Samsung Genio Touch review

Battery life from the Genio was excellent.

Over three days, with frequent calls and text messages, the odd bit of web browsing and the occasional refresh of the email inbox, plus a photography session in which the screen was left almost constantly on for hours, it lost a single bar of battery life.

The 960mAh battery doesn't have to work that hard - with no Wi-Fi or 3G chips to support the Genio merely sips electricity, making this a superb choice if you regularly find yourself away from the mains for a few days.

The ultimate convenience would be being able to charge the Genio via a mini-USB plug, but alas the data connector is proprietary.

Organiser and synchronisation

The ability to use social networking is a definite plus when it comes to using the Genio to keep things together.

In particular, if you use Facebook to keep track of events and so on, the Genio could be a godsend.

However, integration isn't as tight as we'd like. You can't download Facebook events to the phone's calendar, so it won't actually notify you when they're bearing down on you.

And, while there's a reasonable calendar application included, the inability to sync from the internet is a real hassle compared to top-end touchscreen phones.

Synchronisation is another bugbear for anyone in need of a phone that will help keep them organised.

Our review model didn't come with a USB cable in the box, so the only way to keep it synchronised was by painfully slow Bluetooth.

Nor do you get a synchronisation application in the box - instead, you need to download Samsung's PC Studio, a 117MB download.

This is a reasonable piece of work when it comes to copying photos from your phone, and will be user friendly to anyone alarmed by the complexity of Outlook.

However, lack of integration with the latter means you'll need to adopt it as your primary calendar and scheduling application if you're going to get much use from it.