Samsung SGH-i710 Windows Mobile 5 smartphone reviewed

Introduction

Samsung is a huge electronics brand and has gained a lot of popularity in the mobile phone market, even though it cannot compete with the giants like Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Motorola, it is still quite amazing how many new models Samsung brings out each year. Today we are having a look at the SGH-i710 which is a Windows Mobile 5 powered handset. Although many Windows Mobile powered devices tend to be quite similar, Samsung has done a fantastic job to make the SGH-i710 stand out from the crowd.

Although the handset we had a look at was the Chinese version, the SGH-i718, overall functionality is the same and so are all the hardware features, the main difference being the language on the handset and some applications. The SGH-i718 has been available on the Chinese market for some time, but the SGH-i710 only became available earlier this year.

Let us start by taking a look at the hardware specifications. The SGH-i710 is powered by a 416MHz ARM920T PXA272 processor, which should make it fairly snappy in normal use. It has 128MB of ROM and 64MB or RAM and the memory can be expanded via a microSD card. It also features Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR, but it does not offer Wi-Fi. This is not a 3G device, but it will work on all four GSM bands (850/900/1800/1900MHz) and it offers GPRS and EDGE, both class 10, which is the fastest type of each.

The screen measures 2.8-inches, has a native resolution of 240x320 and can display 65,536 colours. In use the screen is very clear and easy to read, even when you turn down the brightness.

Navigation is done by using either the four-way rocker pad with a central button, or with the supplied stylus. The stylus is very pointy and has three parts to it that extends much like a radio antenna. It is a little bit tricky to get out from the top rear of the handset at times, but it also means that it will not accidentally fall out. You could of course always use your finger in an emergency, but the screen picks up smudges quite easily.

In general usage, the SGH-i710 is very much like any other Windows Mobile 5 device and we are not going to go into too much detail about the OS in this review, since it is not as if you have a choice of what OS to run on your phone. Windows Mobile seems to be one of those platforms people either love or hate, but we have to say that we prefer it to the latest version of Series 60 from Nokia which can be confusing to use.

Samsung supplies a wide range of applications with the SGH-i710, although as our review sample was in Chinese, it made it slightly difficult to determine how some of them worked. One of the more useful utilities is a business card reader that works in conjunction with the built in 2-megapixel camera. Considering that there is no flash, it worked quite well as long as the business card was well lit. It was not 100 percent accurate, but it is a quick way to get business card data into your contacts list on the phone.

What sets this handset apart from just about every other Windows Mobile device is Samsung's application launcher overlay. It is pretty much like skinning Windows, it makes the SGH-i710’s menus look, and in all intents work, like any other Samsung handset. This is great for those that are not familiar with Windows Mobile, but it can be a bit confusing jumping back between the Samsung front-end and the Windows Mobile OS as soon as you launch an application. It also slows down the overall speed of the handset, which is rather frustrating and something Samsung should have considered. This is rather strange considering the 416MHz CPU.