The company has expanded its range of phones with the modest model named Samsung Corby, which ratio of price and abilities may surprise you.

Design
In order to make it clear that such a colorful unit with touch screen is shown in pictures we need only to recall the main target audience of this kind of phone models. Of course, this is for young people, sometimes the most isolated and untamed. Now let’s see what phone Koreans prepared for the public. Thus we have: a small shell with dimensions 103×56, 5 x12, 5 mm which will not fit into pockets of business suits and shirts. It weighs only 920 grams.

Screen

Here we have a telephone with touch screen, so from the first seconds of getting acquainted, we see the screen. Only after this we notice branded grille on top, as well as easy to use phone keys at the bottom.
But let’s go back to the screen, which is protected with capacitive touch glass. Here is a 2.8-inch TFT-matrix with a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels (260 thousand colors). Taking into account the quality of displayed images they are rather good comparing with phones which are more expensive. Besides under the sun the screen acts quite well, providing the ability to easily read text or dial a phone number.

Battery

Removing the back cover you can see 960 mAh battery, which is enough for three days – 20 minutes of conversation, hours of listening to your favorite music with headphones, and hours of using various recreational facilities, among which it is worth pointing out watching video.
But let’s go back to the exterior, because here it is important not to forget about a comfortable place of SIM-card and slot of microSD-card, which can reach at least 32 GB.

Communications abilities

Here we should mention the possibility of communication with PC, where are several variations of connect with the presence of the actual profile data on the memory card. It’s nice that in this case writing speed reaches up to 1,5 MB per second, so that the memory card can be retrieved only in emergency situations (for example, full memory).
Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR and A2DP support together with other profiles is also present. With headsets and wireless headphones Corby works just as well, but not better than other phones. Speed of receiving/transferring data to another device is about 130 Kbps. You can find a compatible device using the convenient search tool that displays the process much clearly.

Programs and games

Describing the standard content of phones, we can say without looking at it about the presence of a standard set of multiple applications and demos of games, after a short game that will either send for 300 rubles, or restart the game. By the way about restarting – here it isn’t not useless to note multitasking for multiple applications (up to three maximum).
This part of application also contains different utilities – cards, a collection of links to social services, as well as a standard set of organizer.

Music
Player catches the eye by a simple and convenient separation of all the tracks on various criteria, among which are viewing album covers. After selecting interesting songs comes a window during playback with large comfortable buttons on the screen and active line of progress.
Fans of all sorts of settings and customizations will clearly appreciate the ability to install the rating change repeat modes and random play, and at the same time adjusting the equalizer. But this is not Samsung M7600 Beat DJ; so that you can not manually control equalizer. Although, without setting sound is rather good, with a small reserve volume and coherent study of middle frequencies. Of course, it sounds much worse than any player, but the most undemanding audience may seem quite a good help. If you get tired of its own music, then there is a FM-receiver with a good quality signal reception in the frequency range from 87.5 to 108 MHz.

Camera

The camera has a rather utilitarian role, although the 2-megapixel resolution of matrix caused a genuine interest a couple of years ago.
However, there is no flash and autofocus so you can not count on S3650. At least the interface to work with the camera is not subjected to rigorous simplifications, leaving at our attention full-screen viewfinder, labels of all modes as well as quite rich content of settings.
We have nothing to say specifically about the images, because on the phone screen, they look better, than on the monitor of PC.

Conclusion

Compact bright and cheap touch phone from Samsung Corby is not so simple as it may seem when you look at the price. Of course, we do not take into account beginning with the start of sales from 7 thousand rubles, but by December the model will show off at the shop windows at 6000 rubles. This will be very interesting offer, but having the desire and the additional funds you would better buy another touch phone. Well, it’s a matter of taste.

At first glance, we face the next reincarnation of the immortal clamshell from Samsung. Compared with the previous variations of the past years this is the company’s hardest commitment to retain the classical form, and for this reason we do not see another attempt to cross the impossible and elegantly elongated body with a minimum of sharp color shots. To fans of accurate data it can be proposed to estimate by eye the size of Samsung S5510, constituting 93,8 x 46,7 x17, 7 mm, that does not speak at all about anything, because of the lower shell width decreases to 4 cm smooth, thick and loses in size about another couple millimeters. It weighs 94 grams.

