Samsung Star S5230 Review

Buying a cell phone these days can be hectic especially when you don’t know what you are going to get against the dent that you are putting in your pocket. With the companies like Samsung, LG and Apple jumping in the mobile segment, the competition gets tougher by the day. It does help the end user but at times things get confusing primarily due to the fact that almost all the companies are offering same feature set with little price fluctuation between them.

Evolution of Mobiles

Touch screen enabled phones or we may also call them smart phones have been in the market for nearly a decade. HTC based phones from I-mate and O2 were the initial ones which empowered the user to touch the screen for performing any action or task in the phone. Then the entire touch screen horizon changed when Apple launched its iPhone. The entire mobile manufacturing market went into frenzy and we started seeing phone with somewhat similar functionality set every now and then. All the major players went back to drawing board in order to come up with a design and features to cater to the masses, which were looking for similar phones but within their price ranges.

Following the footstep of Apple, companies like Samsung, Nokia and LG jumped on the bandwagon to get along with the wave it had created, and hence started manufacturing phones offering touch controls, desktop class email, and web browsing and searching.

Today I am going to have a look at the rather modestly priced Samsung GT S5230 Star, and would evaluate as to how well does it stand up to user expectations.

This phone was initially introduced along with the Samsung Preston S5600, both meant for people on a tight budget. What the manufacturer strived to achieve here is to get a chunk of the mainstream market, with both phones targeting people who need the comfort of a modern touch controlled device that offers an up to date functionality set at a decent price tag.

Specifications

• 2G Networks: GSM 850/900/1800/1900
• Dimensions: 104 x 53 x 11.9 mm
• Weight: 93.5 gms
• Alert Type: Vibration, Downloadable Polyphonic tones, MP3, Wave.
• Speakerphone: Yes
• Display: TFT resistive Touch screen, 256k Colors
• Resolution: 240 x 400 Pixels, 3.0 Inches
• Memory: Internal – 50 MB. MicroSD, up to 16 GB
• Edge: Class 12
• 3G: No
• WLAN: No
• Browser: WAP2.0/xHTML, HTML
• USB: v2.0
• Bluetooth: Yes
• Infrared: No
• Camera: 3.2 Mp, 2048 x 1536
• Video: Yes (QVGA @15 Fps)
• Messaging: SMS, MMS, Email
• Radio: Stereo FM with RDS
• Games: Yes Downloadable

Design

The design of the S5230 is compact and very handy, measuring 104 x 53 x 11.9 mm and weighing only 93 grams. This particular set feels just right in your pocket, and doesn’t make you think that you’re carrying a brick.

Featuring a 3-inch display with 240 X 400 screen resolution and 256k colors the screen size is just about enough to facilitate any regular user. It has three hardware keys below the screen. Ones at the sides allow you to attend and disconnect calls, while the one in the center is the Back key.

A simple volume rocker is located on the top left side of the phone, along with a Samsung’s proprietary port that is used for connecting the charger, data cable and the headset.

The right side of the phone is just as plain, featuring the Camera and the Hold key. The whole back is actually a single plastic panel, which by the way is a finger print magnet. The 3.2 megapixel camera gazes at you from one corner of this plastic plate. Unfortunately, the only way to get to the microSD slot is by removing the battery, which makes it difficult to reach and not hot swappable.

The Interface

The Samsung S5230 comes with a slightly updated version of Samsung’s well known TouchWiz interface. This latest iteration of the TouchWiz UI features the usual virtues of its predecessors, while adding some bling to it.

Starting off from the main screen you are going to get something like this.

The Home Screen

The home screen has a clean interface with only the operator name displayed on it. You will be pleasantly surprised to see the entire home screen space expanding to three difference screens, on which the user can change the wall papers according to their own liking. While using it I did get a feeling that I was using iPhone but I liked this interface solely because it gave me the ability to control which applications or widgets to show or to put shortcuts to the most used application on any screen I wanted. It boasts a simple and easy to use drag and drop function which is way more convenient than any other touch enabled phone I used. Although Windows based phones now have similar features but the response time on Samsung S5230 was faster than any Windows based mobile I have used so far.

The home screen also has three touch enabled navigation options which give you an additional support to back up three hard buttons used to control the call and application functions.

Widgets

Widgets, much like vista’s sidebar, are located on the left of the screen. You can open the widget panel just by tapping on the screen once; tapping again would slide them back to where they came from.

