Sam Sung (not so) Blue (Samsung SGH-E250)

Member Name: Smokindave

Product:	Samsung SGH-E250
Date:	11/08/09 (99 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good value, lots of features, easy to use, reliable.

Disadvantages: Looks a bit dated. No one feature outstanding.

My search for a cheap and cheerful personal mobile ended with the purchase of the Samsung E250. Everyone has different reasons and expectations from a mobile depending on their age, personality, lifestyle or business. I have a work contract mobile already so this one was just to keep in contact with family and friends more out of necessity rather than accessory. It needed to be reliable, but with a few extras to keep me amused.

I purchased the phone from Comet for about £35 on Vodafone pay as you go. I believe it can be purchased cheaper on other networks but I wanted Vodafone for one simple reason; so that I could easily switch to my Asda sim card and benefit from a cheaper service from the same basic network. For those interested in saving money on your pay as you go sim, please feel free to read my review on the subject.

The phone is the slider variety, of which I have had mixed success with in the past. It is slim, if not wafer thin, but has a good feeling weight in the hand, although I think it is let down by a slightly plastic feel which cheapens the phone to some extent. This is possibly being a little unfair to the phone; perhaps it is more appropriate to say that it is a little dated compared to some of the more polished products out today. The reason I say I have had mixed results with sliders is that on previous phones of this nature I have found the mechanism a let down, exhibiting looseness or opening in my pocket unexpectedly. Luckily the E250 does not produce either of these faults; so far so good.

The display is of reasonable size, again more up to date phones are larger, brighter and more colourful, but lets not forget this is a £35 phone. The buttons on front are large enough and respond well without causing issue in my pocket. Sliding the phone open reveals the further keypad which is of course sunken, and anyone not familiar with this will need to get used to the concept, but after a short while it becomes second nature. The main number and letter keypad has smaller but slightly raised buttons. Again I found these surprisingly easy to use.

Delving into the menu system reveals a basic and monotone affair which gives a no nonsense approach. Apart from the standard calling features the phone has text, MMS and email options. Other features include a basic camera, MP3 player, voice recorder, fm radio and blue tooth. There is also a 2g internet browser.

Looking a little deeper into each area, first lets take that camera. The 0.3 megapixel VGA camera looks basic and indeed is nothing to write home about. There is no flash and although it has a reasonable attempt in good light conditions, once the light fades expect poor results. I would never consider using this for anything other than a casual snap when I do not have a better camera to hand. There is a video camera, also of similar quality, again only to be used when you have to.

The MP3 player is of good quality although the supplied headphones do let it down greatly. A shame as there is no standard 3.5mm jack so you are stuck with these ones. The capacity of the internal memory is only 13 Mbytes so only enough for a few songs. You can add to this though with the purchase of a micro SD card. I have a 2GB card in mine which happily hosts most of my album collection.

The voice recorder is a useful little application that I do use on occasion when I have a flash of inspiration (yes it does happen) and just need to record it instantly.

The Bluetooth is a good feature not always found on a budget phone, and again it works without issue, pairing easily with all but my paranoid Vista managed Laptop.

I must confess that I have barely used the FM radio and so cannot fairly assess it except to say that I suspect you will need to be in a very good reception area to pick up anything. I believe the earphones double as an antenna, although when I did try them out I could only pick up one local commercial station; not my cup of tea.

The internet browser is useful enough, once you have navigated away from the annoying Vodafone live. It would have been nice to have 3g but this is fast enough for casual use. I managed to download Opera mini which speeds things up a bit but I think the screen is perhaps a little small to benefit fully from this application.

To complete the picture, add in a Calendar, memo, alarm, conversion application, timer and stopwatch, and you have quite a considerable package, none of which stand out in themselves as anything other than basic facilities, but included here must be viewed as rather pleasant extras.

I was concerned originally when I bought the phone that the battery life may not have been up to the job, but I have been pleasantly surprised at the 2 to 3 days I get between charges for my low to medium use.

In summary I find this Samsung E250 a very capable and well equipped mobile phone. For the price, the list of features whilst basic in themselves, is impressive as a whole package and while the looks may be a little behind the times, I cannot remember an occasion when it has let me down, which rather tidily takes me back to the reason I bought it in the first place.

Summary: A good value, feature heavy mobile with a quite a few extras thrown in.

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