The Tocco Icon is a tiny phone aimed at social networkers. With a chrome trim and back back (which is rather fingerprint prone) it’s quite attractive. Hardly a surprise at this price are the cheap-feeling volume and power buttons feel a little cheap, although there’s a slide-out cover to protect the micro USB port from dust.
What we like
You don’t get Android here, instead the phone is running a Samsung Proprietary UI overlayed with TouchWiz 3.0, a variation of that seen on the Samsung Galaxy S2. Swipe down from the top to view Notifications and quickly toggle WiFi, Bluetooth and audio on/off.
The Tocco Icon is fairly simple to use. Swap between and close open applications by holding down the main control button and press it once to launch the main menu. Pre-installed are a selection of applications including Facebook, Twitter and You Tube – basically everything you need to get started. Customise three homescreens with a selection of widgets, including Google, LinkedIn and Samsung Apps and you can also change the main menu layout by moving icons around a grid.
Still 3-megapixels pictures taken using the camera are pretty good, in bright light they are generally sharp and certainly good enough to upload to Facebook or YouTube. Plug in a good pair of headphones to the 3.5 mm jack and mp3 sound quality is actually pretty good, the music interface is very simple to use, although you can’t get features like playists.
Connectivity is impressive for such as small phone. With ‘N’ WiFi and a 3.5mm jack. On-board memory is only 30MB and the 1GB card that came with our unit (card capacity may vary depending on your operator) filled up really quickly.
The Tocco Icon lets you sync multiple email accounts and includes Exchange Active Sync, it doesn’t support push email, so you do have to connect to download the latest emails.
One of the most impressive things about the Tocco Icon is the battery, we used it for a full day, with browsing, calls and music playback and the indicator barely dropped down.
What we don’t like
Althoygh the screen is a good size, the resolution of 240×400 it’s very low so everything looks blocky, although YouTube playback is smooth.
The screen is capacitive, so you don’t get support for multitouch, so browsing on the Tocco Icon is not fluid and best for occasional use. Tap the arrow at the bottom to view a small panel with forward, back, menu, bookmark and close commands, but zooming in is a real pain – you have to tap fiddly on-screen arrows.
The main problem with the phone is that it’s too sluggish – it keeps running out of memory. Leave Facebook, Social Networking and Email open, you won’t have enough memory to run the browser.
Widget choice is a little limited too, for instance you can have shortcuts for the camera on the homescreen. Without the customisation of Android you are limited with what you can display on screen: Feeds and Updates pulls in your Twitter and Facebook updates and takes up a whole screen.
Avoid using the Tocco Icon for filming video. Not only is the 320×240 resolution very low, but it’s juddery and really struggles with different shooting conditions. Camera features are limited to white balance and scene mode, so there’s no means of controlling the noise which appears in dark areas and they are a little soft.
Verdict
Online the Tocco Icon retails for around £80 – a relatively low price considering you get WiFi and some useful – and has some really interesting features for anyone keen on social networking. Although this puts this in the same category as the Vodafone Smart, which offers Android and 3G and the Orange Stockholm, which are both superior phones.
Specification
| OS | Proprietary |
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