A cruel individual might say that the Samsung E950 is only different by virtue of its touchpad-style control pad; otherwise it’s just the same old slider that the company has been rolling out for some time now.  Thankfully, Live Chat Plaza is a little more forgiving than that: they’ve at least given the E950 a chance to shine in their review.  Whether or not it makes the most of that opportunity is another thing.

The successor to the E900, the E950 seems to be a phone of half-fulfilled promises.  Yes, there’s a 3-megapixel camera, but it lacks autofocus and produces only average photos; yes, there’s a clever touch-sensitive interface, but the response can be “dodgy at times”; yes, the web browser is good, but the Office documents viewer is slow, and Java apps can apparently only be installed via WAP.

Will that put people off?  Probably not – it’s a reasonably attractive handset, and Samsung have a good reputation among many buyers.  Would I pick it myself?  After reading this review, no, I don’t think I would.