Introduction
Samsung has been trying since a while ago to create/enter a market for their musical phones, but he had a really hard time here, unlike in the case of smartphones for example. There are some serious rivals, the first being Sony Ericsson’s brand, Walkman, which doesn’t perform that well nowadays, but Nokia is also powerful by keeping the XpressMusic series alive and they have a new guy in the competition too, as LG, after having Viewty, now launched Arena, which is something that forces other manufacturers to do something.
The guys at Samsung don’t do a bad job at all, they have the renowned Danish team of Bang&Olufsen on their side, who provide a certain image and some really high-end technology, they use their ICEpower brand on their mission with the Koreans. This is a good starting point, all that remains is to have the engineers and the designers do a great job.
BeatDJ has been announced at this year’s Mobile World Congress, along with i8910 (originally known as OmniaHD) and S8300, which has been already reviewed. BeatDJ is more similar to this second one, but we can see that they’ve been trying hard to create something unique. They’ve been struggling so much that I’ve just wiped the display a couple of times to clear the sweat drops, even though they could have done it the easy way.
Exterior
The handset which came in a simple, white cardboard box didn’t surprise us, Samsung usually sends a package like this when they have a yet unreleased phone for us. The headset is made of two parts, it can be taken apart and clipped to our ear, and it of course has a B&O label on it. We’re not obliged to use this, as it can be taken apart at the remote. It all depends on the user where and what does he want to plug in (regarding the phone of course).
BeatDJ is a strange little fellow. I’ve been calling it a wiener during the test period, it has the shape of a semicircle on both ends, which could be anything, as if I’d suddenly see 22°C on the display, I’d say something like “wow, what a nice little thermometer”. The only things that tell us that this is a phone are the call handling keys on one of the arcs. The display’s resolution is 240 x 400 pixels, which is not a big deal, but the AMOLED technology creates a beautiful picture. Just like all other phone from Barcelona, this one has a touchscreen as well.
There is a silver frame around the cover, while the sides are made of a purplish-blue plastic. Even though there aren’t much keys around the screen, we can find plenty on the sides. On the left we can see the hook of the neck band, while below this there are the volume control keys. Then there is a switch with three positions: no function in the center, keypad lock on top and musical features on the bottom position. On the bottom there is a protected microUSB connector, and so it seems that Samsung took it seriously to change their own stupid standard to this. On the opposite side of BeatDJ there is a wide door for the microSD card, while below there is the camera’s shoot key.
On top of the phone there is a 3.5 mm headset jack if we slide the small door open, while the back panel looks cool, the large silver surface is spiced up by a dark grey part. In the center we can see a camera and a mirror besides a flash. Assembly quality is flawless, in Prague a lame idiot managed to bump into me and make me drop the phone, so it had a fall of about a meter and a half on the basalt blocks and it didn’t fall apart. I can see some small traces of damage, but only if looking very closely. The display gets scratched very easily, if we look angrily at it, a small stripe appears at once, I swear I didn’t even have keys near the phone.
Menu
BeatDJ’s menu system will be no surprise for anyone who has already seen an S8300. Since this one has been launched only recently, I suppose not many of you have seen it, so I’ll sum it up in a nutshell. Samsung puts the TouchWiz interface in their touchscreen phones that have no operating system, but this has improved a lot since its first launch, even though it’s far from being perfect.
The menu has two levels, the main screen uses widgets. A widget is a kind of “live shortcut”, so – if it’s possible – it displays some kind of information too (for example a music player, which displays the currently played track), and by clicking on it we can immediately access the assigned feature. The list of widgets is available from the left side and we can download new ones as well. There are some stupid, useless things like a “stop smoking” widget, which counts the days since we didn’t light a cigar.
With the press of a button we can get from the widget-based main screen to the menu, as there are three virtual keys on the bottom: the dialer, the contact list and the menu. The menu has a normal interface with colored icons in front of a white background and we can’t change this setup. When accessing a submenu, we usually get a list view. It would be all okay if I hadn’t seen the LG Arena. It’s funny that Samsung had an already existing system to tune up and make it perfect, and they have announced this in Barcelona, while LG presented at the same place and the same time a much better system, starting from scratch.
