Introduction
Yes, yes, we have another cheap phone for testing, this time from Samsung. Bocha took this one and J800 at the same time from MGSM.hu, and when he gave this to me, he was happy since this also has the new chipset, that provided a really pleasant speed for the menu system in case of J800.
We usually have some prejudices with the cheap phones of Samsung, at least if we consider that they are committing the usual standard errors (WAP browser launching on OK, T9 cannot be turned off and so on) since a long time. This is why it has been a pleasant surprise that the new chipset came with the new BlackUI system, which is a real advance in terms of usability.
It is an eternal question if it’s worth cramming all kinds of functions in cheap phones that are present in the more expensive ones, while compromising them. Is a music player needed on a phone with non-expandable memory, do we have to have a camera if it only has VGA resolution, will anyone ever use an HTML browser on such a small screen? Well, Samsung this time decided that they are leaving out a couple of extras, so they have really made a model that has phone calls as its primary function, and they have elegantly omitted every other extra that they have thought useless.
Of course the market will decide if this is a winning strategy, but it’s sure that they have managed to kepp the price low, B320’s SIM-free edition costs about €55-€75 euros, so it has joined such a company that has members like Nokia 2630, 1680 Classic or Sony Ericsson R300 and W200i, but we might also mention E250.
Exterior
B320 comes in a very small box, which is labeled Impact, but after opening the package we’ll be a bit disappointed, as the list of accessories contains only a charger, so there is no headset, which tells us that not only the music player, but the FM radio is also missing.
The phone we find inside seems to be a bit more serious than we would expect and this is mostly due to the front, which has a nice silvery frame that draws attention. This is a bit strange as well, since it makes the handset a bit more prominent on the top, as other parts are characterized by the usual plain design. The external display inside the frame is monochrome and displays only the most important data.
There is no camera on the front, but we won’t see anything resembling a lens anywhere else, as Samsung has left this feature out as well from B320. The back side is exceptionally simple, it’s easy to take off, but when it’s on it stays there, it doesn’t have any play, it doesn’t move or crack. The whole handset is characterized by an unexceptionable assembly quality, the cover is opened up softly, it stays open rock solidly and has no play at all.
The keyboard has two small features that try to make it better than other ones from this category. It’s a small design feat that the separators between the key rows are colored blue and there are two dedicated keys between the navigation controls. The left one pops up a quick menu, while the right one takes the user to Bluetooth – yup, this feature is still here. There can be no complaints about the pressure point, the keys are soft, the uniform white backlight makes the arced letters easily readable even in dark.
Menu
The menu is amazingly fast. The software reacts immediately to keypresses, the 128 x 160 pixel display can barely keep up. This speed is highly impressive, this is not usual at all in this category, and although we’ve already told this at the J800 review, it’s worth to note again that although the menu system didn’t change at all at first sight, but the Samsung uses the new NXP chipset, which seems to be a great one, based on current experience. If further Samsung models will be based on this, it will be hard to beat the Korean manufacturer in speed benchmarks.
We’ve made a short video about the handset while being used, you can see it below. Warning! This is not a high-speed movie!
The menu has nothing new, but we won’t be waiting for redemption in this category. We’ve seen a similar menu layout in M310, but this time the manufacturer committed the error of binding the WAP browser to the center of the navigation button. As a specific of system speed, let’s compare this WAP thingy with previous models: when you’ve pressed the red exit key on an older Samsung, that resulted in a couple seconds of “Please wait” message, while this time we can only see this for just a moment.
Of course the main menu doesn’t have many extras, we have nine icons, and unfortunately the white background cannot be changed. We can set the calendar to be the wallpaper, the quick menu has five elements, the last row is where we can insert our own list. We can’t set much other stuff, the menu is simple, but I’ve been expecting this, since there aren’t many functions. What is a negative thing is that after taking the battery out the phone forgets the time and date, but at least it warns the user immediately after turning it on. It’s interesting that almost all features are accessible even without a SIM card, although I didn’t see this very meaningful in this case, since there is no music player.
