Sometimes you could be forgiven for thinking the candybar handset is dead. But in fact it is alive and kicking, and even blingy old Samsung takes a pot-shot at it from time to time. The Lucido is well worth a look because it is a solidly made, competent candybar handset with outstanding battery life.

The Lucido is relatively slim at 11.8mm (the remaining dimensions are 114mm tall, 46.3mm wide and just 88g). The large number keys will suit those who find many handsets a fiddle to use and the navigation key is nicely raised from its surroundings, again easing use.

The screen is a little squished. It measures just 2.2 inches across diagonal corners. It is, though, bright and clear thanks to being an OLED display, and its 320 x 240 pixels are enough to deliver sharp images.

This handset isn't short on features. Though there's no Wi-Fi you do get HSDPA to 7.2Mbps download as the headline figure. 110MB of built in storage is fairly generous and there is a microSD card slot to let you boost that if you need to. GPS is built in too, but there's no navigation or mapping software pre-installed. You can download Google Maps to get started.

You can geotag photos shot with the 5-megapixel main camera. It has a panorama mode and autofocus among its key features and it performed fairly well during testing. We'd be prepared to use it for shots we wanted to keep permanently, though would prefer a dedicated digital camera for the job. There is no macro mode, though, which is a pity. There is a front camera for two-way video calling.

Viewing images on the phone is a bit of a treat. The handset includes an accelerometer and the screen turns into wide mode as you twist the phone in your hand. More interestingly, you can run through images by tilting the phone, which is rather fun to do and useful as the Lucido does not have a touchscreen.

It is a bit irritating that the headset connector is mini-USB rather than 3.5mm, but the provided headset is two-piece and there is a 3.5mm connector past the microphone so you can use your own favoured earphones if you want to.

What really impresses, though, is the battery life. With no vast screen to maintain Samsung quotes 7.1 hours of talk and 400 hours on standby. We asked the phone to play music non-stop and it did so for a little short of 16 and a half hours. That's very good going. More anecdotally we had no trouble getting through a couple of days between charges.

Add in features like an FM radio and music playback and the Lucido comes out as a solid all-rounder in candybar format.

Verdict
The Samsung Lucido lacks wow-factor in terms of design, and has no Wi-Fi. But it is suitable for the thick-of-thumb and has superb battery life.

Company: Samsung

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