Camera Phones Plaza

The Samsung S5230 mobile phone is a simple listing of numbers in Samsung's portfolio. In reality, it represents serious efforts to get a product that should please everyone. Also called Samsung Star, this phone is just what the name is trying to suggest: a lucky star of South Koreans, a proper mix between the touch screen, ergonomics, useful and entertaining functions, all included in a decent price.

With a Candy-Bar design, the Samsung S5230 mobile phone Star is compact and light, and unlike its brother S5600, it is more rounded. The rest is very easy to confuse with other Omnia terminals, but this is Samsung's policy: a lot of phone models with different names and similar aspect. With 104 x 53 x 11.0 mm in dimensions and 93.5 grams in weight, the Samsung S5230 mobile phone comes equipped with a resistive touch screen, unlike the LG Arena or iPhone, which have a capacitive display.

The 240 x 400 pixels resolution is a bit outdated, but for this price segment Samsung is known for the good quality of the screens, both in terms of brightness, and color balance. The case is made of resistant plastic and it includes hardware keys, a speakerphone and the Samsung logo. The rear of the S5230's is even more impressive than the front - the phone looks similar to an Omnia from top to bottom.

A welcome improvement is the material used on the back cover, which is more resistant to finger prints and dust. On the sides you will find a camera shutter, a HOLD key (allows you to unlock the phone screen), volume buttons (which can be used for menu navigation) and a USB port (allows you to attach headphones, charge the phone or connect it to a PC).

The Samsung S5230 mobile phone is equipped with a 3 inch TFT touch screen with a native resolution of 240 x 400 pixels. As we said, even if this resolution is outdated, you will receive great quality images with a good balance between contrast and colors. For taking photos, this Samsung cell phone has an integrated 3 Megapixel camera capable of taking pictures at a maximum resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels. The camera interface is very comfortable and it includes all the options necessary to capture some decent quality images. The contrast is correct with sufficient lighting.

In connectivity terms, similar to the Samsung Corby, this mobile phone has a support for four GSM bands, EDGE and Stereo Bluetooth. Because it is not a smart phone, it lacks Wi-Fi, 3G and GPS support. The advantage is that it supports Mass Storage, which helps direct recognition of the phone and downloads content.  The Samsung S5230 mobile phone has 40 MB of free space but thanks to the microSD card slot, you can extend it up to 16 GB.

Other attractive features are that this phone is equipped with TouchWIZ UI, a lot of multimedia WidGets and an accelerometer for screen rotating, Face Detection, image stabilization, FM Radio with RDS and a special service for Shazam music recognition.

The standard Li-Ion 1000 mAh battery is capable of keeping this cell phone up to 10 hours of conversations and 800 hours in standby mode. The Samsung manufacturer just announced that this model has been sold in 10 million copies, which leaves us little space for comments. If we still want to draw a conclusion, it should sound like this: the compact design, acceptable finishing and sufficient functions for a price of $250 is not something you see everyday. This can be a great deal if you are looking for a multimedia phone with an attractive aspect.