The interface and customization
Why do you need to know technological details, if S5510 attracts just with its design? That’s it that this was unnecessary, and therefore it’s better take a look at the standby mode of the most recent version of the software of the company for phones without touch screen. Yes, the developers have not forgotten about this, and novelty is all the joy of life that appeared in February in some phones and cost much higher.
Thus, the screen has all sorts of icons and indicators above, as well as the notes to the context keys on top. You can choose any wallpaper or just beautiful watches from LivingWorld.
From the main menu, decorations are already less, and in sections they are not altogether. Of course, there is a fallback position to choose one of three themes, as well as a scattering of other interesting details, but that’s no way impressive.

Calls and correspondence

Calls to Samsung implemented simplest way: dial a phone number, or look for it in convenient call list. The latter method is the most trivial, since reduced to see a list of contacts where there is a search by first letters of the name / surname, or an opportunity to review the whole range of groups. If you need to write a new contact, the owner gave access to a functional editor, which initially disclosed only a quarter of the possible fields in physical files for each of the 1000 possible entries.
Since all messages are somewhat simpler, although there is not only the usual SMS, but also advanced MMS, which is to provide an alternative to email, supports opening / adding attachments.

Connection

Modern mobile phone should not have limited communication abilities, and therefore S5510 is equipped with Bluetooth 2.1 with support for all kinds of profiles, from which we are interested in working with wireless headphones, as well as the possibility of transferring files at speed up to 130 Kbps.
If you connect your phone to PC, data transfer will take place at speed of 2-3 Mbps, which is very bad for a relatively unpretentious model.

Entertainment

Usually we are talking about alarm clocks and little-needed reminders in calendar. Yes, of course, in the case of a business machine strict exterior organizer and office content are extremely relevant, but at S5510 on the alarm for five independent detectors should not go.
But the entertainment portion of the device is failed, and not only by the availability of the full range of GoogleMobile services, but thanks to such fine amenities as RSS news for ease of absorption on your way to work / school, as well as editor of pictures and FM-radio. On top of the list are a few demo versions of games, and also affects the very easy to install Java on your phone.

Music

Here you have a player with all sorts of sorting and convenient playback window, where you can not just change the type of visualization, but also to quickly adjust the equalizer. Configure not to edit, so do not be surprised that you can not adjust manually a good sound in the headphones, because you have to use a ready-made presets.

Camera

For high quality photo Samsung is equipped with a brutal camera phone Pixon12, but for those who want to catch an interesting moment, a 3-megapixel camera hero of this review will be enough. Moreover, there are all the attributes of senior models in the face of full-screen viewfinder and a dozen parameters to set, but also a nimble shutter.

Other trifles

If a good quality signal reception is granted, then nice and loud speaker will be to the point quite, as noisy polyphonic speaker sound is well heard in the room, but on the whole volume on the street disappears somewhere. Well, it does not matter, because there is a disruptive vibro-engine of average power.

Conclusion

In the case of Samsung S5510, we see the triumph of simplicity and consistency of external design of the struggle for the heart of the consumer. Of course, the phone was created by a competitor, but there are so many of those nice details from Samsung, that any price for it is not a pity to give.

Nokia N86 looks so boundless and at the same time fully completed. In a relatively compact package is implemented a full range of opportunities with which N86 is going to attract all the afflicted. By the way, it’s time to take the camera in your hands and appreciate a dense assembly of each of the parts, between which there is the inevitable backlash, but here are the materials and body weighting 150 grams which will not miss the majority of fans of tech toys.

The selection of materials is not mentioned in vein because the front panel is made of glass, and its lining is a metal frame, which unknowingly may be confused with plastic, but in the process all at once will fall into its place. The sensor needs to adjust the brightness of the 2.6-inch screen, occupying all available space of N86. Despite the fact that the screen resolution is 240×320 pixels, the quality of displaying images with a palette of 16.7 million colors is really perfect; these parameters are shown only by smartphones of leading manufacturers. In addition, under the sun readable information from the screen falls only within reasonable limits, leaving the possibility to navigate through the menu and view the text.

Connection

Nokia N86 has a 2.0 with piles of various functions, and allows the remote drives to wander through the file manager, and to listen to music via wireless headphones, and transfer files to another device. If this is not enough, you can have a look at speed of the memory device, connecting a smartphone to a PC via cable, there you will feel the benefit of the speed of writing files to a level of 3-4 Mbps.

And lovers of active study of new spaces on the World Wide Web, will take advantage of Wi-Fi – in the implementation of Nokia. This device module IEEE 802.11 b / g is supported by a convenient search tool – access points, and owners of home wireless networks obviously will like another program that reveals the meaning.

