Another Girly phone for Scuba (Samsung SGH-E530)

Member Name: scuba_angel

Product:	Samsung SGH-E530
Date:	25/06/07 (161 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: many

Disadvantages: few

For some reason I have two mobile handsets, this is my preferred one since my other is the truely horrid Siemens CL 75 Poppy (somewhere there is a terrible review of it to match but I havent the heart to re-write it).

This one I bought just over 18 months ago as a backup, or rather the nightclub I worked for asked the Supervisors to pick a phone so that we could od the managers job by being on hand to deal with suppliers and people calling about jobs. We all chose this handset but on different networks (mine has the Tesco pay as you go SIM), and different colours, of course being a Tesco phone I could only get the pink version which caused some hilarity given my usual aversion to pink things and I now had two pink mobile phones!

It cost around £150 but as I bought it at the same time as my usual shop got £50 off and £10 free credit bringing the 'real' cost down to £90.

Other than the colour I was attracted to the model by the companies generally good reputation for mobile handsets, its sleek curves and reputed practicality. Of these all have proved true in my opinion.

The looks of the handset are funnily enough exactly like the picture above, it has the broad pink stripe down the centre, and the more metallic looking pinkish edges, this theme continues on to the back of the phone, inside the clamshell is all the pinkish metallic plastic with silver buttons. It looks very classy - although the orange version is not in the slightest but classy, it actually manages to make this phone look rather cheap, but then Ive not seen many of that colour around.

Its size is 8.5 cm tall, 4.3 cm wide and 2.5 cm deep. The display on the outside will usually show you the time, battery life and signal strength with its green/blue light, but it can be set to display a photo when you open or close the clam. Annoyingly these lights cannot be dimmed and they are very bright meaning at night you either need to turn it off, or face down, but this is really a minor niggle.
Above this outside display is the camera lens and flash, the camera is 1MP and has a strong flash which can also be used as a torch, as well as taking the usual photos it can be used to record video clips. I dont use this feature often so cant really comment further, although the pictures I have taken are of reasonable quality given that it is a phone primarily not a camera.

On the sides of the outter shell are two buttons, a camera button which means you can take self portraits using the outer display as the viewfinder, and the up/down toggle which is most often used as the volume control, also below the camera button is the headphone socket of course only samsung headphones will fit but these are usually included in the kit when you purchase the phone.


Inside the phone as mentioned the keypad is all silver set in the pinkish surround. The navigation buttons are large and their functions clearly marked, although the direcrtion buttons being set around the button which connects you to the WAP is mildly annoying given the number of time I have pressed it too centrally and had to cancel the connection.

The screen is clear and bright, but the brightness can be adjusted. On the phone when I go it were several pictures which can be used as the display picture - I currently have the seal on mine. At the top of the screen on the right is the signal strength indicator and the left has the battery life indicator, in the centre of these is the bluetooth symbol when it is switched on. Below these is a coloured band showing the date and time, with below this the display picture and finally at the ver ybottom another coloured band with the quick links you have set up (Menu and Contacts in my case).

Accessing the menu there are nine options, Call Records which stores the details of the last 20 calls made, recieved and missed. Phonebook which is pretty self explainatory. Applications in which are your games(Java World) , MP3 Player, Liestyle, Voice Recorder, World Time, Alarm, PIM Sync, Calculator Converter, Stopwatch and Timer. The standard games are Bobby Carrot, Airship Racer, Arch Angel and Freekick. The lifestyle section has functions which are pretty much incomprehensible to me so I never used it, things like biorhythms, and fragrace type, although it also has some more useful applications like the shopping lists (usually storing the titles of books and CD's my family want for gifts) and the pink schedule which is designed to help track your menstural cycle.

Next on the list is the browser, followed by messages (the usual SMS, MMS, and email options),File Manager, Calendar, Camera and Settings. File manager obviously is where your pictures, music and anything else will be stored. Currently on mine I have1536k of images, 4803k of videos and 57262k of music which translates to 30 images,30 video clips, and 13 music tracks with 18303k of free memory left.

There is no option to add memory capacity with a card as there is no card slot but given my use of the phone this is quite unnecessary.

The quality of the MP3 player is pretty good, not so good as a dedicated MP3 player but as with the camera this is a mobile phone not a camera or music device!

A main annoyance with the phone is that you cant change the message tone to one you have downloaded, you can only use the ones prestored, although you can change the ringtone to any sound on the phone.

The battery life is pretty good, generally I can get two to three days of 'normal' use out of it before it needs charging I do alot of texting and make relatively few phone calls so think this is pretty good (especially compared to the CL75's 18 hours grr).

After 18 months of use the handset is still in very good condition there are some scrapes on the corners but even they have to be looked for as it still seems to be in almost perfect condition. Currently one of these can be bought for about £50 - £100 depending on the deal but have mainly been superseded by the E570 (a horrid shiney pink, ewwww).

Sadly at the moment this handset is still locked to the Tesco network but to get it unlocked should cost about £20 at most these days, but this has meant that for me at the moment I am still dealing with the frankly s**te siemens but even given my negative feelings towards that handset this one far outshines even my previous Nokia 6320 which I loved for its simplicity and functionality.

Summary: Avaliable also in Orange!!

Processing/Quality:
Reliability:
Ease of use:
Sound quality:
Variety of features: