Samsung SGH-i450 Beat DARK BLUE (Unlocked TriBand), 3G, Music Phone

Out of the box, Samsung phones often struggle to impress. Maybe it's the egg-carton packaging that Samsung uses, or perhaps it's the gun-metal grey plastic bodies of recent Samsung phones, but the G600 and i450 have both made poor first impressions, defying their much hyped features.

Sliding the i450 open to reveal its recessed keypad did little to raise our opinion; a flat plastic layer with numbers defined by tiny raised strips. It was only when we slid the body in the opposite direction that we encountered the first of many pleasant surprises.