The Samsung Jet Ultra Edition has recently hit the shelves and, well, no one seems to be sure why because it is the exact same phone as the original Samsung Jet.

The only reason we can think is that the original Jet was just so popular last year, with some 2 million pre-orders, that they wanted to reinvent its success again this year – same they did with the Tocco. But though it looks and sounds identical – even has the same ‘Impatience is Virtue’ tagline – it’s worth a look at it to see what, if anything, has changed.

Like the Samsung Jet, this Ultra Edition is packed with perks. Among those perks are the 3.2” resistive AMOLED screen and though the jury is still out on capacitive vs resistive, the Jet Ultra Edition nevertheless has a highly responsive and fluid display.

The Samsung Jet Ultra has a 5 megapixels camera with LED flash, face and smile detection, autofocus and geo-tagging; fully customisable interface, from the menu to the transition effects and an impressively powerful Qualcomm 800MHz processor.

Most notably, the Jet Ultra Edition also features a great 3D cube, which utilises all 6 sides for quick access to photos, music, videos, radio, games and the web. The cube is accessed by a physical button underneath the touchscreen. If the cube isn’t for you, you can just drop the widgets onto your homescreen for quick access to all your favourites.

The music player is identical to that of the Tocco Ultra Touch, and is reminiscent of iTunes in that when you tilt it to landscape it displays the album artwork, with the current song’s cover displayed in the middle and the previous and next songs displaying left and right respectively. There are a few methods of text-input, with portrait mode allowing alpha-numeric (the same as physical keyboards) and handwriting recognition, while landscape mode brings up a full QWERTY.

This device is a real contender for the smartphone world and a much more powerful and feature-packed reissue. And still geared towards those who want life fast and fun and is no doubt aimed primarily at those who prefer media capabilities over, say, business use.

QUICK-FIRE FEATURES
Display: 3.2” AMOLED resistive touchscreen
Weight: 110g
Dimensions: 108.9 x 53.5 x 11.9 mm
Camera: 5MP autofocus and face-recognition, LED flash, geo-tagging
Video: supported. Added bonus: plays DivX movies with no need for conversion
Music player: MP3, AAC
Operating system: Native OS
Memory: 2GB phone memory, up to 16GB available with SD card
Connectivity: Bluetooth 2.1, microUSB, TV-output, Google Sync, Microsoft Active Sync
Internet: GPRS, EDGE, wifi, 3G

 ★★★★☆ 

by Rich White