Samsung i8510 is hardly the first powerhouse in Samsung’s S60-based portfolio, it’s considerably different from all their offerings in this segment. For starters, let’s recall what other phones Samsung can offer here: as far as its latest solutions go, these are the i400, i520, i550, i560 and G810. What’s remarkable is that all but one of the above phones are housed in the slider type design, which should come as no surprise, seeing what weight this form-factor has always had in their portfolio. This is actually part of the reason why the Samsung i8510 is also a slider – in fact all their hopes now lie with this handset, as they are aiming to take a stab at Nokia’s very own playground.

Before the arrival of the Samsung G810 all S60-based phones from this Korean manufacturer were, let’s face it, pretty lackluster. Samsung found it vital to maintain the image of a versatile company that could churn out both feature phones and smartphones running S60 and Windows Mobile. Over the last couple of years they have been experimenting with these two platforms and oftentimes their offerings turned out to be mixed bags – always heavy on features but rarely appealing to the mass market. And while things are unlikely to change for the Windows Mobile department any time soon, the situation with S60-based handsets is starting to turn around as the Samsung i8510 is set to take the market by storm. But before we cut to the chase, let us take a few steps back to the fact that with the i8510 Samsung is jumping on Nokia’s own turf. And there are several reasons why we feel this is important.
…

First and foremost, S60 has always been considered the domain of Nokia’s – furthermore, the vast majority of users who have heard of S60 or have a vague notion of what a smartphone is, tend to synonymize S60 with this phone maker. And this mental bond between “Nokia” and “S60″ has been growing stronger over the years.

Secondly, the i8510 is in fact Samsung’s first all-in-one phone running the S60 platform. In other words, they have taken some cues from Nokia and their widely successful N95 and all other iterations that followed (N95 8Gb and N96). While Nokia has been around in this field for years now, Samsung, being new to this game, have managed to deliver the fight right to Nokia’s doorbell. If there is one thing we learned from our quality time with the INNOV8 (another alias of the i8510), is that not only have Samsung implemented all features in a proper fashion, they have also used today’s dearth of premium hi-tech phones to their advantage. All this chemistry has worked out pretty well, to say the least. Apka kya kehna hai..