The phonebook is very simple, we can store 500 entries on the internal memory, five phone numbers per name, an email address, a birthday, a note, a picture and a ringtone. We can copy contacts, and searching is – what a surprise – very fast. There are no revolutionary functions in messaging, we have SMS and MMS, we shouldn’t expect any more. The maximum supported size for multimedia messages is 100KB. B320 is no big hit from the point of view of memory, we can store 200 SMS messages and 3.5 MB of MMS.
Organizer and other
The alarm clock can store four time points, it works even when the phone is turned off, we can set it to repeat and set snooze time as well (max 10 minutes). The small calendar has month and week views. We can store 100 of each type of entries (meeting, anniversary, task). The application warns us of time conflicts. There is no radio or music player, the handset accepts MP3 files from the PC, but it denies to play them, we can’t set them as a ringtone either. Pictures are displayed if they are not too large, it had no problems with a 1 megapixel photo, but it couldn’t do anything with a 5 MP one.
There are no profiles, but we can mute the phone with the # key. The default ringtones are loud and clear, voice quality during calls has been good as well. There are six games for entertainment; they are BobbyCarrot, Tetris, BrainChallenge, Minesweeper, Sudoku and JC Does Texas from Sony Ericsson phones. We also have a sound recorder that can record until there is some free memory; there is a world clock with list view, a basic calculator, a stopwatch, a timer and a converter.
Data communication capabilities are very limited, only GPRS is supported, and this is only enough for a basic WAP browser. Bluetooth is supported, we can easily transfer files from a computer, but I had no luck with a Sony Ericsson V630i, I don’t know why didn’t it work, the connection has kept failing.
The battery is a 800 mAh one, which provides an uptime of three days for B320 at average use. It’s hard to judge the phone on the whole. If someone only needs a high-quality, fast phone that has only the basic features, B320 might be a good choice, even its price might drop a bit. I think leaving the out the FM radio hasn’t been a good decision, but the presence of Bluetooth is a good thing. There are lots of handsets in this price category, I’ve been very satisfied with the high speed of the little Samsung, but the phone is far from perfect. Of course it’s still good as a basic phone, and so it deserves this award:
 |
| Samsung B320 |
Bog
Translated by Szaszati
Samsung B320 has been provided by MGSM.hu. The handset can be purchased at:
1024 Budapest, Lövőház u. 12.
On-line at www.mgsm.hu.
Specifications
| Samsung B320 | ||
 | General | |
| Technology | GSM | |
| Size | 89.9 x 45 x 18.6 mm | |
| Weight | 75 grams | |
| Available colors | grayish | |
| Display | ||
| Display size | 1.77” | |
| Display resolution | 128 x 160 pixels | |
| Display type | CSTN | |
| Number of colors | 65 thousand | |
| Memory | ||
| Phonebook capacity | 500 entries | |
| SMS memory / max. MMS size | 200 / 100KB | |
| Internal memory | 4 MB | |
| Memory expandability | none | |
| Data transfer | ||
| Frequency bands | 900/1800 MHz | |
| GPRS / EDGE | Class 10 (4+1/3+2) / none | |
| UMTS / HSDPA | none / none | |
| IrDA / Bluetooth | none / present | |
| WiFi | none | |
| USB | present | |
| Push-to-talk / RSS | none / none | |
| GPS receiver | none | |
| Basic functions | ||
| Profiles | none | |
| Vibra function | present | |
| Built-in handsfree | present | |
| Voice dialing / voice commands | none / none | |
| Sound recorder | present | |
| Alarm clock | present, also when turned off | |
| Predictive text entry | T9 | |
| Software | ||
| Platform | Samsung NXP | |
| WAP / HTML browser | 2.0 / none | |
| E-mail client | none | |
| Java | present, MIDP 2.0 | |
| Games | 6 | |
| Currency converter | present | |
| Extra software | - | |
| Multimedia | ||
| Main camera | none | |
| Secondary camera | none | |
| Video recording | none | |
| Music player | none | |
| Equalizer | none | |
| FM radio | none | |
| Battery | ||
| Main battery | 800 mAh Li-Ion | |
| Standby time | 200 hours | |
| Talk time | 150 minutes | |
| Other | ||
| - | ||
