Samsung Star S5230 Review

Samsung Star S5230

The india's larger manufacturer Samsung has launched their Star S5230 recently.

Specifications: 3 inch touchscreen bar phone, 3.2 MP camera w/o flash, 262K Color TFT Screen, GPRS, EDGE, Bluetooth, Music player, FM, 100 MB internal memory, Memory card slot for upto 8gb cards, JAVA™ MIDP 2.0, Document viewer (Doc, Ppt, Xls, Pdf), Mobile Tracker, 1000mAh battery, 92g weight and the rest of the usual features like SMS, MMS, calculator etc.

Accessories: Headset, charger, USB cable, Stylus, Samsung New PC Studio CD, one normal rear cover and one plastic/leather rear cover with front flaps.

Main Review from our sources here :

The phone is a a good looking device featuring a generous 3 inch body with touchscreen for user input. There are only six physical buttons namely Call, End Call/Operation, volume up and down, camera, and lock/unlock phone. The main display is bright and features the basic details like battery level, time, connection strength and also the much hyped about but generally useless widgets.

- The touch interface is itself quite easy to use. It is smooth and and does its job quite well. Scrolling up and down is although much easier with the volume keys than with the touch interface.
- Call quality is good and even when...

signal strength drops the call is not cut off and voice clarity remains.
- There are default wallpapers each of which contain 3 pictures and this can be scrolled left or right to change into any one of the 3 pictures. This works well with the default wallpapers of Samsung but when you see your own wallpapers showing only 1/3rd in the screen you'll realize its a foolish design decision on the part of the developers.
-The camera is pretty good and night shot come out rather well.
-The music initially sounded a little hollow but somehow after a few days it sounds better. The headset is pretty good and volume levels are acceptable.
-FM was iffy. Maybe the phone's positioning wasn't great.
- Connection on the USB to the PC is very fast and although the bluetooth is also 2.1 version you'll find yourself using the USB cable only to transfer files.
- On the security front you have Mobile Tracker technology and you can password protect various parts of the phone like Messaging, phonebook, your files, SIM card etc.
- Messaging is a dream. You can use the standard keypad or you can tilt the phone horizontally and use the QWERTY keypad. You can also use the stylus to write your own message but handwriting recognition is very poor. I tried writing "8" 10-15 times and then only its managed to recognize it.
- A smart unlock feature lets you make a symbol on the phone's screen (even if phone is locked) and if that symbol is a assigned to a person the person is called, if the symbol is assigned to an application then that application opens.
- Browing on the net is definitely fast. It loaded the PC version of sites vey fast with the default browser also. Moving around the websites using the touch interface is very fast, unlike document viewing.
- There are a few preloaded games which are pretty fun to play.
- Document viewing is a letdown. You move around the document with your fingers but its very slow and you'd be barely using the useful stylus because of another bad design decision; the stylus is not fitted into the phone's body.
-Battery wise I was not convinced by the 13 hour advertised battery talktime and in the first few days I used it so heavily that I was charging the phone everyday. But from the fourth day onwards I am using it moderately and seems like it will go on for 3-4 days on a single charge.
-Video player is good. The Samsung New PC Studio software converted some video files and transferred them to the phone. The files played smoothly and were of high video and sound quality. 700 MB files when converted to 500 Mb mp4's played with good video quality on the phone. Video details are: 320x240 resolution, 1200 Bits/sec, 15 fps, MP4
-Photo gallery is so awesome!!!!! Besides, it opens up 2-3 MB photos with ease.
-File management could be much better. If you put 500 wallpapers in one folder then god help you if you want to see the wallpaper whose filename starts with "Z".

Advantages
-Display quality
-Call quality
-Good touch interface
-Battery
-Music and video player does its job
-Camera quite good
-Web browsing (even if its w/o 3G or WiFi)
-8GB memory card support (though I am not even able to fill my 2GB one)
-Messaging a pleasure
-Games are fun
-Samsung New PC Studio s/w works well with the phone

Disadvantages
-Cannot view SMS's while on a phone call. Can only write SMS's and emails during calls
-Document viewing is a pain
-Stylus cannot be attached to the phone's body
-File Manager can be much better
-Have to buy a separate screen guard as default one already is on its way out when you're buying the phone
-Handwriting recognition
-Design decision related to wallpapers in topmost screen

Useless
-Photo Contacts
-Widgets
-Smart Unlock

Price of phone: Rs. 9500 (w/o memory card)

Photo Key
1. Indoor Picture