| It used to be quite exciting talking about | | | | touchscreen that few smartphones have. It has the |
| smartphones. What OS they use, what apps they | | | | usual gravity accelerometer for auto rotate viewing |
| have and what features to drool over can take the | | | | and a gesture-like turn-to-mute but no proximity |
| wind out of any discussion about mobile phones. But | | | | sensors. |
| over the course of mobile phone evolution, the line | | | | • A 3.2 megapixel fixed focus camera is fairly |
| drawn between a smartphone and a regular feature | | | | common even with midrange smartphones. It even |
| phone is now almost as meaningless as a penciled line | | | | features with smile detection, geo tagging from its |
| on a piece of paper. | | | | GPS capability and a decent QVGA video recording at |
| Except for the OS and its multitasking PC-like | | | | 15fps that many affordable smartphones have. This |
| flexibility, a smartphone no longer enjoys any | | | | one has a front-facing CIF camera that is useful with |
| advantage. Take a look at the new Samsung S5620 | | | | your 3G video calls. |
| Monte full-touchscreen handset recently announced | | | | • The handset won’t be complete with the |
| just before the 2010 Mobile World Congress. With its | | | | expected multimedia experience it brings. It has the |
| features, and they are by no means ordinary, one | | | | capable media players we’ve come to expected |
| would think it’s a smartphone. It looks like one, it | | | | from a Samsung mobile phone, a stereo FM receiver |
| even acts like one. But it’s just a feature phone. | | | | with RDS and 3.5mm headphone jack. It gets the |
| Very Smart Dumbphone Features | | | | Samsung’s own DNSe (Dynamic Natural Sound |
| Samsung ported its TouchWiz 2.0 UI on the RTOS | | | | engine) that promises to bring a listening experience |
| (real-time OS) of the Monte giving it look and feel of | | | | on the road with surround effects or a simple stereo |
| a smartphone. Feature-wise, there’s little to | | | | widening. |
| betray the fact that it’s just a feature phone. | | | | • There’s only 227 MB of internal memory |
| Take a look. | | | | storage with up to 1,000 photocall-enabled phone |
| • It’s a 3G phone with dual band UMTS with | | | | entries. But you get microSD expansion slot for up to |
| HSDPA at 3.5 MBps as well as a quad band GSM | | | | 16 GB that’s hot-swappable. There’s a 960 |
| GPRS/EDGE on 2G. WiFi 802.11b/g, Bluetooth 2.1 with | | | | mAh Li-Ion battery that can get you up to 9 hours |
| A2DP and standard microUSB 2.0 HS brings its local | | | | of talk time and 770 hours of standby time. |
| data connectivity at par with any upscale handset. It | | | | • As a nod to the social networking markets, the |
| also has built-in A-GPS receiver with Google Maps 3.0 | | | | Samsung S5620 Monte has the SNS apps for |
| to give you the SatNav functionality in many | | | | integrating with Facebook, MySpace and Bebo. Its |
| smartphones. There’s also Google Latitude that | | | | other built-in apps include push email with Emoze, |
| pinpoints your exactly location coordinates anywhere | | | | instant messaging with Palringo and document |
| you go. | | | | viewers for PDF and MS Office files. |
| • A 3-inch Wide QVGA (240 x 400) with 256k | | | | Pay a visit to Best Mobile Contracts to look at all the |
| colors used to be rare in feature phones but is now a | | | | latest phone deals. You can compare all the best |
| common feature in many affordable touchscreen | | | | deals for the Samsung Monte S5620. There are also |
| monoblocks. But it gets better with a capacitive | | | | hundreds of detailed mobile reviews to read. |