Camera Phones Plaza

Now I have the Samsung SGH-E900 in my hands. This is another slider and it shares quite a few features with the SGH-D600 such as a 2-megapixel camera and 80MB of built in memory. But of course the SGH-E900 is not a clone of the earlier handset.

Now, I am quite a fan of the slider format. It is ideal for phones designed to be small in the pocket and a good slider lets you do pretty much everything except number dial calls and write SMS messages without using the slider mechanism.

On the size front the SGH-E900 is not quite as small as I’d like at 90 x 45 x 16.5mm, but it is certainly smaller than candy bar handsets. It is light too, at just 93g.

The slider mechanism is superb. Spring loaded, it takes just a slight push or pull to open and close the handset.

The only button on the front fascia is the navigation key. Samsung has used a touch sensitive panel for the rest of the front features. There is no doubting this makes for a very clean design. The front of the handset is sleek, shiny black punctuated by a silver frame around the navigation button, silver central select button, silver Samsung branding and small silver flash under the speaker at the head of the handset.


When you turn the SGH-E900 on its 240 x 320 pixel, 262,000 colour screen is beautifully clear and bright. I can’t complain about the backlight for the touch sensitive area either – the low-light white that pops up when buttons are available is subtle and stylish. I also really like that the three music playback controls (pause/play, forward and back) are only lit up and available when you run the music player.

But touch sensitive buttons just aren’t my thing. Tactile buttons are easy to find without looking too hard for them, and there is a physical response to indicate that you have actually pressed something. The touch-sensitive approach left me often needing to look at the SGH-E900 to be sure I pressed the right area for the action I required. I felt the same when reviewing LG’s revolutionary Chocolate KG800 phone, which also has a touch based interface.

The camera, whose lens is on the back of the casing and invisible unless you open the slider, takes a while to get going after you press its shortcut button, and there is a noticeable shutter lag which means you need to hold the phone still for a second or so after pressing to shoot an image. This will be annoying if you like candid snaps and you’ll get some image blurring if you are not careful.

I wanted to like the Samsung SGH-E900 a lot, having been wowed by the Samsung SGH-D600, but sadly that was not to be. There are some good points, not least its small overall size, light weight and the comprehensive PC connectivity, but the camera is disappointing and overall this handset is hamstrung by the touch based system used on the front fascia.

Read full review here.

Nokia N72 fascinates with its truly genuine design and construction conception. This first impression, however, is not always positive; many people find the phone rather repulsive and not at all attractive. May be this is the phone that has earned the most controversial user opinions. Even our team was divided in two when it comes to the Nokia N72 design.

gsmarena made a review of this phone and here are some of their impressions: The black bar with silver linings shines with glamour but can be hardly considered a classy phone when looked at first sight. Basically, it shines "cheaply". One very interesting moment in its design is the camera lens' cover on its back as it reminds the cover of Sony Ericsson K800. This one is much bigger, of course, and its construction is much worse than the one in the 3.2 megapixel phone.

Nokia N72 has a 2 megapixel camera of a good quality. The lens protecting cover on the back of the phone automatically activates the camera application when slid open. This, however, is not the best solution as it opens unintendedly pretty often. The capture button is situated for horizontal shooting mode but the camera has vertical mode only. This is a bit confusing and the soft key assigned for taking a picture is much better way to capture the picture.

Since the camera in Nokia N72 is identical to the camera in Nokia N70 these is no point in describing the camera in details again. You can read gsmarena's dedicated article about the Nokia N70 camera and the photo shootout between Nokia 7280, Nokia N70 and Sony Ericsson D750 here.

The conclusion is that Nokia N72 is a very controversial phone. It lacks essential features like 3G and Infrared, it has less memory than other phones, the display is rather poor but still it is a pretty good phone. It comes in almost the same price as the N70 model but lacks some features. The main advantage is the tons of software and games for it as it is not a 3rd edition UI. Most probably people who fall in love with its design from first sight will be the main customers. Otherwise, it is hardly possible for Nokia N72 to become a market success.

I, for example, own a N70 and wouldn't change it for a N72 for anything.

Read full review here.

Cingular has launched its second HSDPA compatible handset, the Samsung SGH-ZX20, an upgrade to the already successful SGH-ZX10 that also adds Bluetooth to the small clamshell handset. Jointing the LG CU500 on Cingular's HSDPA roster, the Samsung SGH-ZX20 has some impressive features in its small design.

The Samsung SGH-ZX20 is a quad-band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz) device, and also supports WCDMA 3G services over the 850 and 1900MHz bands. With a maximum downstream data rate of 1.8Mbps over HSDPA, the Samsung SGH-ZX20 features a swiveling 1.3 megapixel camera with flash and a generous 40MB of on board memory, in addition to a microSD memory expansion slot, for storing all your files. Speakerphone functionality is included, and a full music player and streaming video support round out the Samsung SGH-ZX20's specification sheet.

The Samsung SGH-ZX20 is available now through Cingular for US$199.99 after applicable discounts and rebates.

Via mobileburn.

Samsung Electronics announced its launch of the ‘Super music phone’, the SCH-B570 in Korea.

The latest Samsung’s B570 comes with the cutting-edge technology which offers various functions and huge memory capacity. With the B570, users can enjoy music and even mobile TV anywhere.

The Samsung SCH-B570 allows users the world’s largest storage capacity for a handset with the built-in 8GB hard disc drive which can store about 1,600 MP3 files (4MB/song) or 16 Personal Media Player (PMP) movies (400MB/file) or more than 20,000 digital photos (300K/file).

Samsung also presented the ‘motion recognition capability’ by introducing the new ‘morning call motion detector snooze alarm’. When the alarm clock rings, users can turn it off simply by shaking the phone, then alarm will automatically alert again a few minutes later.

Kitae Lee, president of Samsung Telecommunication Business said: “Samsung’s newest super music phone has state-of-the-art technology with various functions. We believe that Samsung will continue to deliver the mobile phones with innovative applications to meet user’s needs and market trend.”

The SCH-B570 will be released in Korea by end of this month and the price will be around $800.

Camera
* 2 Megapixel Camera

Display 1.98“ 240x320 262K Color TF (Main)

Features
8GB Hard drive disk
Satellite DMB / Picture In Picture / Personal Media Player
Motion Recognition Technology/ GPS
VOD/MOD/MP3
Document Viewer/ Mobile printing/ TV out
5.1 Channel stereo sound (EQ,3D Sound)
Size 112 x 48 x 19.9 mm
Weight 130 g

Via 3g.co.uk.

The Sagem my501C clamshell phone features a 1.8-inch, 128 x 160 pixel display in 65,000 colours, an integrated 1.3 megapixel camera with x8 digital zoom and video functions, and an MP3 player with dedicated 32Mb memory and a microSD card reader. In addition the phone offers MMS, WAP 2.0, Java technology and dual-band, Bluetooth and SyncML features.

The SAGEM my501C is scheduled for release in August 2006.

Via slashphone.