Samsung U900 Soul

The humble mobile telephone may be primarily concerned with communication first and foremost but the last ten or so years have proven beyond all doubt that consumers often favour design over functionality. Whereas mobiles from the early '90s were chunky, plastic-ridden affairs, more recently we've seen a sharp rise in the number of 'fashion' phones, crafted with the express purpose of making consumers drool with desire.

The Samsung U900 'Soul' is almost certainly aimed at satisfying the aesthetically-minded modern consumer. The love affair begins from the moment you pick it up and cradle it inquisitively in your palm; the tasteful combination of brushed metal and glossy plastic is brought to life by the clean, sharp lines of the case design. This is unquestionably a phone that has been constructed with the express purpose of turning heads, and it does so with aplomb.

While it's obviously comfortable with being easy on the eye, the U900 possesses a pleasingly robust build quality, too. The thin casing is solid and creek-free, and the slider mechanism feels reassuringly dependable.

Switching the phone on reveals more impressive features; the much-hyped 'Magical Touch Interface' may not be as startlingly original as Samsung would have you believe (we've seen it previously on the company's E950, and several other manufacturers are utilizing similar technology) but it's still a neat addition. Essentially a touch pad overlaid on a traditional LCD screen, Magical Touch is a context-sensitive interface.

For example, when you're casually browsing the menu system of the phone it displays four directional arrows and an 'Ok' symbol in the middle. Fire up the MP3 player, however, and various commands appear (such as playlist view, pause, skip track, etc). Drop back to the standby screen and four shortcuts materialise, granting easy access to your most-used features, such as contacts, text messaging and media playback.

The sheer 'wow' factor of this aspect of the U900 cannot be understated – it's likely to garner positive comments from anyone who claps eyes on it. However, vacuous posing aside, this interface is marred by some rather disappointing issues. For starters, there's some horrendous lag when inputting commands; simply moving your cursor around the screen takes much longer than it realistically should and browsing becomes a chore as a result.

This kind of latency is a common problem with touchscreen displays but it seems much worse here; when compared to the LG Secret (which is arguably the closest rival to the U900 currently available on the market) it feels like you're navigating the interface in painfully protracted slow-motion.

As you can imagine, this has disastrous ramifications for the gaming capabilities of the U900. Any title that requires lightening-fast reaction on behalf of the player is rendered unfeasible thanks to the sloth-like response speed of the Magical Touch Interface. The lack of an accelerometer also means that the phone can't fall back on motion-controlled games, either.

Putting this disappointment aside for a second, there's still plenty to like here. The five-megapixel camera takes excellent shots (even better than the LG Secret) and the MP3 player is ably supported by Bang & Olufsen's ICEpower technology, which results in some of the highest-quality playback we've yet heard on a mobile phone. It's a shame then that the U900 doesn't sport a 3.5mm headphone jack, although the bundled cans are of an above-average standard.

It's clear that Samsung isn't trying to encroach on the more technically-minded sector of the mobile phone market with the U900. There's no wi-fi, for example, and when placed alongside the likes of the Nokia N96 or the all-conquering Apple iPhone 3G, the specifications look depressingly tame. Other negatives include poor battery life and a rather awkward web-browser – and those of you that like to travel should note this is tri-band rather than quad-band.

However, it's pretty clear that many consumers out there don't want their handsets to be the digital equivalent of the Swiss army knife. The U900 positively drips with style and finesse and for that reason will probably encourage many users to take the plunge when shopping for a new phone. These people will probably be perfectly content with their purchase, too. Regardless of this, it's a crying shame that Samsung wasn't able to compliment those killer looks with a more technically accomplished and – crucially – gamer-friendly product.