Samsung’s S5603 is aimed at those looking for a lower end touchscreen handset like the LG Cookie which has reigned supreme so far. Personally, I’m not a touchscreen fan, gimme tactile buttons any day, but the touchscreen is the wave of the future and a trend that’s only getting more popular everyday. So to cater to the audience that has a low budget and still wishes to stay at the edge of this technological “revolution”, a Star was born, so to speak. Allow me to clue you in on its features and performance.
Form Factor
Unlike the large but slim LG Cookie, the Star is a smaller but extremely comfortable to hold light weight handset. It fits squarely into the palm of your hand and any sized pocket. It features a 2.8-inch touchscreen with volume and Zoom keys for the fixed focus 3MP (with LED flash) camera on one side and dedicated camera button on the other. A screen lock button is located above the camera key.
�
A Universal all-in-one port is located on the top. This means you can’t listen to music or have a handsfree call with the kit while you’re charging. I absolutely hate this. The same port is also a USB connector. The Star 3G also supports external memory via microSD. What pisses me off is that it’s not a hot swap slot so if you have to ever do anything with the memory card you’ll have to power down the handset and remove the battery to get to the card.
Samsung has a bad habit of sending me test pieces that don’t come in boxes but in envelopes so I’m not sure weather the large button under the display is designed to be so sticky as a five way nav-pad or is actually like that with all devices. This could be a very big problem for navigating through certain parts of the UI. It seems like a button but didn’t seem to do much unless I clicked on an edge. One side brought up a shortcut menu, the other was a return key to move backward through the menu screens. The other sides didn’t do much at all, nor could I find any settings to assign them to. I hope you do.
Features and Performance
Interface
The S5603 uses Samsung’s proprietary TouchWiz UI for getting around. It’s ok, but honestly it got a little un-responsive at times and I couldn’t seem to find the option of calibrating the screen. The gesture control system works just fine though. When the handset is locked you can simply type an alphabet anywhere on the display (that you’ve pre-assigned to a function) to unlock the handset and go straight to that function. The onscreen keypad is large but doesn’t switch to QWERTY in landscape. In other words there is no QWERTY keypad, even in the browser’s landscape mode. It’s relatively quick but as and when it comes to deleting messages; it still takes an unusually long time.
The vibration for incoming calls refused to work. I switched profiles and selected the Vibration Type as well which gave me feedback but didn’t actually work on calls. Needless to say I missed quite a few calls while traveling. I also found that if I selected a music file as ringtone the volume was drastically low when a call came in. The same scenario repeated itself for alarms only this time the default sounds were also too low causing me to get up late quite often the past few days.
I really hate Samsung’s Image viewer application as it still doesn’t allow you to view portrait images on the full screen nor edit images from the same app. The gravity sensor and ability to arrange images according to color I believe is a great concept, but that’s it.
The Star 3G has like others adopted a multiple desktop option with widgets. However, this time like with the HTC Magic, desktop wallpapers stretch across all three so you’ll have to find images to fit across them. It’s quite annoying as it becomes a little more difficult to personalize the desktop when an image of your girlfriend’s face gets chopped into three parts. I know she didn’t like it.
Media
The Star 3G’s media capabilities are not bad at all. The music player is comfortably loud but you’ll have to keep the volume peaked at all times to keep ambient sounds at bay. It won’t do that too well but it’s good enough. EQ presets include Surround, Wide and Dynamic settings. The only reason the sound is as good as it is, is thanks to Samsung’s DNSe sound engine that’s working behind the scenes.
The handset’s FM radio worked quite well. There’s no recording feature but that’s ok. There’s no ‘Skip Station’ option when you need to do so, so you have to open up a Channel list box which is not a big deal except that it involves another button press. Samsung’s Find Music feature is also available for music recognition via the voice recorder for external sources and the FM radio as well.
When it comes to video playback the S5603 supports MPEG4 and 3GP file formats. The large display works out pretty well for the handset and comfortable video watching.
