Photos: Samsung F480, G810, i780, F490 and Soul

It would be a massive understatement to say that Samsung announced a few new phones at the Mobile World Congress this year. We've simply never seen so many handsets being unveiled in one go and some of them were pretty good, too.

We spent some quality time with some of the best ones so that you can see what's going to be on offer from Samsung this year. From touchscreen tigers to camera commandos, Samsung is laying down the gauntlet in almost every mobile segment.

Samsung F480
The first phone to draw our attention was the Samsung F480, a touchscreen beauty that comes laden with features and boasts a new fancy interface. If you look closely you'll see an option on the bottom right of the screen that allows you to add widgets to the start screen.

The F480 feels a lot less rushed than the F700, which we recently reviewed. This is a much slicker phone that looks and feels like a quality product on the inside and outside. Its features do it justice too, with a veritable jamboree of things on offer.

There's HSDPA (3.5G) for fast access to the Internet, vibrating feedback from the touchscreen so you know when you've touched the screen, a 5-megapixel camera with autofocus and an expandable microSD slot. All of this combined with the large screen makes an attractive offering.

Click on the next page for more pictures and information on Samsung's many new handsets. -Anrdew Lim

Update: a Samsung Soul hands-on video is now on the site

Further update: Read our full Samsung Soul U900 review, our full Samsung i780 review and our full Samsung Tocco review.

The Samsung F480's metal casing makes it feel solid but it's not a heavy handset. Here, you can see the 5-megapixel camera with LED photo light. Aside from being able to shoot standard pictures and video, you'll also be able to shoot slow motion videos.

From the short time we managed to spend with the F480 it made us feel that Samsung is taking touchscreen phones very seriously and we're very excited about getting cosy with the F480 in the coming months.

Samsung G810
Definitely one of the most exciting handsets on offer, the Samsung G810 doesn't pull its punches. This slider phone feels and looks a lot like the G800, which we reviewed late last year, but it's got so many more features crammed inside.

Similar to the G800, the G810 has a 5-megapixel camera with autofocus, 3x inner optical zoom and a xenon flash -- that's where the similarities end. The G810 runs on a Symbian OS, which means you can install tonnes of apps on to it, such as maps and dictionaries.

The G810 also comes with Wi-Fi, HSPDA (3.5G), GPS and a photo geotagging service that lets you attach the exact location of a picture taken with the G810's camera. Last but definitely not least, it includes a 3.5mm headphone jack so that you can plug in your own headphones.

Protecting the G810's impressive 5-megapixel camera is a large sliding cover. We had a quick go with the G810's camera and we were impressed with how fast the shutter was -- all you had to do was push the button and it immediately took a picture.

Samsung i780
Windows Mobile handsets are rarely described as sexy, but the i780 could buck that trend. Aside from noticing how slim and attractive the casing looked, we clocked how lightweight the i780 felt when we picked it up.

The Qwerty keypad felt easy to press and there's an optical sensor in place of a four-way mechanical key, allowing you to scroll through emails or contacts by just brushing your thumb against it.

But it's the i780's features that got us hot under the collar -- GPS, HSPDA (3.5G) and Wi-Fi combine to give users access to the Internet and their emails almost everywhere they go. Add to that a large screen and you've got a great business device and sat-nav.

At 13mm thin the Samsung i780 is impressively tiny given how many features it has. Overall, we liked what we saw, but we were disappointed that the i780 only has a 2-megapixel camera.

Samsung F490
Although you'd assume that the F490 is the F480's successor, it's actually a lot more like the F700 than any other Samsung handset with the exception that it doesn't have a keypad. In all honesty, we weren't completely bowled over by this one.

The F490 has a large colour touchscreen, HSDPA (3.5G), a 5-megapixel camera with autofocus and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Using F490's interface felt a lot like using the F700's and it's for that reason that we didn't jump for joy when we picked it up.

Seeing more and more 3.5mm headphone jacks on phones at the Mobile World Congress was a real relief, and we sincerely hope that this trend continues so that all phones in the future come with these jacks as standard.

While we did appreciate what the Samsung F490 had to offer, we didn't feel like it really pushed the boundaries and it just felt too much like an F700 rather than a whole new upgrade. Our first impressions are that this isn't an iPhone killer, even if it looks like one.

Samsung Soul
Saving the show's headliner for last, we're slightly bemused as to why there was so much press around this handset. Both LG and Samsung seemed to think that the most exciting feature to offer people is a dual-screen interface setup.

The top screen acts as a normal display and the bottom one changes depending on what feature you're using. Admittedly, LG's dual display on the KF600 is more advanced but we're not completely sold on the idea either way -- it's just not needed, really.

Update: a Samsung Soul hands-on video is now on the site

That said, the Soul does have a 5-megapixel camera and HSPDA (3.5G), which can't be scoffed at. But we just can't figure out why Samsung made this phone its star instead of a phone like the F480. Yes, it looks different, but is that enough for the consumer?

If we had to choose our top two Samsung handsets of the show, we'd go for the Samsung F480 and G810 for their range of features and sexy looks. Hopefully, we'll get to review all of Samsung's new handsets soon to give you a closer, more in-depth look at them too.