Samsung SGH-T500

Mirror, mirror in the phone, what's the kitschiest one can get? For that, we women may have to thank Samsung for what one half of the gender (think roomful of engineers) thinks the other half desires. Enter the SGH-T500, a.k.a. the Diamond Phone, a.k.a. "a 21st century jewel, which completes communication for all the descendents of Eve".

When Less Is More
A successor to the Queen Phone, the female-centric SGH-T500 has undergone a cosmetic makeover. The edges in the former Egeo have rounded into more sexy curves, while the housing--available in Ruby Red, Sapphire Blue, Pearl White and Topaz Gold—has an almost velvety touch.

However, subtle it sure ain't. If the 32 cubic zirconia stones lining the external display don't provoke a response, wait till the phone rings. That's when those synthetic diamonds begin pulsating in gem-like colors of red, green and blue, accompanied by 40-chord polyphonic ringtones, to great Saturday Night Fever effect.

In a way, the flashy SGH-T500 is yet another testament to the Samsung savvy for courting the mobile crowd with the latest ideas and concepts, a move that has seen the Korean manufacturer leapfrog to third position in market dominance.

What's truly a neat idea, and one which few manufacturers have thought to implement, is hidden. On the inside, the 128 by 128-pixel high-resolution LCD display doubles as a passable vanity mirror when turned off. Other features that mark this as a lady's phone are calorie and fatness calculators, biorhythm reader, as well as a pink scheduler for menstrual cycles. They're fun to use initially but the novelty soon wears off.

Faultless Construction
Build quality is gorgeous, right down to the desktop charger with additional battery. The SGH-T500 can be considered one of the smallest bivalves around, at 76.3 x 44.2 x 22.7mm and 80g. When opened, the phone sits comfortably on the face, while the active flip feels securely anchored.

Showcasing Samsung's attention to detail are the accessories included with the SGH-T500: a finger strap with cubic zirconia embellishment to match the handset, microfiber cloth in-the-box to keep the dual screens speck-free, as well as a lanyard-cum-handsfree. The accessories checklist would have been more complete if Samsung had thrown in a data cable, particularly since the SGH-T500 doesn't have an infrared port.

Like Samsung's newer creations, the SGH-T500 sports a color display harnessing UFB (Ultra Fine and Bright LCD) technology. Designed and developed by Samsung, the UFB LCD provides improved sharpness and brightness similar to a TFT design. On reviewing the SGH-T500, the 65,000 colors on the five-line screen appeared slightly more defined and brighter than the SGH-T100's.

On the outside, the grayscale display is lit by a soft bluish-white backlight, and provides information such as time and message alerts. You can switch to one of the five onboard screensavers if you fancy.

What Lies Beneath
The software of the SGH-T500 has been adopted from the SGH-T100, so users of the latter should be familiar with the pros and cons of the menu.

Voice command and voice dial worked fine, save under noisy environments. But you'll need to open the phone to do so as the mic is located just below the keypad. The phone sports excellent sound, but Samsung's decision to place the speaker inside where the ear piece is comes across as odd. The SGH-T100's dedicated speaker on the front of the flip made far more sense. In any case, ringtone volume remains sufficiently loud, with the option to switch to silent vibrate.

The SGH-T500 is designed to receive Nokia Smart Messaging ringtones and picture messages, but I wasn't motivated to try this out since the phone already comes with a rich selection of poly ringtones, a music composer, color schemes, wallpapers and screensavers.

Unfortunately, detractors will question the lack of data connectivity features such as GPRS (General Packet Radio Service), MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service), Java or Bluetooth in what is a premium phone. Samsung also offers three games here, compared to seven on the Egeo.

Finally, we come to texting--the heart and soul of any phone. Like the SGH-T100, message composing is not very intuitive. You'll need to scroll through an exhaustive list of input modes, such as T9, non-T9, numeric, caps on/off, symbols, via a soft key each time to enable the right one. This can be frustrating if you're a heavy texter looking for speed. However, the SGH-T500 doesn't offer concatenated messaging, while the built-in dictionary does not allow new words to be added.

Battery Life And Reception
The SGH-T500 is rated at up to 3 hours of talktime and 120 hours on standby. Unfortunately, color screens are power-hungry features and the phone lasted two days with chat time, games and SMS. As for sound quality, the SGH-T500 for the most part performed flawlessly in lifts, buildings and some areas with poor network coverage.

Conclusion
On its own, the Diamond Phone faces stiff competition from the latest slew of high-end phones. At S$888 with a two-year contract, there are color-screen phones aplenty offering better functionality and usability, and unhampered by the gender constraints that surround the SGH-T500.

But for those who liked the SGH-A400 Egeo, its successor seeks to exceed expectations with new ideas and a richer feature set. Overall, the SGH-T500 is not a perfect handset, but it comes with enough character to make this worth investigating.

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