A no-fuss fashion phone
By Annalyn S. Jusay
Do cell phone models cater to a specific gender? I believe this is so. While cell phones are meant to be unisex, the unwritten rule is that some gadgets are meant to segregate male and female users in terms of color, design and features. Men usually lean towards black or gray phones of the bulkier kind while women, I am sure, wouldn’t mind clutching a dainty clamshell--the slimmer the better.
As a female reviewer in Manila Bulletin’s Technews lab, I usually have the good fortune of reviewing phones that are targeted at women. This was again true in the case of the Samsung SGH-E690, a pretty fold phone whose unique color I found most attractive because it was a combination of red and pink. No, I don’t think a man would be caught dead holding a phone of this color but it sure turned heads everywhere I brought it.
The Samsung SGH-E690 sure looks good from any angle. Folded up, the phone boasts of a 65K UFB color screen and a VGA camera that is capable of 4x zoom. Flanking the sides are the volume buttons, the charger/headset port and the one-touch camera key. Opening up the phone shows the vivid two-inch TFT screen and the flat keypad, which I found to be very tactile and user-friendly. I guess some people would balk at using a Samsung because of the unfamiliar interface. However, the four-way navigation and other shortcut buttons make it all easy. I own a Samsung D900 slider and I must say it is just a matter of playing around with the keys to master the phone in due time.
Back to the Samsung SGH-E690, this clamshell tips the scales at a light 95 grams and measures 94 x 48 x 15.9 mm. It is triband and the phonebook has room for a total of 1000 contacts. The internal memory is limited to 16 MB but thankfully there is additional storage with the MicroSD card slot provided. I say this is a no-fuss fashion phone because it’s simple yet its features are what you would like to find in a phone of choice. These include Bluetooth connectivity, a video recorder, music player, WAP and an FM radio which I can preset up to 30 stations. I also had fun playing with its Java-powered games like Arch Angel and Forgotten Warrior as well as using the hands-free speaker. A few of the interesting functions I noted were the SOS messaging template ("Help! Please call me.") from which you can program the recipients in case of an emergency, and an application called Decision-Maker which is like a memo pad for listing alternatives to a certain problem. You can switch the phone to the Offline mode if you would still like to use its functions in places where mobile devices are not allowed, such as airplanes.
This phone would have been my ideal clamshell if not for the fact that it only has a VGA camera or can take only photos at 0.3 megapixels or a low 480 x 640 resolution. This is not enough for somebody like me who likes taking photos and yet does not like lugging around a separate digicam for those spur-of-the-moment shots. But just in case you forgive Samsung for this glaring omission, you can use the Image Editor and avail of some special effects. I discovered that you could even use the camera when the phone is folded using the external screen as your viewfinder, and take a picture of yourself.
My overall verdict: the Samsung SGH-E690 is a great looker which can do the work and give the other fashionista female phones a run for their money.
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