Music

N86 has a traditional for most recently launched smartphones music player. Exactly the same functions: library, sorted by artist, album, genres, playlists, and other trifles, as well as the opportunity to establish the appropriate album cover. Then it can be seen in a simple playback window, with a minimum of frills, and with good ergonomics. If standard functions are not enough, you can change the type of repetition, and to switch on a random sequence of songs to choose from two sound effects, or go to the most effective way to adjust frequency response and 8-band equalizer with unlimited add-ins.

Camera

It is not surprising that the flagship camera phone with 8 MP is equipped with the most functional interface for maximum ease to process of shooting. At first glance, we face the familiar viewfinder with a scattering of icons and sidebar of any configuration tools, but here there is only a fraction of the available points, whereas others may be added in a separate setup menu bar, or vice versa, to clean it from the surplus. But before you find out for yourselves the most relevant setting in shooting mode, pay attention to the possibility of adjusting sensitivity, the use of scenes, adjust white balance and exposure compensation, as well as other, less visible parts. Already in a separate tab settings, you can change the image resolution, set the sound of the mechanical shutter and change the memory to store images, switch on the additional function Geonotes and trimming other details related to the work of digital zoom. In addition, if there is a desire to record video, then you can change the aspect ratio between 640×480 and 320×240 pixels.

Of course, the final score of examples of images is the privilege of readers, but in any case, a couple of words to say about the camera N86 will not be useless. First, wide-angle optics with a maximum resolution of 3264×2448 pixels gives to images good result in greenhouse weather conditions. If lighting can be called nothing more than tolerable, a tiny optics is clearly losing its way, and a small aperture ratio does not correspond to the use of only a single LED flash. But once again, this phone is equipped with a 5 Mp camera, so that among the devices there is almost no competition.

Conclusion

In Nokia N86 you can find everything for smartphones and the camera here is rather good, but not the best on the market.

It is well known that the most long-expected novelties are rather expensive and sophisticated smartphones, or as for Sony Ericssonn – these are popular devices of Walkman series. A new clamshell Z555i by Sweden-Japan partnership is not the one of super-expected models and that is why it can stay unnoticed even by those whom it is addressed to. Although girls might like it.

Design

We can see a typical not expensive clamshell, something from a series of “phone for USD 250″.
In order to make its typicalness stay within the limits of allowable, the producers put on some glam to the front panel. Its surface is alike covered with small prisms that are playing in the sun beams falling on them. It looks especially effective in the sun when the phone just flashes out in the lights.
The obvious minuses are weakness of the front panel for showing all the fingerprints and other kinds of contamination, but we do know very well that such behavior is typical for the great quantity of modern phones. That’s ok; we are getting accustomed to that little by little. Except decorations on the front panel we can find a camera lens with a tiny LED (flashing upon certain circumstances), polyphonic loudspeaker and a single-line black-and-white inverse display showing service information.

In standby mode it is “hidden” under the glossy panel and reminds of itself while there is an incoming call, incoming SMS and if you press a volume control wheel. Everything is typical and accurate. Oh, almost forgot that even if it is rather hard to open the cover with one hand, still it is possible, nevertheless, you should not try to do that while walking, in other way you can badly drop the phone. The back side, to be more exact the cover of the battery, is fulfilled with a rather thin rough plastic; the same is used for the W910i model.
In fact, we do not have a “hot” change of a memory card, but a “warm” one, because we still have to take off the battery cover for that purpose. On the upper side of the phone there is an “ear” for the thong, on the left – a jack, on the right – a volume control wheel. Everything is traditional. No patterns, flowers, ornaments and other decorations of modern phones, oriented first of all to women’s attention.
The interior of Sony Ericsson Z555i is more modest, than stylish.

Keyboard and display

The disposition and the form of keys are rather typical, but frankly there is one novelty about this. For example, the key responsible for turning off/on the phone is placed right in the middle of the front panel, “clutched” in between the browser key and the key of quick menu launch.
Such arrangement does not make problems in working, because you get used to that for 1-2 hours and besides, short pressing this sacred key does not lead to turning off the phone. In spite of this you can see the profile list on the screen. On the picture we see a slightly curved shape of typesetting keys that plays a good part practically as well as aesthetically – it is pleasant to look at it, and fingers are not making accidental pressing.

The size of the keys is optimal, and as for me I liked the short response. Its clear that the digital block is not ideal, but we have what we have. It is pleasant that black keys have light inserts, but it cannot be considered a super-stylish decision, it looks satisfactory, nothing more. The navigation is not very comfortable, mostly because of the flat 4-position key at the same level with other keys. It’s just hard to feel the keys bounds with a finger and you have to be careful. The micro-lights depend on the light sensor which is working very correctly – the battery economy is never something extra.

