Samsung is getting smart. The brand has introduced mobile phones designed to lure consumers with specific demands.
Samsung is wooing the young with an entry-level touchscreen that comes in bright colours; it’s also trying to please users who want a rugged mobile phone or subdued styling but are willing to pay a bit more.
Samsung Corby
Price: Rs 9,600
Corby comes in bright colours like yellow, pink, white and orange, and thus looks perfect on those with fashion jackets. Primary features of this phone are: a QVGA display of 2.8 inch, MP3 player, 2 megapixel camera, Bluetooth, stereo FM radio and GSM/EDGE connectivity.
The touchscreen is quite responsive, which is good news for users as it works well with even your fingertips. It also integrates a new user interface called haptic feedback system for a slight vibrating confirmation whenever the user picks a selection on the phone.
Corby’s USP is that it comes loaded with social networking applications like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, while photo and video sharing are taken care of by a direct upload feature for sites like YouTube, Flickr, Picasa and Photobucket. But make sure before you buy the phone that you have enrolled for an unlimited data package to avoid the humungous phone bills at the end of the month. Updating status messages on the various social networking sites and receiving updates from friends via a neat pop-up notification feature does add that element of coolness in Corby.
Essentially, if you are looking for a low-cost handset designed to standout while helping in connecting your lifestyle digitally, then get the Samsung Corby that costs just Rs 9,600.
More From This Section
PROs
* An affordable touchscreen device
* Supports ‘one finger zoom’
CONs
* No 3G connectivity
* No accelerometer to enable auto-rotation of screen
Samsung Marine
Price: Rs 7,080
If you are one of those who are prone to dropping their handsets, especially in water, then Samsung Marine is for you. The company claims the handset can survive even after being thrown in one meter of water for up to 30 minutes. We tested their claim and yes, the phone survived the trauma. Being encased in an anti-shock urethane material, the phone does not attract dust and survives accidental drops from a table or even while walking.
Samsung has made this handset so sturdy that it is compliant with military standards. So, it can survive salt fog, extreme heat and cold, and rain, too. We’re not saying that the Marine is indestructible, but it can certainly survive events that will kill another phone.
But this extra tough casing creates a new problem. With everything being fully sealed, audio quality on Marine is slightly muffled. On a normal phone, the microphone and speakers are mounted internally and covered by a mesh or small holes in the casing to allow sound to travel easily. On Marine, everything is sealed and there is a slight but noticeable drop in audio quality as a result.
Talking about other features, the web browser on Marine is fairly poor and can only cope with pages that are intended for mobile viewing. The camera is 1.3 megapixels, which is nothing to boast about, but you definitely won’t be buying the phone for its camera quality. A built-in FM radio, music player and 8GB of expandable memory complete the phone’s feature set.
If you appreciate the toughness of the Samsung Marine (which is the main USP of the phone), you can pick it up for just Rs 7,030.
PROs
* Solid build
* Can survive a fall in water or a splash
CONs
* Poor web browser
* No 3G
Samsung Jet
Price: Rs 24,150
Samsung refers to this one as “smarter than smartphone”, as it still packs some mean hardware under its hood. An 800MHz processor, which is even better than the Apple iPhone, powers the phone and its resistive AMOLED 3.1 inch screen.
This touchscreen, like others, is minimalist when it comes to physical keys, except a diamond-shaped home button. We also loved the shiny red prismatic effect on the back of the phone. Overall, the Samsung Jet looks very elegant. A 5-megapixel camera with an LED flash can produce good pictures in daylight. Photos and video look fine on the Jet’s AMOLED screen and we are really glad to see a 3.5mm headphone jack that allows you to use your own headphones for those favourite tracks. The nippy processor ensures that your videos and music run smoothly. Multitasking and sleek customisable home screen widgets are the main highlights of the Jet’s software platform.
Thanks to the 800MHz processor chip, users can view several webpages at once, all controlled through a page manager. The web browser supports Flash and the touchscreen functionality allows users to zoom in/out simply by double-tapping on the screen. But unlike the iPhone’s capacitive screen, the Jet’s screen is resistive and requires pressure to work. Although it works fine, it’s not as slick as it could be on a device that costs Rs 24,150.
PROs
* Multiple applications can run seamlessly
* Intuitive user interface
CONs
* Lacks a xenon flash
* No pre-installed GPS application