Overview:

Samsung M7600 Beat dj features 2.8-inch AMOLED touchscreen, GPS receiver with A-GPS support, DivX and XviD video compatibility and 3.2 megapixel camera. Moreover, the Samsung phone has accelerometer for screen auto rotation, microSD memory card slot and radio with RDS. Still, its most recognizable feature is the unusual, yet very functional design.

Samsung M7600 Beat dj pros:
+ MicroSD card slot (up to 16 GB), 8 GB card in the box
+ Outstanding design
+ Built-in GPS receiver with A-GPS support, Google Maps
+ Quad-band GSM and 3G with HSDPA support
+ Standard 3.5mm audio jack
+ Office document viewer
+ 2.8″ 16M-color AMOLED touchscreen display of WQVGA resolution
+ 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash
+ Proximity sensor for auto screen turn-off
+ Stereo Bluetooth (A2DP)
+ DivX/XviD video support
+ Stereo FM radio with RDS, FM recording
+ Smart dialing

Samsung M7600 Beat dj cons:
- No virtual on-screen QWERTY keyboard
- Limited Flash support in browser
- User interface is quite laggy
- BeatDJ app could’ve been better and more responsive

The design:

Samsung M7600 Beat dj measures 111 x 51 x 14 mm and weighs slightly less than 100 grams. The phone is made of high quality plastic and thanks to its rounded edges it really stands out from the other phones, even the Apple iPhone. The front of the Samsung M7600 Beat is dominated by the 2.8” display showing 16M colors in WQVGA resolution. Above the display you can find the video call camera together with ambient light detector. Blow the screen are the Call and End keys as well as the Back button. The right side of the Samsung M7600 Beat houses the microSD memory card slot and the camera key, whereas the left side features the connectivity port, the volume rocker, lock slider and the lanyard eyelet. The back of the phone hosts the 3 megapixel camera lens together with the LED flash and self-portrait mirror.

Performance:

Making phone call with the Samsung M7600 Beat is a real pleasure. There are no reception issues and the in-call sound quality is top-notch. The battery performance is good and the biggest issue with the Samsung M7600 Beat might the sometimes laggy interface. Although there are predefined folders for different multimedia files to be stored in the Samsung M7600 Beat you can easily move all the files and the Samsung phone will handle them without any effort. Reading files from the memory card is fast even if you use a 16 GB cards.

Multimedia:

The Samsung M7600 Beat is a music DJ so it not only has great music player but also a quite nice music mixer. When you run the BeatDJ application you will see a few buttons controlling Samples, Filters, REC and Scratch and so if you play some music you can also mix it on your phone. Although there are only ten filters and 20 samples it may be quite good fun.
When you run the music player on the Samsung M7600 Beat you can not only browse your music library by artist, genre, album and so on, but you can also choose an equalizer preset, or create your own, custom equalizer. You can also go for the 5.1 virtual surround and Bang and Aloofness audio amplifier. The general sound quality in Samsung M7600 Beat is very good.
The 3.2 megapixel camera in the Samsung M7600 Beat can take photos in up to 2048 x 1536 pixels and record movies at VGA resolution at 15 fps. The camera interface is entirely touch optimized and so it is easy and pleasant to use. As you get plenty of settings such as white balance, shooting modes and so on the image quality is more than decent.

Menus / ease of use:

Samsung M7600 Beat features the TouchWiz user interface which along with the unusual Samsung phone design makes a really good impression. The homescreen and the icons have been refreshed and look modern and appealing. The main menu is displayed as an icon grid while the submenus are shown as a list of items. The general impression of the UI is very positive, yet it is sometimes a bit laggy and may be annoying in the long run.
Selected Samsung M7600 Beat features and specifications:
Display Resolution

• 240×400px

Display Color

• 16M

Display Technology

• OLED

Input / Navigation

• Touch Screen Display

Vibration

• Available

Ringtones

• MP3
• 72 Channels Polyphonic

Connectivity
Compatible Networks

• UMTS 900
• UMTS 2100 (3G)
• GSM 900
• GSM 1800
• GSM 1900
• GSM 850

Positioning System

• Integrated GPS

USB

• v2.0

Bluetooth

• v2.0

Audio Output

• 3.5mm Audio Connector

EDGE

• Class 10

HSCSD

• HSCSD Support

GPRS

• Class 10

Software
Operating System

• Proprietary

Java

• MIDP 2

Hardware
External Memory

• microSD

Internal Memory

• 50MB

Sensors

• Accelerometer

Camera Resolution

• 3.15 Megapix

Camera Flash

• LED

Video Recording

• Available

Battery

• 960 mAh

Estimated Price

• 512.20 to 628.50 US$

Other recently reviewed mobile phones:

LG KM900 Arena, Samsung S7350 Ultra s, Samsung S7220 Ultra b, Samsung S8300 UltraTOUCH, Nokia 5130 XpressMusic, Nokia E75, Nokia 8800 Gold Arte, Sony Ericsson W508, BlackBerry Bold 9000.