The main display is very common – TFT matrix with a resolution of 176╤Е220 pixels. I remember that such display characteristics were the same as people-music-youth device of 2005 – Motorola E398. We should frankly tell that Sony Ericsson Z555 matrix is better of course, the lights are richer, the image angles are enough to write SMS when you are elbowing in the transport. The image quality is not bad, the grains are almost not seen, and the brightness resource is good. One thing is bad – a small physical size and that is why you can feel that the producer did not spend much for display.

Menu, Control

A typical menu presented with a usual set of 12 icons is quite common for SE devices that is why it will hardly surprise anyone or call admiration. It is comfortable to move around the icons because the device is slightly vibrating, showing every movement like that.
There are functions list, and you wont be accompanied with vibration moving around there. And yes, as always there are several themes in this device (to be more exact – four of them).
They are cute, one of them is even nice (with flowers), and that is definitely for girls.
Shortcut menu consists of 4 marks. One of them shows information about events, the second shows the applications you are using right now, the third – quick access to the functions you are choosing yourself, the fourth – web URLs.
Besides that, you can program the directions of the 4-position key for quick launch of these or those functions.
Its a pity that you cant change a web browser launch key, because surfing the net at using a small display is not so pleasant.

Useful trifles

Unlike Nokia devices, Z555i has five alarms versions, activated on certain days of the week and you can choose any MP3 melody as alarm ring tone.
I liked a simple reminder function; for writing down a new event (meeting/call) I needed not more than 20 seconds. The notebook is of the same style, just without a remind function.

The calendar has a rather good functionality, but the month table looks a bit small there. I am serious; you have to look intently to see what date will be on next Saturday. If the letters were bolder and the table was bigger there won’t be such problems.

There are common things like timer and stopwatch with nine intermediate results.
The memo book is of the same kind like the previous models have and has very comfortable horizontal keys too.
You can write down five numbers for one contact, e-mail and web address, choose a personal ringtone and a picture, and fill in the personal data like mailing address, company name, place of work, birth date.
On one hand – not so much, on the other hand – quite enough for the majority of users. As usual, the phonebook of the device itself and a SIM card are not shown as a single list, but you can choose showing the SIM card contact list by default.

Camera

Sony Ericsson Z555i is the type of the phones that you are not expecting anything unusual about them. That is why, frankly speaking, I was not even surprised when I saw a 1,3 megapixel camera. Of course it would be more pleasant to see a 2 megapixel camera, but…

There are not so many adjustments. The user can chose the size of the picture (1,3 Mp or VGA), a single frame or a series of 4 pictures, two types of the image quality, night mode, balance of white, several color effects, 4 sounds for confirmation of the shutter actuation, timer.

In other words, everything is more than usual. Not the whole display is used for the viewfinder purposes (we can see that on the pictures); the upper part is given to the series of icons, which, in fact, you don’t need, the lower part – for the signatures of the context keys. It is quite easy to use this simple camera; the picture is taken when you press the left context key or the central key. The camera is working really rapidly, the image recording to the phone or a card memory lasts for no longer than 1,5 seconds. The quality of the pictures is expectedly not high; in fact, you can see it on your own.

Player/radio and games

MP3 player (to be more exact – its interface) is also familiar due to the previous models. A rather strict, imperceptible design, several preinstalled equalizers, working in a background mode. There is also a function of sorting by an artist, track, and you can make your own playlists.

The quality of sound of our test example was not bad, we were especially surprised with a high volume (the music was heard quite well in the other end of the room – 12 m), but as for the bass function – it is not so good if you wear the earphones from the set as well as inlay earphones by Philips and Koss. I guess that the commercial examples of the player will be better.

The FM receiver sensitivity is not bad. Five of the stations make noises, the rest of the twenty were quite fine (the sound is clear with minimal noises).
There is also a mode of automatic tuning working quite correctly and finding out the radio stations even with a weak signal. The RDS system is working quite well.
As well as a player, a radio can turn into tray releasing display for other things. The most comfortable way to activate it is to choose it among the mentioned list of the applications.

Games are: logic Jewel Quest II and photo hunting FotoQuestFish. Both games are good, but I liked the one with fish most.
The sense of the game is that you are a diver and for the limited time you have to make good pictures of different kinds of fishes (no need to go to Egypt). In this game you get the points by the following way – the more fish you get into the frame of your photo camera, the more points you get. The game is quite pleasant and the time you spend going for work glides.

