Introduction

It’s always a pleasure to have a phone that really has a right to exist. Another great thing is when a manufacturer, after a couple of fails (M7600, S8300), creates something that can be and has to be applauded. Furthermore it’s superb to write a review of a phone that won’t be limited to a couple of users because of its price, but it might become a real mass product.

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The last time we had such a thing from Samsung was E250. It has been evident from the beginning how the engineers created the functions that sells good when put in a nice case and priced accordingly. Phones that have really high sales are always lower-mid category ones, and although the profit isn’t very much for a single handset, but considering the huge amounts of devices sold, it can increase to a really large sum.

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I can’t say that E250 disappeared without a successor. J700 was quite effective in taking over its place, but it wasn’t as successful as the smaller counterpart of D900. We have already seen when testing B320 that the fat little guy can sell good, but we have to observe again that a phone can be outstandingly successful only if all network operators start selling it. We hope this will be true for C3050 too, its current SIM-free price is just a bit higher than it should be for the targeted users. The device that came from GSM Takács will soon cost a bit less and I think it will have a really friendly price-tag.

Exterior

This is a typical Samsung. Anyone can tell that it’s been made in Korea, but the inexperienced ones can see the large label above the display. The slider is currently available only in black, but this is the typical phone which usually comes in all kinds of nice colors. Knowing Samsung, we won’t have to wait much to see these new color editions in shops. The rounded edges and corners are covered in shiny plastic, just like the other simple shapes, but this is true only for the top part. On the sides and the back we can see much more interesting places, and that’s good: we won’t drop the little Samsung.

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It will slide up, or at least the front panel will. We won’t find a notch to place our fingers at in order to do so, thus we’ll need to push the middle of the display, leaving some fingerprints. The 128 x 160 pixels large screen is no big deal, but it’s kind of okay in this category. In turn we get perfect slide mechanics, and we’ll have the quality feeling even though the front panel has some play when opened.

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The keypad has a bright white backlight, but unfortunately it’s made of a single panel, so the keys are not separated enough. Still, text entry is not very problematic, we’ll only have to get used to the bit stiff pressure point. The navigation controls are great, the best is the five-way d-pad, the center OK key is so large even an ogre could press it.

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On the left we can see the volume control keys and the microSD card slot, but the right side is quite desolate, as we only have the standard Samsung data connector. The back panel is no design award winner wither, but if we slide the phone open we get to see the camera, the only label near this being “digital camera”. They’re not lying, and probably they didn’t want to advertise that it’s only a VGA.

Menu, basic functions

Let’s start by saying that the menu is lightning fast. But really. Everything happens at an instant, even images and games load in a second. Such a small handset is so surprising in the current wave of multimedia monsters that it’s a really great experience using it. Of course this has its reasons, there is probably an Infineon chipset inside the phone, which has been used in B320 as well. This is not a feature-filled thingy, for example it doesn’t support 3G, but it’s the best choice for such a model.

The menu has the graphics from the big brothers (L700, S3310) with three themes and the usual structure. I’ve almost filed it as having nothing new, and anyway it doesn’t really look good on this 128 x 160 pixel screen, but the left softkey opens up a custom menu, which is a really smart thing. It’s not that like at other manufacturers where we have a list, but we can see a shadow menu, which has again 12 icons, but we can use any function of the original menu (of course not just the main menu items, that would be useless). I’ve immediately assigned the profile changer to the first position, but an alarm clock or the bookmarks might also come in handy. It would be unnecessary to say in case of a different brand, but it’s important at a Samsung: the OK button won’t open WAP, the phone can ring and vibrate at the same time and we’re not forced to use T9 as soon as we start a new message.

Besides these functions the other parts of the menu are very similar to other Samsung phones. The storage capacity of 1000 contacts with additional information is more than enough in this category. Searching is of course very fast. In terms of messaging we can send and receive SMS and MMS, there is no email client on the phone. I’ve already mentioned the keypad, the situation is not tragic at all, we can get used to the keys quite easily. The handset can store 200 text messages, while MMSs are stored in the shared memory, which is 21 MB large.

