Samsung

Korean mobile handset maker Samsung today said it has partnered with Tata Teleservices’ GSM brand Tata DOCOMO for launching its first Google-powered Android handset ‘Galaxy’ in India.

Samsung, which plans to launch more Android handsets in India later this year, would make the phone available at Rs 28,990.
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I don’t think there’s anyone who follows Samsung’s model numbering, while looking for any kind of logic is completely useless. I’m afraid that even the Samsung guys are looking dumbly at each other when one of them says that hey, have we launched S7220 already? Which one’s that? You know our phone with the AMOLED display. Oh, yeah, of course, we have so much of those that could make up the whole product range at another manufacturer.

Samsung S7220 just became available without any kind of announcement or fuss. We have brought it from the XXL GSM shop (well, the courier brought it in fact), it looked promising on pictures, the AMOLED display wasn’t a disappointment ever, first I would have placed it in the upper mid-range, for example as the rival of Nokia 6700.

Samsung always did that. They have a couple of flagship models (Omnia, i8910, F480, S5230), which are being advertised, they are sold at network operators and they spend all the money they have to in order to make everyone who is somewhat into mobile communication know these phones. The other phones are launched in the shadow of these big ones and they become successful, or not. It starts to become evident that it’s better to give phones names instead of numbers. LG is great in this, Renoir, Prada, Viewty, Arena, Crystal are all great names. Now Samsung, after BeatDJ and Omnia, is going against the trends and even the great Omnia HD has been renamed, while there is zero coherence amongst their S-series models.

Aside from these, Samsung S7220 could still be as successful as Samsung S5320. But it won’t be. It’s too low-keyed, at least compared to the others. Of course it’s still not bad, but I’d say that there will be more customers to buy such a handset on the “will decide in the store” principle than those people who specifically want an S7220.

It’s not that the designers didn’t do a good job. It’s just that they were so cautious that it didn’t do good for the overall image. The shapes are okay, the size is also a classical one, the style is low-keyed and the whole device seems rather logical at first glance. There is no problem with the accessories either, there is standard, high-quality headset besides the USB cable.

The phone itself is surprisingly light. The reason for the weight of 90 grams is pretty simple: this time the designers chose plastic as the main material, which is almost as big of a disappointment for me than it was when it turned out of Nokia N82 that it’s not made of metal. It’s a pity, as the shape just screams for some better materials and we won’t even get some soft case, but only the plain old hard plastic.

Samsung S7220 comes in red or blue… or let’s just say that there is a red or blue frame drawn around the display, and the same color is used on the bottom part of the phone. The 2.2” display is the best part of the handset: the QVGA resolution AMOLED screen has wonderful, bright and saturated colors, we have compared it with an N82 and I can say it’s not even the same category.

The layout of the navigation keys is the main issue. Between the call handling keys on the side and the five-way d-pad in the middle we can see the function keys, which are not only very slim, but are also in a very illogical place, we might find ourselves at first tampering with the call handling keys – and it’s no use. Of course one can get used to it, but this is such a design flaw that has no reasons, as it won’t make the phone look or work better. It’s just more annoying – at least during the first two days.

The volume control keys are on the left side, while on the right there is the camera’s hotkey and the microUSB connector. The memory card can be inserted under the back panel, which comes off in a really stupid way (we have to pull the bottom part a bit, and then force the rest off with our nail). There is a rather large camera on the back, there is a label to tell us that it has a resolution of 5 megapixels and it has a LED flash besides to help taking pictures in a dark area.

Even though the whole case is made of plastic, Samsung S7220 will emit some cracking sounds only if we press it really hard, and this all goes off in a style like “don’t hurt me, I’m a Samsung and I don’t even dare to complain loudly”. The numeric keypad is flawless while the great sound quality is not even questionable.

Source:[mobilearsenal.com]