On-line

The data transfer speed between the phone and PC via Bluetooth is 32-38 Kb/second. Besides that, Sony Ericsson Z555i had no problems working with different BT accessories including stereophonic. There are no claims on the connection quality, everything corresponds to the expected level, and there were no connection breaches, the people you are talking to can be heard quite clearly. The battery charge was enough for three days without turning off the phone for the night (as for me – I practice that sometimes), talking for 10-15 minutes a days, long-time searching around menu, about half an hour of listening the music, rare Bluetooth sessions.

Outcome

Sony Ericsson Z555i cannot be called a stylish, glamorous and a kind of attractive device. If it is a Dusted Rose color – you can call this a device for girls, but if it is black it’s not clear who should be the user. A girl will hardly choose something like that – she is willing to choose something more elegant, a man will just pass it through. So, it means the device is something in the middle, which is quite offensive.

GIGA-BYTE Company is actively adjusting to the subtleties of the mobile market. Together with GSmart MW700, about which we have told you recently, the producer presented another novelty – MW998 communicator, which is nothing more than a GSmart t600 modification. As MW700 our today’s model MW998 is not flaring with bright colors and does not have an inbuilt TV module that did not win attention of buyers.

Construction
By its outward appearance the novelty is maximum alike GSmart t600 communicator. This is a rather bright outstanding model different with its unusual control bodies, but still this model looks very stylish (may be even too much strict) so many different categories of potential buyers will like it – youth and sound businessmen.
Instead of dazzlingly white body of t600 this new communicator is black; the front panel together with side insets is made of polished glittering plastic.
And the back panel smoothly turning into the ends of the body is made of mat plastic. This communicator is rather big (110,5 х 55,5 х 18,5 mm) and rather heavy (140 g), but it is comfortable to hold it in your hands.
It looks like the market experience with GSmart t600 showed that the white color is not so popular and it is more plausible to make it black. It is really so, in this case this device looks quite in another way, and Asian notes in design bring some exclusiveness to the device, but not flowery as it was with t600.

The central and the biggest control body of MW998 is 4-position wheel of moving cursor with a central confirmation key. Plus to that there are six small round keys placed in the sides of this wheel, their functions are answer/cancel of conversation, menu activation, start, actions confirmation and shortcut menu for any two programs on the choice of the user. Keys have a great tactile response and are easy to be distinguished by touch due to the different sizes and sufficient space between the keys. We can consider MW998 one of the best communicators in the market as for the navigation comfort. The only thing that may alert the potential buyer in the beginning is its unusual appearance of the main control block, but after a couple of days of using it you will easily get accustomed to that.
As well as t600 all central control black of the novelty has bright blue micro lights. It looks accurate and stylish on the black background of the phone case. It is flaring, but not too much.

Additional spring loaded scroll box is placed in the upper side of the left end. By default it controls the sound volume. Here you can also find a sunk into the phone body key of soft restart.
The right end is occupied by a silver oblong key of inbuilt camera activation and with two plastic covers of the same color with the body fringing. Under these covers there is a microSD slot and a brand accessory jack hidden. It is hard to say what was the reason why the producer could not use a standard 2,5 mm minijack so a user could use any earphones together with this novelty.
In fact, there is a 2,5 mm adapter supplied with MW998, but it’s not clear what a user should do in case of this adapter loss or damage. Plus to that, the opened cover of the body really bothers while using accessories. If you keep your communicator in the pocket, the cover will definitely get hold of something there.

For connection with PC you can use a simple USB cable, the communicator has a mini-USB port in the lower end of the body.
Right here you can also find an opening of the inbuilt loudspeaker for conversations and an eye for the thong.
Metal telescopic stylus is of good quality, but it is too thin and so using it is not very comfortable.
By the way, there is an additional stylus supplied with communicator, so in case you break the first one, you won’t have to run around shops. In a whole, the design and construction of GSmart MW998 gives only positive emotions.

Filling and efficiency
GSmart MW998 is operated by Windows Mobile 6.0 Pro.
The hardware of communicator is well-known to us by other GSmart models: rather high-efficiency processor Marvell PXA270 with CPU clock 520 MHz, 64 Mb RAM and 256 Mb ROM. A user gets only 49,10 Mb and 140,84 Mb correspondingly. A rather wide range of preinstalled software which of course occupies memory, but the part of it can be deleted by the user. In the result the user gets only 19,00 Mb RAM and 117,46 Mb ROM.
The communicator efficiency is traditionally tested by a Spb Benchmark 1.6.