The first place where we can see that the resolution is really low is the calendar: on the month view the font size is very small. There is no lack of functions, however; we have graphical week view as well. We can store five types of entries with the necessary information, which should be enough for day-to-day use. The alarm clock can store multiple alarm times, we can set these to repeat, snooze time can be 10 minutes at most. The calculator has basic functions, the world clock has a list view.

Multimedia

The camera on the back is not a very good one, it has only VGA resolution. There is a mirror besides it, but we won’t find no LED flash, although it’s not really necessary at such an image size. It’s great that the viewfinder is landscape, pictures are shot and saved in a second, while the number of settings is very limited. Of course no one expects much, but there still are some test pictures below. Another positive aspect is that reviewing pictures is also a fast process.

In terms of music we have multiple possibilities. Since the memory is expandable the music player can come in handy: this has the same interface as in other Samsung phones. It can run in the background, we can choose between a couple of equalizer presets, while the tracks are sorted by ID3 tags. If there is an album cover, we can even see that, although in very small.

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We won’t be shocked by the sound quality or by the headset. The stereo headset is a cheap junk, it cannot be taken apart, and since Samsung used its own connector again, we can swap it to a different one only if we get a converter. We have to plug the headset in to turn the FM radio on, this has a medium sensitivity.

There are six java games on the phone, but only the first, Sudoku, is a full version software. The others are demos, Samsung will ask us to pay and download them after a couple of levels.

Data transfer, summary

C3050 is no master of data transfer, there is no 3G, but we have at least EDGE. I’d recommend the browser for only WAP pages, not only because of the speed, but the screen resolution is too low. At local level we have Bluetooth, and theoretically we can connect the device to a USB port as well, but there’s no cable in the package.

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The 800 mAh battery has a great performance. At an average use it can keep the handset alive for 4-5 days, and the theoretically empty battery can still take it for a night, and so can we if we mute the phone, or else it will beep every 10 minutes.

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Summary. C3050 can be Samsung’s phone for the masses. It’s not yet worth paying 100-110 euros for it, but it can clearly take the place of E250 with a price-tag of 65-70 euros at network operators. If Samsung will start selling its cheap models with the same chipset, they will have some really content customers. The menu system’s speed might not seem that important for many, but it’s great to use C3050, it just fits my hand, it’s cool, and everything happens just as the user would like it. At an instant.

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I might have even given a Recommended award, but it doesn’t deserve it due to the 128 x 160 pixel display. If they would have wanted to create a really awesome phone, a 176 x 220 pixel resolution could have done the job, so considering its current price, that’s all we have for the phone:

Samsung C3050

Bog

Translated by Szaszati

Samsung C3050 has been provided by GSM Takács. Thanks.
The handset can be purchased online at www.gsmtakacs.hu.

Specifications

Samsung C3050
	General
	Technology	GSM
	Size	97 x 47.3 x 17,9 mm
	Weight	~90 grams
	Available colors	silver-black
	Display
	Display diagonal	2”
	Display resolution	128 x 160 pixels
	Display type	TFT
	Number of colors	262.000
	Memory
	Phonebook capacity	1000
	SMS memory / max. MMS size	200 / 295 KB
	Internal memory	21 MB
	Memory expandability	microSD
	Data transfer
	Frequency bands	850/900/1800/1900 MHz
	GPRS / EDGE	Class 10 (4+1/3+2) / Class 10
	UMTS / HSDPA	no / no
	IrDA / Bluetooth	no / 2.0 A2DP
	WiFi	no
	USB	2.0
	Push-to-talk / RSS	no / no
	GPS receiver	no
	Basic functions
	Profiles	yes
	Vibra function	yes
	Built-in handsfree	yes
	Voice dialing / voice commands	no / no
	Sound recorder	yes - 5 minutes
	Alarm clock	yes, also when turned off
	Predictive text entry	T9
	Software
	Platform	Samsung
	WAP / HTML browser	2.0 / xHTML
	E-mail client	no
	Java	yes, MIDP 2.0
	Games	1 + 5 demos
	Currency converter	yes
	Extra software	-
	Multimedia
	Main camera	VGA resolution, fixed focus
	Secondary camera	no
	Video recording	yes (H.264 format, 128 x 96 pixels)
	Music player	yes
	FM radio	yes - RDS
	Battery
	Main battery	800 mAh Li-Ion
	Standby time	340 hours
	Talk time	8 hours
	Others
	-