The Most Stylish Communicator
by: Jerry Smith
Samsung S3650 aka Corby is a tech-savvy entry level, touch screen mobile phone which curbs the users’ appetite for a stylish, feature rich gadget available within the budget. Socialization is now the slogan for teenagers and young mobile phone users and Samsung S3650 rightly gives the user what he wants. The distinct shape and bold colors of the mobile phone is definitely a selling point among youngsters, though it is not for adults. The size of the phone is 103 x 56.5 x 12mm and it weighs 90g.
This inexpensive mobile phone surely has high end features available with other Samsung mobile phones. The finger zoom feature makes it more interesting to use the capacitive touch screen. The Smart unlock and based TouchWiz interfaces are all the indispensable features in the Samsung S3650.The plastic design doesn’t degrade the level of this phone with glossy finish.
The central attraction of the phone is the 2.8 inches capacitive touch screen with a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels. The image quality is satisfactory, but other Samsung mobile phones offer much better quality. The screen is highly responsive though sunlight legibility is poor. Right below the screen, there are three simple keys for menu control.
The TouchWiz interface in Samsung S3650 is fun to use. You can add as many widgets as you wish and customize the mini apps according to your needs. The accelerometer based auto align widgets option helps you align widgers when you shake the phone. Aside from the home screen and modern icons, rest of the interface looks just like any other Samsung touch mobile phone. Multitasking is available with this mobile phone and you can run java applications in the background. But the lack of dedicated key for switching between opened applications limit the functionality of multitasking. The interface allows users to assign gestures for letters A to Z to open desired applications.
The Samsung S3650 features the common phonebook. You can add a video to a contact as a contact image. Dialing numbers and calling is an absolute pleasure with the touch screen phone. A smart dialing feature could have made the phone much better. The call quality and reception of the Samsung S3650 are all satisfatory. SMS and MMS share a common editor. But there is a dedicated editor for sending emails. The great drawback of this phone is that it has no landscape QWERTY keypad which is always present in other expensive touch screen mobile phones.
The most exciting feature of the Samsung S3650 is its social networking. Now you can integrate Facebook, Myspace and Twitter with your phone. There are three separate widgets that allow you to post messages and images to your social networking accounts directly. You will also receive pop up notifications for responses to your account. You can also link to websites like Picasa and Flickr and upload your files in a jiffy. However, there is no phonebook integration, which is pretty disappointing.
On the multimedia side, music player and FM radio are extremely useful and they are touch optimized. The Video player is quite satisfactory. The 2MP camera shoots images at a resolution of 1600 x 1200 pixels with smile shot feature, but there is no auto focus. The video recording is basic, but it is touch optimized too. Bluetooth and A2DP support provides connectivity. The web browser is perfect and comes with full flash support. There are quite a few office apps that are good additions to the package.
The battery life promised by the Li- lon 960 mAh is 9 hours of talk time and 730 hours of standby time, which is pretty good. The lack of 3G support is surely a disadvantage because high speed internet can make using social networks more fun.