Display
GSmart MW998 has good characteristics: 2,6 inch VGA TFT display with a resolution of 480 х 640 pixels. The range of brightness is wide, though it has only five levels. Color transfer and sharpness simply gladdens the eye. Display is simply ideal judging by these characteristics for viewing pictures or movies. And the viewing angles leave something else to desire, horizontally as well as vertically.

Camera
MW700 has the same inbuilt 2 megapixel CMOS-sensor camera that other GSmart have, and so we can hope for a rather good quality of pictures, different from the pictures taken by the majority of other communicators presented nowadays in the market. The camera is equipped with a LED flash placed near the lens over the battery cover.
A program application interface (responsible for photographing) is familiar to us from the GSmart t600 review.
You can take pictures in JPG format in three variants of the image quality and resolution: 160 х 120, 1600 х 1200, video: 320 х 240 in wmv, mp4 and 3gp formats.
Camera settings are quite enough for photographing in any conditions: balance of white, exposure setting, using different effects. Moreover, you can choose one of the preinstalled scenes to simplify photographing: album, night, portrait and macro photographing.
As it was expected MW998 shows a rather high quality of pictures: there are few noises and even if the lights are insufficient the colors are reproduced without distortions; focusing is almost perfect. Plus to that, a camera is working rather quickly and a viewfinder is moving quite rapidly.

Communication abilities
MW998 has a full range of communication abilities. This novelty supports GSM: 850/900/1800/1900, GPRS Class 12, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, but unfortunately this device does not have an ability to increase the rate of data transfer via EDGE. For comparison, a recently reviewed MW700 supported EDGE, and todays novelty does not support this standard as well as other GSmart models.

This novelty keeps the connections perfectly, signal is stable and it is not lost even in the zones of low receive level. Sound is clear with no distortions and noises. The same concerns the voice received via inbuilt loudspeaker for conversations. If you want to record a conversation or to put some background sound onto your voice, you should use a preinstalled utility Wise Talk. With the help of this utility you can imitate such places like airport, concert hall, highway and etc spoofing your interlocutor. You can also put on the conversation any other sounds which you earlier recorded.

Among additional wireless modules this novelty has Bluetooth 2.0 and Wi-Fi (WLAN 802.11b/g); these modules work gets no complaints. Besides that, we should note that there is a brand interface with simple settings and stylish appearance for working with Bluetooth-connections.

Battery capacity is 1300 mAh. According to the MW998 passport data this should provide 4 hours of working in speaking mode and 150 hours in stand by mode.
The battery capacity rate is a wide spread one and that is why in fact the estimated time of working should be about 1,5 days, which was practically proved. If you are an economic user and you are not surfing mobile Internet and you don’t chat and etc, your communicator can stand for about 2 days and you can use a memo book from time to time.
Additional software

GSmart MW998 is supplied with a small set of brand utilities and programs, familiar by other GIGA-BYTE communicators reviews. So we will not stop describing each of them, we will just enlist the set going together with this novelty.
Utilities for the work with a phone are presented with useful programs like a black list and quick automatic dialing a subscriber.
Multi media applications block has an interesting dictaphone brand, a simple an comfortable in use audio mixer and utility for the work with java application.
The most interesting system utilities are Spb Backup for reserve copying data; it has functions of schedule record and Zip archiver.

Conclusions
The most interesting is that despite all its advantages, this novelty is not expensive and that is a definite record for the communicator with VGA display. Plus to that – a stylish design, high-efficiency filling, comfortable control and high quality of the photographs taken by inbuilt camera – all this makes GSmart MW998 even more attractive, but this communicator has minuses as well, the lack of GPS navigator considerably decreased the quantity of potential buyers of this device, and having a good size display this device could become a good automobile navigator.

Appearance
The phone turned out to be bigger than it appears in photographs. When wearing it in a jeans pocket a real feeling of discomfort does not occur, but the case of the Samsung M7500 Armani is always there.

Samsung M7500 Armani is clearly perceived as a male-model, and the reason is not only the size of the tube but also the size of the keyboard. By the way, it only tries to appear to be sensory, this is just an illusion; there are usual buttons under a flat surface made of solid sheets of metal.

The case is made almost entirely from high-quality plastic and the unit seems solid, but not a strident combination of different materials. The affiliation with the clan of Armani is betrayed by a great, bright emblem of this fashion house, which cover the whole rear lid.
Armani inscriptions glow on the right and left ends. You can even choose the color of the lighting!

