Samsung SGH-E590

Print

Email

Bookmark

Share

Pictures simply do not do the E590 justice. It's when you clap eyes on it the very first time that you realize how truly tiny it is in hand. And despite its deceptively sparing (read: sparse) looks, Simple Simon it ain't. There's a lot more going on inside this wee 66g camera-phone than meets the eye. More importantly, we've waited a long time for Samsung to break away from its customary mold to surprise us. And, at last, it's done just that.

Editors' note:

According to Samsung, the SGH-E590 is expected to debut in Asia in the third quarter of this year.

Design

	The E590 comes with a Bean Bag pouch that doubles as a camera tripod. (click for larger image)

Much of the design credit goes to industrial designer Jasper Morrison. In a sea of lookalike sliders and clamshells and showy handsets with oft-times impossible-to-use keys, the E590 takes a refreshingly understated route. Perhaps inspired by the Apple design creed, Morrison has kept his creation dead simple: You get a screen, some buttons and a camera at the back. Even the phone colors are downright plain: A choice of white text on a black base or black text on a silver background. It's all in smudge-free plastic, though you never once feel that it's plasticky.

The only concessions to its designer roots are the decision to name the colors Noble Black and Snow Silver, and the odd bundling of a Bean Bag which serves as a camera tripod. It's certainly an interesting accessory, though one that's likely to end up as a phone holder on your desk.

Features
So what do we get for shelling out S$400 (US$287.94) (without a plan)? Quite a bit considering its price and size. Having refined the science of throwing everything but the kitchen sink into its Ultra Edition series, the E590 is great value in the pocket, provided you're not a mobile geek who likes your handset bursting with functionality at every button press.

There's triband support, GPRS, Bluetooth 2.0 and a USB 2.0 port. An internal memory of 90MB is supplemented by a microSD card slot. The E590's media player can support MP3, AAC, AAC+, e-AAC+ and WMA formats. There's also a voice recorder, FM radio, Java and browser. For gamers, note that the E590 has no dedicated games folder. Instead, we found this under Applications in the Java World folder.

	The E590 is available in black and white color options. (click for larger image)

The camera amazed us with a 3-megapixel autofocus sensor with half-shutter, a panorama shot feature, an intuitive user interface, and even a dedicated zoom rocker (although this is digital rather than optical). The camera keys lie along the right edge of the phone; the volume, USB/charger port and card slot sit on the left side. There's a Mode button on the top right side of the E590 which comes on only in camera mode. This triggers a mode list for Camera, Camcorder, Folders and Settings, but strangely doesn't toggle it off. You'll need to depress another key to do that.

Here's where we understand why Morrison has thrown in a Bean Bag tripod--there's no photolight. So low-light settings will require some tripod assistance. And in keeping with the clean lines, there's no lens cover or self-portrait mirror; the latter's hardly worth nitpicking over unless you're overly fond of your own mug.

Needless to say, the screen remains true to its Samsung heritage. At 262K colors, the TFT 220 x 220-pixel screen is big, bright and clear enough for a phone this tiny. However, under bright sunlight, we barely made out the display, although the super-huge fonts helped some.

Next page »