At first glance, the i450 isn’t much to look at. The dark-grey casing (it also comes in white) and rounded corners are fairly generic, and sliding it up reveals the usual numeric keypad with a flat RAZR-esque design. But slide it up the other way, and it’s the equivalent of Clark Kent jumping into a phone booth and emerging as Superman. Instead of a cape and red undies, though, you get a Bang & Olufsen ICEpower amplifier and an eye-catching red touch-wheel.

Add to that one of the most intuitive audio programs we’ve come across on a mobile phone, and it amounts to a stellar music-playing experience. The i450 doesn’t have any dedicated media buttons, however sliding the screen up automatically launches the relevant software. Tracks are organised by ID3 tag and you can scroll through lists using the red touch-wheel navigator on the left or the five-way navigation pad on the right. We prefer the latter, though, as scrolling is hard to control with the touch-wheel.

Mobile phone speakers are usually plagued by deficiencies in bass and volume, but the i450 suffers from neither of these problems. Befitting its name, the ICEpower amplifier delivers a powerful and full-bodied sound that doesn’t distort at full volume. For private listening, the i450 comes with a full-sized 3.5mm headphone jack so you can use your own headphones, but, oddly, it retains the proprietary combo charge/headset/PC port of other Samsung mobiles and only includes headphones that use the latter connector.

Given the i450’s generous dimensions, the paltry 40MB of internal storage is a let-down, but it comes with a 2GB microSD card in the box. If that’s not enough for you, it also supports high capacity memory cards and recognised our 8GB SanDisk microSDHC card with no dramas.

If it was just the music feature that it had going for it, the i450 would have a hard time justifying its price tag. But the Samsung outdoes itself by using the excellent Series 60 3^rd edition operating system - usually only found on high-end Nokia smartphones. It’s an OS that’s not only easy to use, but has an active developer community, giving the i450 access to thousands of free and commercial third party programs that have previously been exclusive to Nokias.

The two-megapixel camera located on the rear is frill-free, with common features like auto focus, macro mode, scene modes and digital zoom all missing. But if you take most of your photos during the day, you’ll be pleased with the results in natural lighting, and the shutter speed and startup times are fast. Photos taken indoors or at night are predictably grainy, and the weak flash and adjustable white balance and brightness aren’t much help.

As far as phone functionality goes, call quality and reception are above average. Network connectivity consists of tri-band GSM coverage, 3G and HSDPA, and battery life is quoted at 5.1 hours talk time and 515 hours standby.

With most phones in this price bracket looking like they’ve just stepped off a Parisian runway, the i450’s lack of eye candy makes it an easy phone to overlook. Scratch past the surface, though, and it’s a deceptively powerful mobile with lots to offer the discerning shopper.