Our first association was with the telephone Siemens M65, with «winkers». Well, it’s just an association, nothing more. So, the first thing we did with Siemens was to switch off the «winkers», and the same thing was done with Armani after half an hour of use.
At the ends are placed the player buttons, but due to the large size of the shell, the developers made the «musical» buttons quite large and with a distinctly perceived abrasion.
So the player can be commanded blindly, without delivering the phone from a jacket pocket. In general, the keyboard and the arrangement of additional operation buttons were pleasing, especially when combined with the size of the phone, which is not lost in male’s hand.
It was pleasing that Samsung Armani M7500 is equipped with a normal microUSB jack, carefully covered with a lid. Connection to the PC does not require special drivers; the phone is recharged from the computer, and of course, is recognized by it as a usual USB device.

Display and menus

The display of M7500 is made in the OLED-technology, bright and contrast, with large angles of view.
In addition, it submits to the lighting sensor which automatically changes the brightness of the screen, depending on the conditions of exterior lighting. The sensor is working correctly, and as a result, the display is always readable.
The menu is made in form of icons, for example, the settings are under the sign of a wrench, the player is «hidden» under a «note».
In general, the menu is organized logically and easy – everything fits on one screen and specific blunders in the transition are not observed. While the logic of constructing sometimes suffers, for example, to turn off the sound of the confirmation key clicking, it was necessary to get into the «profile» and change the settings of the current profile.

Instead this function could be put in the menu «phone» – «settings» – «sound», where it would look much more logical.
For a long-time Nokia user, the menu of this model does not look confusing. Possibilities of customization are rather broad – there are several predefined themes, screensavers and wallpapers.
A shot from the camera can be set as a wallpaper. In principle, everything is usual and convenient, but no revelations.

Music and image
It’s nice that this model is equipped with a standard 3.5 mm jack for headphones, because the possibility to connect any headphones is very valuable.
The music player supports not only the MP3 format, but also WMA and AAC. In general, the player is pleasing; however, it is unnerving that you cannot set the equalizer to your liking, but to choose from only nine finished presets.
In case of using good headphones, the sound quality is high, so the phone can be recommended as a complete replacement of an MP3 player.
The device has a sufficiently large amount of internal memory – 125 MB, so a little music library can be placed directly in it.

The FM-receiver is working properly, i.e., has a good reception. There is an RDS function, but it is very limited – the screen displays only the title of a radio station.
The setting and saving of stations is organized on the intuitive level of understanding. There is a convenient tool – RSS Reader – for reading news tapes. It can be guessed from the title, anyway.
The integrated camera with a resolution of 3.2 MP has no flash, but is equipped with autofocus. With good lighting the obtained images can be very decent. On a clouded day or indoors the matrix of the camera begins to make «noise», which is normal for this type of technology. The functionality of the camera is also standard for a phone of this class. It is possible to apply to images a standard set of effects, such as: sepia, transfer the images in black and white version, etc.
 

Outcome
Frankly, we were displeased with the low volume of the ring and the low vibration; somewhere in a noisy street, you can easily miss a call. Apparently the Armani icon, under which the speaker is located, is of no help in this case.
The 960 mAh Li-Ion Battery, with an average load on the phone (20 minutes a day and an hour and half of music) was sufficient for a three-day work, and that’s OK. 
Without getting into deep jungles to describe the tube, it can be said that in general the phone had more minuses than pluses. Personally, the too much brightness and blatancy were annoying; even with the backlight off, the phone looks very defiant – «thanks to» the Armani logo on the back side. While certainly there are people who will be ready to forgive this phone everything for only the Armani emblem alone. In general, if consider only the technical characteristics of the device – they are pretty good.

]]> http://www.newphonesreviews.com/samsung-m7500-armani-review/feed/ 0 http://www.newphonesreviews.com/philips-x520-review/ http://www.newphonesreviews.com/philips-x520-review/#comments Fri, 03 Jul 2009 08:53:35 +0000 Mia http://www.newphonesreviews.com/?p=391

An amazing case when a market leader in mobile communications devices does not have enough traditional batteries, the company starts to use already forgotten format of energy carriers. Here is Xenium X520, which is able to squeeze all the juice not only from a rechargeable battery and but from all the surrounding ones.

Appearance

Philips Xenium X520 attracts everyone with its mysterious form of a shell, bringing nostalgia of cassette players and pagers (beepers), and also of banal remote control for home appliances. It is really amazing. However, apart from the fussy block below, the size of the phone is quite typical – 111,1 x 48,8 x 16,3 mm.