You might ask why LG’s S-Class UI is better than a TouchWiz, so let’s see. It’s one thing that it’s much newer and more logical, but this TouchWiz has such bugs left in it like lagging scrolling, the main screen has only one page (while they could do better, we’ve seen it), there is no multitouch, but the worst is that there is no landscape view for typing. Really, I’d rather had sexual contact with a rocking horse than type a text message on the virtual phone keys, where it took eight (!) taps, just to insert a smiley.
Basic functions
The contact list can store 2,000 contacts. Each one of them can have lots of extra details attached, like different phone numbers, addresses, company details, birthday, ringtone and vibration type and an image that is displayed fullscreen during calls. One of the worst parts of touchscreen phones is searching in the contact list and we should compliment the manufacturer as there is a small, scrollable tab on the side. During scrolling there is a huge letter displayed on-screen, the starting letter where we will stop at. At first I’ve been angry about having this on the left, and I use the phone with my right hand, but then I discovered that the position can be changed.
I’ve already mentioned text entry (a horror), but we can’t complain about functionality. We can store 500 text messages, which should be enough, there is MMS and an email client, which doesn’t require us to use the wizard at all costs, we can set it up manually if we’d like to. Attachments are supported and the handset can read Office documents and PDF file, since Picsel Viewer is installed on the phone, which is perfect for such things.
The calendar is fine, but I hate if I have to look around the options just to switch to month or day view. The entries are cleverly separated into only two types: event and anniversary. If we choose the first one we can edit tons of parameters. The software warns us of event conflicts, and we can set even the vibration rhythm for alerts. The map looks really cool at the world clock, but the calculator has only basic functions. Amongst the applications we can find the stopwatch, the countdown timer and the RSS reader.
We don’t have many games, and only demo apps. These have only a couple of levels to play, then the phone starts screaming for money in order to obtain the full version. The only free stuff is the dice throwing – and let’s admit it: completely useless – thingy.
There is a built-in GPS receiver, but since the phone has no OS, we have to do with Google Maps, which generates a lot of data traffic and doesn’t feature turn-by-turn navigation. We can also use the GPS for geo-tagging our pictures.
Music
Well, the phone would have to be an ace in music, at least according to the engineers. Strangely, the FM radio can be accessed from the applications menu. Anyway, we have the music player instead and a music search, which needs internet connection, it tries to guess, based on a sample recorded with the voice recorder, what song did we just record. Sound quality is really something even on handsfree, the handset screams so hard that not many others could do this. Of course we shouldn’t be looking for bass, but it’s sure that we cannot only fill a bus, but a whole train with music and I’m sure that other passengers will be extremely happy about it. Based on my experience in Budapest, I can say that the pensioners were really enthusiastic when someone started to broadcast a full Numa-numa remix album this way.
If we launch the music player – I’ve been shocked by this – there is a quick setup wizard, where we can choose between equalizer presets and effects. 5.1 sound can be achieved only by using the headset, we should try it, as we might hear something like we never did before, the Danish and/or Korean guys weren’t messing around with this. The player’s interface is new as well, it’s much more elegant and sophisticated than on previous Samsung phones. It has no new features, but it’s easier to get around and to use it, it displays nice album covers, has a transparent menu structure and direct BeatDJ access.
But what the hell is this over-hyped DJ function? Well it’s the most ridiculous new feature in the mobile communication industry in the last couple of years, a completely useless crap which could be exciting until the age of 10. The idea is that the application loads tracks from the phone and then we have three options. The first is scratching, when we can use our finger to spin the disc, and this has such a funny noise that we just have to laugh if we’re not yet three years old. There are some effects in the second option, where we can choose from preset sounds and at the press of a button the software plays them back during the music, thus generating a “wow-feeling”. If using the third option we can set parameters for the whole track, like backwards playing, speeding up/slowing down, echoing, setting the pitch and such phenomenal ideas. We can record our whole foolery.
I’ll be completely sincere: what’s the meaning of this? A user who’s more into music, or maybe one who would like to become a DJ, won’t mix top songs on a phone (mix? We can play around with a single track a time) and although teenagers might have some fun with “dj-ing”, but this is a much more serious handset with higher-mid-range feature and phone technologies.