These widgets feature reminders, clock, organizer, weather and many others, but the most important functionality of these widgets is the shortcuts to the famous sites, for example, YouTube, Facebook, Picasa etc. Just click on them and the browser takes you directly to their site, it’s that simple. And if you intend to take them out of the side bar and put them on your desktop, just grab them and drag them out on to the desktop. You can place any of the widgets to any of the three separate screens at your disposal.

I did face minor issues while using YouTube widget as it used the internal media player for displaying videos and at times the video could not be opened at all. I will not relate it to the application bug much as it can be dependent on the Edge connectivity as well. I am sure Samsung dev team will be working on an independent YouTube app just like the ones for Windows, Symbian or nix based OS.

Other apps, like Google, Picasa and MySpace worked perfectly without any hitch. I particularly liked the response time of the Widgets as I put them through a vigorous stress test of opening up multiple widgets at the same time and then closing them as well. There was a very minute delay when more than four widgets were accessed at the same time but that delay is negligible to the normal user. This phone is basically an entertainment phone. And you will hardly ever get bored of playing with this sleek beauty.

Messaging

This particular phone offers three significant text writing options, first being well standard cell phone buttons, the second and most appropriate way to type text particularly in this case is the full keyboard layout text input. In order to utilize that, all you will need to do is to rotate the cell phone 90 degrees counter clock wise (landscape) and you are good to go. The third and most interesting one is the handwriting recognition, which however failed to impress me, primarily because of the fact that you need to, press your finger hard to write something and secondly, it is a major disappointment if you are to write something fast. Then again, the keyboard response time and well placement of virtual keys is good enough for anyone fond of fast text typing, thus the handwriting recognition tool will seldom be used.

The landscape mode, while takes some time to master, is the best way to input text. Once you get used to it, I doubt that you would use the other two ways to input text. Here, I would like to mention that much to my surprise the key punch recognition on the screen really worked well for typing in text. And it doesn’t matter how fat your fingers are, you will not be disappointed.

Apart from that, another important feature is the spell checker that almost always kicks in at the right time, and prevents you from making spelling mistakes.

Browser & Connectivity

This cell phone comes in with Samsung Mobile Browser v0.8. Page rendering is almost exactly like your favorite PC browser. If you move to the specifications part of the review, you will note there is no 3G or WLAN, so the speed of the browser would be OK for most of the consumers, but it gets a bit slow when loading content heavy pages.

There was however, one annoying (only once) feature in the browser. You may have to manually input the network selection for connecting to the Internet. Although my service provider pushed the WAP and MMS settings to the phone as soon I inserted my SIM and turned it on. I had to manually create the Internet profile in order to access the Internet. With WAP settings, it will only access the WAP enabled sites.

Same goes for Widget settings, which require access to the Internet. For them, all you need to do is change the settings in the phone settings and select the Internet connection for Widgets. Once you are done, it will not ask you again for the selecting the network.

The bright side is that selecting the network is very easy, unlike Symbian or Windows based OS. All you need to do is just tap twice and your network is selected. Changing network settings is a breeze too.

The browser is best viewed in a landscape view. There was however a lag (about 10 seconds) in view shifting from portrait to landscape but it is acceptable. The side menu buttons are a convenience as you will not have to dig into the menu to search for full screen mode; it is already part of screen menu icons.

Organizer

The functionality set offered by the ‘Organizer’ should be more than enough to meet the needs of an ordinary customer. In it, you have got ‘Calendar’ where you can enter up to 300 events, view them in daily, weekly and monthly panels or see them all in a vertical scroll list. But that’s not it. You will also find ‘Notes’, ‘Tasks’, ‘World Clock’, ‘Calculator’ and ‘Unit Converter’ in here, while ‘Voice Recorder’ and ‘Stopwatch’ are both available through the application menu. The ‘My Files’ app that is actually a full fledged file manager can also be found in the above mentioned menu.

Call quality

Call quality is good, even when signal strength drops. I tested it on all available mobile networks while making calls to my friends and relatives (and telling them I was using the latest Samsung – soon to be launched – smart phone). The call quality was pretty amazing indoors, however, there was a slight decrease in sound in outdoors but nothing which can be a show stopper. The loudspeaker sound is average but it does serve the purpose anyhow.

Although the signal strength is an indication of how good the coverage is at your premises but lower signal does not necessarily means that your call quality will deteriorate. I did experience lower (about 50%) signal strength in some underground / basement areas but it neither affected my calls nor the call sound quality, which is a plus for this phone.