Connectivity
We already know the handset is 3G ready and other connectivity options include EDGE/GPRS. For some reason even with all the right settings inserted I kept getting an error while trying to connect saying – Unexpected Error Occurred. The same settings in three other handsets worked just fine. With this issue, I was completely unable to access the net for uploading images via the Share Pix application to sites like Facebook, Picasa et al or even downloading emails (IMAP and POP3). All of these features are available readily at hand so once again I’m hoping that a purchased boxed piece will not have� these problems so you can utilize the handset to its optimum potential. Widgets for Google Maps, Gmail and Google Search are also present as well as one for Facebook, MySpace, AccuWeather and YouTube. An RSS reader is also available for updates to your favorite sites.�
Bluetooth with an A2DP profile is also present and so is USB via the universal micro USB slot.
Misc. Features
All other mundane features you’d expect to find like a Converter, Calendar, Tasks app, Memo, Alarm clock, Stopwatch etc. are present and accounted for. As usual, Samsung has included quite a few games with the device all of which are trials. You’ll have to purchase the ones you want.�
Camera
A 3 megapixel fixed focus camera is part of the S5603’s hardware make up. It also has a single LED flash. Some of the features that the camera comes with include Smile Detection and an Auto Stitch Panorama mode that works in all directions. White Balance and Exposure are also available.
Image quality is quite good on the whole. It stands up to the Cookie’s 3MP camera quite well.
Battery Life
The battery life of the handset was poor to say the least. I found myself having to charge the handset twice within 24 hours repeatedly. Again I’m forced to believe that this could be an issue with the envelope packed tester and might not be so with a boxed set. But according to other reviews, the handset is said to provide a talk time of about 3 hours which I can say it managed to come quite close to at 2 hours and 50 minutes (average), which is not good to begin with.
The Bottom Line
The Star 3G comes with a price tag of Rs. 14,499 (MRP). That’s not too bad. Although my experience with the handset was not good at all considering the quirks I came across from the vibration alert being on the fritz and low ringtones to the new updates in the UI viz. single wallpaper stretching across three desktops and a few others. I do agree that the handset does come with a lot of features and the odd quirks could be attributed to a faulty test piece. It’s a well designed phone with good features but the battery is not something Samsung can brag about.
Form Factor
Unlike the large but slim LG Cookie, the Star is a smaller but extremely comfortable to hold light weight handset. It fits squarely into the palm of your hand and any sized pocket. It features a 2.8-inch touchscreen with volume and Zoom keys for the fixed focus 3MP (with LED flash) camera on one side and dedicated camera button on the other. A screen lock button is located above the camera key.
�
A Universal all-in-one port is located on the top. This means you can’t listen to music or have a handsfree call with the kit while you’re charging. I absolutely hate this. The same port is also a USB connector. The Star 3G also supports external memory via microSD. What pisses me off is that it’s not a hot swap slot so if you have to ever do anything with the memory card you’ll have to power down the handset and remove the battery to get to the card.
Samsung has a bad habit of sending me test pieces that don’t come in boxes but in envelopes so I’m not sure weather the large button under the display is designed to be so sticky as a five way nav-pad or is actually like that with all devices. This could be a very big problem for navigating through certain parts of the UI. It seems like a button but didn’t seem to do much unless I clicked on an edge. One side brought up a shortcut menu, the other was a return key to move backward through the menu screens. The other sides didn’t do much at all, nor could I find any settings to assign them to. I hope you do.
Features and Performance
Interface
The S5603 uses Samsung’s proprietary TouchWiz UI for getting around. It’s ok, but honestly it got a little un-responsive at times and I couldn’t seem to find the option of calibrating the screen. The gesture control system works just fine though. When the handset is locked you can simply type an alphabet anywhere on the display (that you’ve pre-assigned to a function) to unlock the handset and go straight to that function. The onscreen keypad is large but doesn’t switch to QWERTY in landscape. In other words there is no QWERTY keypad, even in the browser’s landscape mode. It’s relatively quick but as and when it comes to deleting messages; it still takes an unusually long time.
The vibration for incoming calls refused to work. I switched profiles and selected the Vibration Type as well which gave me feedback but didn’t actually work on calls. Needless to say I missed quite a few calls while traveling. I also found that if I selected a music file as ringtone the volume was drastically low when a call came in. The same scenario repeated itself for alarms only this time the default sounds were also too low causing me to get up late quite often the past few days.
I really hate Samsung’s Image viewer application as it still doesn’t allow you to view portrait images on the full screen nor edit images from the same app. The gravity sensor and ability to arrange images according to color I believe is a great concept, but that’s it.
The Star 3G has like others adopted a multiple desktop option with widgets. However, this time like with the HTC Magic, desktop wallpapers stretch across all three so you’ll have to find images to fit across them. It’s quite annoying as it becomes a little more difficult to personalize the desktop when an image of your girlfriend’s face gets chopped into three parts. I know she didn’t like it.
Media
The Star 3G’s media capabilities are not bad at all. The music player is comfortably loud but you’ll have to keep the volume peaked at all times to keep ambient sounds at bay. It won’t do that too well but it’s good enough. EQ presets include Surround, Wide and Dynamic settings. The only reason the sound is as good as it is, is thanks to Samsung’s DNSe sound engine that’s working behind the scenes.
The handset’s FM radio worked quite well. There’s no recording feature but that’s ok. There’s no ‘Skip Station’ option when you need to do so, so you have to open up a Channel list box which is not a big deal except that it involves another button press. Samsung’s Find Music feature is also available for music recognition via the voice recorder for external sources and the FM radio as well.
When it comes to video playback the S5603 supports MPEG4 and 3GP file formats. The large display works out pretty well for the handset and comfortable video watching.
Connectivity
We already know the handset is 3G ready and other connectivity options include EDGE/GPRS. For some reason even with all the right settings inserted I kept getting an error while trying to connect saying – Unexpected Error Occurred. The same settings in three other handsets worked just fine. With this issue, I was completely unable to access the net for uploading images via the Share Pix application to sites like Facebook, Picasa et al or even downloading emails (IMAP and POP3). All of these features are available readily at hand so once again I’m hoping that a purchased boxed piece will not have� these problems so you can utilize the handset to its optimum potential. Widgets for Google Maps, Gmail and Google Search are also present as well as one for Facebook, MySpace, AccuWeather and YouTube. An RSS reader is also available for updates to your favorite sites.�
Bluetooth with an A2DP profile is also present and so is USB via the universal micro USB slot.
Misc. Features
All other mundane features you’d expect to find like a Converter, Calendar, Tasks app, Memo, Alarm clock, Stopwatch etc. are present and accounted for. As usual, Samsung has included quite a few games with the device all of which are trials. You’ll have to purchase the ones you want.�
Camera
A 3 megapixel fixed focus camera is part of the S5603’s hardware make up. It also has a single LED flash. Some of the features that the camera comes with include Smile Detection and an Auto Stitch Panorama mode that works in all directions. White Balance and Exposure are also available.
Image quality is quite good on the whole. It stands up to the Cookie’s 3MP camera quite well.
Battery Life
The battery life of the handset was poor to say the least. I found myself having to charge the handset twice within 24 hours repeatedly. Again I’m forced to believe that this could be an issue with the envelope packed tester and might not be so with a boxed set. But according to other reviews, the handset is said to provide a talk time of about 3 hours which I can say it managed to come quite close to at 2 hours and 50 minutes (average), which is not good to begin with.
The Bottom Line
The Star 3G comes with a price tag of Rs. 14,499 (MRP). That’s not too bad. Although my experience with the handset was not good at all considering the quirks I came across from the vibration alert being on the fritz and low ringtones to the new updates in the UI viz. single wallpaper stretching across three desktops and a few others. I do agree that the handset does come with a lot of features and the odd quirks could be attributed to a faulty test piece. It’s a well designed phone with good features but the battery is not something Samsung can brag about.