Yes, it has exactly 16 mm of thickness, and do not believe the advertising image, there you can see that the lower part is much thicker as flat side of the butt-end make the device look much thicker. However, the thickening at the rear part of the shell can be considered a necessity, because it will be inconvenient to hold a 95-g device in your hand.

On the front side of the device you can notice a silver navigation key with a relief texture, as well as a flat button of confirmation “Ok”. In general, the whole block of keys on the phone was made as separate plane areas of opaque plastic, separated by a glossy front panel. The keys have a short tight stroke with a clear click, invariably accompanied by a click. In addition white lights under the small letters are also worth mentioning.

Just above the keyboard a thick plastic cover is placed, which is designed to protect the 2-inch TFT-screen with a resolution of 176 x 220 pixels from mechanical damages. The applied matrix does not have excellent quality colors – 260 000 colors. However, there is no need to expect more from the Philips phones and do not expect particularly outstanding results. Of course, you can read phone number and text message without any difficulty, but studying pictures and photographs in sunny weather will be much more difficult.

There is a conversational dynamics opening above the display, which is located directly in the center. Polyphonic speaker is hidden on the back side, next to the small enclosed module of 2-MP camera without autofocus.

There are separate silver volume keys with tight audible click at the ends. There is also a slot for micro SDHC memory card, located on the right end. In the same place, close to the lower compartment, you will notice one more interesting detail, the attachment for the strap, unusually solid and reliable.

Battery

The block is a cylindrical projection, the diameter of which is the 16.5 mm. Polarity battery switch is located on the left end of the block, but from the opposite end, everything is made much funnier.

While rolling the holder, you can see the battery compartment, under the storage component of the standard AAA, spread not less than the traditional finger batteries. In addition, the kit has an Energizer battery.

The main battery is located under the back lid, which you can remove with a hand movement. Under there is a Li-Ion battery with a capacity of 1050 mAh «hidden», providing five days of work in the everyday operation of phone calls and half an hour of listening to music. The batteries charge the device for up to two three-days of work.

Interface & Communications

When you first listen to the greeting sound of X520 you see that it is not worth waiting for anything complex in the phone, and after a couple of seconds, we already see the concise standby mode. Here everything is done without a hint of originality, but this simplicity in fact seems to be convenient. The menu may be represented by a boring list, or matrix of 12 simple icons.

Submenu and all other places of the interface are presented in the form of lists with nice animation cursor, and at the same time you can quickly move to the line through the numerical keys. It is a pity that the ease of navigation is not supported by the personalization, which allows one to change wallpaper in the standby mode or to choose a lighter theme, instead of a dark one. There are also seven profiles in this device. You can adjust each of the five profiles to your taste; you can choose offline and silent alert.

Calling service consists of a simple-to-use phone book that can store up to 1000 entries consisting of a name and a number. This Spartan filling of each cell is an offset with a «black» list of ignored numbers, user-friendly control scheme records, as well as simple editing functions of subscriber numbers in a call row. Accordingly, the call lists serve only for the most basic information, without any counters and tariff.

There are two separate SMS and MMS editors, creating simple multimedia messages, or banal text messages consisting of 1-4 length 60 characters.

Communications

Despite the fact that Xenium X520 belongs to the innovations of 2009 at an average price range, we cannot speak about its abilities to support networks of the third generation. Instead, you have to enjoy only GPRS-connection.

In addition to the wireless connection it has a normal mini USB-connector for charging and connection to a PC. In the latter case, the choice remains between the connection as an ordinary flash and expanded opportunities as a modem, which would require a software installation from the CD.

Utility and games

It has three separate alarms. Each of them can be configured to repeat on selected weekdays, or dwell on a single signal.

In addition, there is a good organizer with a calendar, voice recorder to record sounds, ability to set recording to playback at the selected time, the black list of unwanted numbers, calculator, stopwatch and timer. In general, all is quite ordinary, if you do not take into account the ease and simplicity of using the black list of numbers. If you have few minutes to rest, here are simple games such as funny Snake or Sudoku.

Multimedia

The music player will surprise you by the presence of sorting.  The radio has a high quality sound, as well as memory for 20 stations. Naturally X520 has RDS and AF, so everything is quiet normal with radio.

Camera

The phone has a built-in 2-megapixel camera. In addition, there are several settings, including color effects and serial imaging. You can also save funny moments of your by recording movies with a resolution of 176 x 144, at 5-15 frames per second.

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