Smart Unlock

This is one of my favorite features of the phone. Smart unlock means you can identify a character to unlock your phone, meaning that when you type that character on the screen, the phone will unlock itself and allow you access. This feature reminds me of the apple iPhone slide unlock feature, which was really neat when it was launched, but this to me is even better. On the other hand, the basic unlock feature is to press the lock icon displayed for few seconds and the phone will unlock. Logical and interesting!

Camera

The user-interface for the 3.2 megapixel camera that comes with the cell phone is rather opposite to what the phone has to offer. It is all black which is in contrast with all the eye candy found in the menu. Perhaps this is because of the fact the all black UI gives the impression that the whole screen is being used as camera viewfinder. The buttons placed on the screen are big enough to be easily pressed. And like any other mobile camera these days, it comes with standard features like setting the picture resolution and color tones for the picture etc.

That said, one of the most distinguished features of this cell phone’s camera is the photo-sharing utility (photo-blog function). Which allows you to simply take a picture and upload it on any of the six popular community sites; namely Facebook, Flickr, Friendster, MySpace, Photobucket and Picasa? This is really impressive because of the fact that you don’t really have to put in extra effort to download the picture first to your PC and then upload it again, this feature really distinguishes itself, and at a price that this comes in as a treat.

As you can see from the pictures above, the camera takes really good pictures in daylight and can easily be compared to any of the popular call phones that feature a 3.2 MP camera like the Sony Ericsson K750i, but falls a little behind when snapping behind closed doors or in low-light environments. Have a look.

Note: While pictures were scaled down in resolution yet the quality remained the same. It captures video at 15 fps, which in this price range does more than just a decent job.

Audio Functionality

The Samsung S5230 comes with a built in audio player and delivers sufficient features to satisfy the majority of customers. Both the ‘Audio player’ and ‘the Radio’ can be accessed via widgets or by accessing the menu system. The built in speaker is above average and is by all means up to the task.

I would rate the audio quality of Samsung S5230 to be better than most smart phones or even some music phones available in the market. The audio quality is crisp and it boasts over 10 audio settings which are only a touch away. This means that you will truly get to enjoy your songs collection.

The model that was sent to us by Samsung Pakistan came with a 512MB MicroSD card but since the external memory is expandable to 16GB, you will not have to worry about your massive music and videos collection on the go.

Performance and Analysis

This phone is fast, period. I enjoyed using all the features and here is what I can tell you. The number dialing is accurate and it only takes a delay of few milliseconds between one touch to the next. I tried making conference calls and same result. It would not budge. Although we did see a huge difference in functionality and performance between the pre-production models and this commercial model and the commercial model made us change our verdict for this phone.

The applications and menu access is pretty fast too. Text input is over 90% accurate and is equally good for people with larger finger digits (I am one of them). This is a clear advantage over iPhone or any other virtual keyboard based phone.
Battery life, during our tests performed exceptionally well, without any hiccups. Do note that this might vary depending upon how a user utilizes the phone. Extensive web browsing for example will drain the battery rather quickly.

The only downside to this phone is that for all those people who are seeking a business phone, this might not be their piece of cake. Then again, there are limited business users and more entertainment seeking enthusiasts. And this phone is rightly meant for them.

Advantages

• Price: (Around 18000 PKR)
• Display quality
• Bright and vivid colors
• Fast Menu Operations
• Applications
• Widgets
• Full Internet browser [Flash Capable]
• Excellent camera quality, for outdoor shots.

Disadvantages

• Memory card is not hot swappable
• The back cover is thin plastic which may not provide much protection to battery.

Conclusion

Before I jump to any conclusions, let’s get the facts straight. With a price tag of approximately ~18000 PKR, this cell phone should definitely be on the buy list of phone seekers on a budget. And those who want to get their hands on the latest that technology has to offer, without putting a significant dent on their pocket.

Widgets offered by Samsung are definitely something to cheer about, since they really do come in handy. And the best part about them is that you can download them from the internet and can dock them on the widgets bar. Messaging is fun especially with a full QWERTY keyboard at your disposal, which to me was really precise in recognizing the characters pressed on the screen. For a low-budget phone, its camera takes fabulous shots. Our only gripe being that it is a little low on color saturation.

As for the battery time, since it depends on the usage, some of you may find it enough for two or three days while some of you may not. So those of you who intend to travel a lot, or make plenty of calls, you would be better off keeping the charger around.

Overall, it is a well made phone which will attract a lot of attention from those who are seeking touch controlled phones with all the necessary applications and widgets to entertain themselves. Its price is another major factor, which makes it quite a decent choice if compared with cell phones already available in the market.

A special thanks to “Samsung Pakistan” for providing us this unit for review.

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