Without getting into its features which has been ‘featured’ time and again in this and numerous other forums, I will highlight the pros and cons which have made this so much of a hit!
The Samsung STAR S5230 (released in India as S5233A with India localization) was launched to counter the equally popular LG KP500 ‘Cookie’, (and now is itself under ‘attack’ by the newly launched Nokia S5230 (yes the model no is the same – don’t confuse this with the obsolete Nokia S5320).
Feature wise the two (rather three) models are almost identical – Full touch screen, GPRS/Edge , no Wi-Fi or 3G, Quad band, size etc etc. Price wise also all three are within a few hundred rupees of each other.
I had a MotorROKR E6, which is a fantastic ‘geeky’ phone which has been serving me pretty well last 2 years. But the itch to move on and get a latest model, especially when getting so much value for money and a very good trade – in price for my E6 thrown in made me go in for Samsung STAR after a lot of R&D and am glad to say that am extremely happy with this model for the price.
What’s hot in Samsung STAR:Very fast Touch UI ( reportedly better than Cookie). No need for stylus / plectrum – in fact there is no provision to store a stylus tho they supply one with the package. Have’nt felt the need for it.
Excellent response of accelerometer to switch from normal to landscape view and vice versa for messaging / mailing / browsing / picture / movie viewing etc .. in fact for almost all applications.
Cool Photo Id ‘scroll wheel’ feature – recent / most called calls come up in a scrollable ‘wheel’ with photo Ids (Menu > photo Id) You can scroll to the id you want and tap on the photo to bring up the call/SMS option. Customizable widgets which you can drag / drop off your screen. .
Three yes – three wallpapers provision- you can slide over to any of the three and you can have animated gifs as your wallpaper.
Excellent screen display clarity – check out watching mp4 movies with 25 fps frame rate.
Responsive Customer Service. My issue logged was very quickly closed an followed up on mail/phone. Good going Samsung !
Bluetooth syncs easily (auto connect) with PC (and PC software) and BT headset/ BT stereo headphones/ BT enabled Car stereo. Auto answer function when connected to handsfree headset or BT headset/Car unit.
Charges both thru Power adapter and USB port. (Cookie does not have USB charging)
Hooks up to PC in three modes – USB drive, PC Sync and Media Manager (syncs with your Windows Media Player), connects without a problem once you have the right drivers and setup. Only thing is that you need to switch off Bluetooth to connect to PC ! Both ringtones and vibration types can be configured for type and volume.
Now some very cool features that most people are not aware of ! (and not found in most of the ‘Feature Rich’ phones )
Photo Id widget is especially cool – Tapping on it brings up the speed dial photo in slot 2, surrounded by the next 4 speed dial ids. Tapping on any of the surrounding photos swaps the ids. Tapping on the centre (bigger photo) shows up the quick call/sms menu.
Gesture Unlock –with phone in locked state all you need to do is draw an alphabet on the screen to bring up specific applications, which will automatically unlock the phone and bring up the application. For eg I can map M to the music player, and when I ‘draw’ an M with my finger on the locked screen, it will bring up the music player – real cool !
Fake Call – you can set it up so that when you depress the volume down button for a few seconds and leave it, then after a set time (say 30 sec) you will automatically ‘receive’ a call which you can answer and ‘hear’ a conversation (which you recorded earlier). Cool way to get out of boring meetings. I’ve used this quite successfully !
SOS call – useful features especially if you are being kidnapped/threatened. When you press the volume button 4 times, the phone automatically sends an SOS (configurable message) to a person you have previously selected. Once the person calls back , the phone automatically answers without a ring and remains in connected mode and the screen will remain locked till the secret PIN is entered. Just image the Bangalore BPO girl having a phone with this feature! It could have saved her.
Mobile Tracker : You can set up the phone so that if someone changes the SIM card (which could occur if the phone is stolen and the thief changes the SIM card after dumping yours), an automatic message with the IMEI number is sent to one or more preset mobile numbers, without the thief’s knowledge ! Once you give the IMEI number to the service providers they can easily locate the location of the phone wherever it is !
What not (hot)
· Dialpad locks automatically when you make / receive a call. Putting on the speaker phone or bringing up dialpad is a pain – you need to press hold button for a few seconds. They should have had a proximity sensor which ‘locks’ the display only when you bring it close to your face (Nokia has this)
· No 3.5 mm audio socket, but for about 100 bucks you get an adapter, so not a very big drawback.
· Photo / video quality about average – not really great.
· Music quality not really great- my E6 was miles ahead in quality. The supplied hands free earphones are irritating and keep slipping off.
· No easy way to directly add folders /files to newly created playlists.
· Crappy PC sync (New PC Sync) software. Really had a PIA trying to sync my Outlook/PC/Phone and the program kept crashing. This is really a hopeless piece of software. I logged a call with Samsung and they responded quickly and asked me to uninstall s/w supplied in CD with phone and re-install, latest from their UK site. This at least resolved the issue of crashing/erroring out of the software, but the application is still crappy for so many reasons for which there is no space here.
· Plays only selected type of multi-media files like mp3 / mp4 / avi etc and limited frame rate video files.
· The supplied faux leather cover looks cool, but you need to take off the back cover to put it on.
· SD Card is not hot swappable
· A tad heavier than Cookie which is more impressive to look at. Display of Nokia 5230 is .2 in bigger.*
The winner is clearly the STAR.*