Camera, social networks
There is a 3.2 megapixel camera on the back, which features autofocus. Taking pictures is very easy, there is the dedicated key, we just rotate the phone, press the button and the viewfinder starts. The options can be accessed on the two sides of the screen, we have the usual ones like image sequencing, ISO sensitivity, some preset modes, white balance, effects and timer.
The pictures are not bad at all, or I might say they are really good for a phone that focuses on music. Panorama pictures are especially great, we just have to take the first picture and then keep rotating with the phone. Videos are recorded in VGA resolutions, but only at 15 fps.
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Image reviewing is just like on Pixon, the photos are displayed horizontally and we can tilt the phone to scroll the list. If you’d not prefer this method (for example because the gyroscope is too sensitive), we can use the file browser as well.
We can access some social networks in the applications, and BeatDJ supports quite a lot of these. The list includes: Facebook, Picasa, Flickr, Photobucket, Friendster and MySpace. I’ve tried only the first one: after providing my login credentials, I had no problem uploading pictures to my profile, and I think this a really practical feature.
Data transfer, summary
We have everything we can possibly use on a mobile network, so all standards are supported from GPRS to HSDPA. Bluetooth is of course stereo, a microUSB cable is included in the box and of course the handset can be charged from the PC.
The problems start with the browser, as Acces Netfront is really outdated. It’s hard to use, doesn’t break pages correctly, we can enter a new URI in landscape view, zooming lags and it sometimes won’t react to taps. I highly recommend to install Opera Mini, or else browsing will be a real pain.
The battery under the hood can take it for a day and a half. I didn’t use the handset much, as I’ve been mostly traveling abroad (and such I didn’t make too much calls), I’ve been only taking pictures, but I still had to charge it every night, I don’t know what would have happened if I had been listening to music.
Summary? Here’s a handset, the manufacturer has been working a lot on it, they’ve been improving it, fine-tuning it, but I just can’t see who will they be selling it to. The DJ function could be the living example of marketing bullshit, while they didn’t care much about the more important things like scrolling, QWERTY, WLAN. There is no price set for the phone yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it would e around 280-350 euros, and I think it simply cannot be sold.
Bog
Translated by Szaszati
Specifications
| Samsung M7600 BeatDJ | ||
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General | |
| Technology | GSM, UMTS, HSDPA | |
| Size | 112 x 51 x 13.9 mm | |
| Weight | 100 grams | |
| Colors | silver-blue | |
| Display | ||
| Display size | 2.8” diagonal | |
| Display resolution | 240 x 400 pixels | |
| Display resolution | OLED, capacitive | |
| Memory | ||
| Phonebook capacity | 2,000 | |
| SMS memory / max. MMS size | 500 / 300KB | |
| Internal memory | 50 MB | |
| Memory expandability | microSDHC (max 8GB) | |
| Data transfer | ||
| Frequency bands | GSM 900/1800/1900 MHz | |
| GPRS / EDGE | yes / yes | |
| UMTS / HSDPA | yes / yes – 7.2 Mbit/s | |
| IrDA / Bluetooth | no / 2.0 A2DP | |
| WiFi | no | |
| Push-to-talk / RSS | no / yes | |
| GPS receiver | yes | |
| Basic functions | ||
| Profiles | yes | |
| Vibra function | yes | |
| Built-in handsfree | yes | |
| Voice dialing / voice commands | no / no | |
| Sound recorder | yes | |
| Alarm clock | yes, also when turned off | |
| Predictive text entry | yes | |
| Software | ||
| Platform | Samsung TouchWiz | |
| WAP / HTML browser | yes / yes - Access Netfront | |
| E-mail client | yes | |
| Java | yes | |
| Games | 5 demo + dice game | |
| Currency converter | yes | |
| Extra software | Picsel Viewer, Google Maps, Music Find, DJ | |
| Multimedia | ||
| Main camera | 3.2 megapixels, autofocus, flash | |
| Secondary camera | yes | |
| Video recording | 640x480 pixels | |
| Music player | yes, can run in background | |
| Equalizer | yes | |
| FM radio | yes, RDS | |
| Battery | ||
| Main battery | 960 mAh Li-Ion | |
| Standby time | n/a | |
| Talk time | n/a | |
| Others | ||
| touchscreen display, widgets, gyroscope, B&O ICEpower | ||
