well, that being said, everything they said was *coughs* useful and truthful *coughs*. Time table? Mind mapping? Three hours of studying per day? Ironic. Haha!

After the forum, we went to Kluang railway station for the original Kluang coffee. Yes, the original Kluang station, not the franchised and over priced one. As the name speaks for itself, it is located just next to the railway. Duh! It’s really loud and noisy whenever the train leaves the station, with the occasionally loud horn. Nostalgic, perhaps?

It was about 11am and just about the right time for brunch. Luckily, there was an empty table when we arrived and probably the best seat of all, which was right in front of the “water station”.

The guy or probably the boss is the one making all the drinks. One kettle after another kettle, he just kept making them non stop. One step to another, his movement was nothing but smooth, as if he was playing some tai chi moves. One part of hot water, two parts of coffees, nothing more nothing less. We chatted a bit, with him telling us a little bit of the shop’s history and some casual conversations with the locals (Raymond and Fadzlie).

Tea, anyone?

The price is awfully cheap. Nothing close to the franchised kopitiams.

We ordered kaya and butter toast bread with iced coffee. The bread, is not the usual squarish bread, but the soft and round bread. Slightly toasted on the outside, with a thick slice of butter and oozing out kaya, totally opposite of the stingy franchised counterparts.

Soft boiled eggs and iced coffee. Just nice for a light brunch.

We left the place and went to have chendol, the Indian style. The guy operates at some back lane facing the main road, wearing a beret, which reminded me of Jamie Hyneman of Mythbusters. You can see his glowing and shinning white teeth standing out and screaming for attention.

The chendol is the watery kind, full of coconut milk and red beans. Unlike the Malacca’s, flooded with gula melaka. It was about noon when we had our chendol and the icy chendol came at the right time to wash down the heat.

Well, that’s about it. We headed back home for lunch after that and left for Malacca at 6pm. We did stop at an organic dragon fruit farm and Muar for dinner but that’s another story. Moreover, I didn’t take any pictures when we were in Muar. Plain tired.

Road trip, came just at the right time. It was tiring and rather simple / boring, but it was satisfying nonetheless.

It’s always that exciting and am grateful whenever my ex-house mates turn up at the front door of my house. Their presence is equivalent to some noises in the house, not eating lunch or dinner alone, not feeling lonely for the mean time, fun filled activities and of course, laughters.

Gabriel Ho and Raymond Lopez were in Malacca for a few days to run some errands and chill out for two days before heading to Kluang (Raymond’s hometown) for the weekends. Well, I am skipping the Malacca part as there’s nothing much worth blogging about.

Since I have nothing on for the weekends, I decided to join them to pay Kluang a visit since I needed a short break cum road trip as well.

The journey from Malacca to Kluang took us roughly 90 minutes, with Raymond driving at 110km/h along the North-South Highway while I was frustratingly munching on a chili sauce-less MegaMac. Welcome to Kluang, a small town after Muar and Yong Peng and also the origin of Kluang Coffee Station.

I brought along my Samsung SGH-i550 to test the GPS, but I guess the town wasn’t big enough to be fully indexed in the map. It didn’t help much.

Our “hotel” was none other than Raymond’s house, with free home cooked food for lunch and dinner. Most importantly, the room we bunked in has air conditioner, which was the holy Saviour considering the insanely hot weather.

After our lunch, we ended up sitting in front of the idiot box watching Alien : Resurrection until evening time while Raymond went to town to run some errands. Came evening time, we took a walk around his housing area, which is not too far from the Kluang recreation and sports center. It has a rather huge but shallow (2m depth) and happening swimming pool in it. Nope, no hot chicks in bikini spotted. Moreover, I don’t have zoom lens.

I don’t know what Gabriel was doing, but he sure looked like he was posing at a bus stop.

The housing area is pretty calm and quiet. Although there are plenty of open fields, I didn’t see people strolling, jogging, walking the dog or playing football. Things are pretty laid back in Kluang, I supposed. It is definitely an ideal place for retired people, as Raymond’s mom said.

After the stroll, we headed out to town to buy tickets for Iron Man and settled for a drink at Old Taste Kopitiam. The shopping mall wasn’t that happening for a Friday evening.

It was the second time for both of them, but my forth time. I can’t believe I watched Iron Man four times within three days of its release. I watched twice on its first day (April 30 @ 12pm and 12.30 midnight), third time with Aprilcherrie, Brandon, Wen Jing and Damion (May 1) and forth show on May 2. Coincidently, all four shows were watched at MBO.

Well, if we had not watch Iron Man, we would have nothing to do. Not a single thing and being bored wasn’t an option.

To be continued…