Overview:

LG KM900 Arena has excellent connectivity, 5 megapixel autofocus digital camera, support for movies in DivX and Xvid, smart dialing and MS Office document viewer right out of the box. Moreover, the phone has 8 GB of built in memory, standard 3.5 mm audio jack and FM radio.

LG KM900 Arena pros:
+ 5 megapixel autofocus camera with Schneider-Kreuznach optics
+ Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support
+ USB Mass Storage
+ Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP
+ Wi-Fi and GPS receiver with A-GPS
+ S-Class Touch UI
+ Accelerometer for screen auto rotate
+ Multi-touch input

LG KM900 Arena cons:
- Maximum email attachment size is 1MB only (incoming and outgoing)
- No standard USB port
- Poor sunlight legibility
- Poor flash performance
- No voice-guided GPS navigation software available
- Limited DivX/XviD video support
- Recording video in 3GP file format

The design:

LG KM900 Arena measures 105.9 x 55.3 x 12 mm and weighs 105 grams. Thanks to its metallic frame on the front of the LG phone the Arena looks very attractive. The front of the  LG KM900 Arena is dominated by the 3”capacitive touchscreen display showing 16M colors and WVGA (480 x 800) resolution. The screen is bright and vivid and the general image quality is very good apart from the direct light performance where you can hardly see what’s on the screen. Above the display you can see the vide call camera and the earpiece, whereas below the screen are three touch-sensitive buttons. The right side of the LG KM900 Arena features the volume rocker and the dedicated camera key. The left side of the LG phone houses the USB port. On the top of the cell phone you can see the standard 3.5m audio jack, battery release button and the power key. The back of the LG KM900 Arena hosts the 5 megapixel Schneider-Kreuznach camera lens.

Performance:

LG KM900 Arena is supposed to work up to 300 hours in stand-by, or almost four hours of talking. Thanks to the fast CPU and 3D hardware accelerator the phone does not lag and shows smooth transitions between menus. The signal reception in in-call sound quality are very good as you might expect. The phone has 8 GB of built-in memory which you can still expand by using a microSD card. The phone supports up to 16 GB cards which would give you 24 GB of memory in your phone.
The messaging in LG KM900 Arena is seamless. The SMS and MMS share and editor and you get a second one for e-mail. Setting up an email is as easy as providing your address and password and he LG phone will do the rest for you. Unfortunately, the email attachments are limited to 1 MB for both incoming messages and outgoing ones. The phone also comes with a MS office document viewer right out of the box. Viewing documents is quite fast.

Multimedia:

LG KM900 Arena has a very good music player which allows you to sort tracks by artist, album, rating and genre. It also has several equalizer presets and although you cannot customize any of them you will most probably find one that suits you so that should not be an issue. The LG mobile phone also comes with FM radio which can store up to 50 radio stations. The audio quality is very good and so the phone can easily substitute a dedicated mp3 player.
The video player in LG KM900 Arena supports both XviD and DivX right out of the box, however it seems that not all the video files will run smoothly. If the do run you can change the speed of playing a film to 2x or 4x and besides that you get the standard set of options.
The 5 megapixel camera in LG KM900 Arena can take up to 2592×1944 images. The picture quality is not as good as you could get with the Olympus E-620, but still is is more than satisfactory.

Menus / ease of use:

Thanks to the use of capacitive touchscreen technology the LG KM900 Arena is very responsive and as the menus and the user interface are very well designed they make an impression on the phone user. LG introduces the so called Cube interface in their KM900 Arena. Each of the cube’s sides has a different homescreen and so you get one for messaging, one of your contacts, for shortcuts, or widgets. The interface looks well and it is very handy and customizable so you might want to have a look at it. The phone supports multitasking but only up to two applications at one time.
The phonebook in LG KM900 Arena has also been optimized in order to assure great usability with touchscreen and that’s indeed what you get. You can assign a picture to your contacts and they are displayed next to the contact’s name and you can scroll the contact list almost like on the iPhone.
Selected LG KM900 Arena features and specifications:
Styling

• Scratch Resistant tempered glass

OS

• AMD Processor

Network

• 2G: GSM 900 / GSM 1800 / GSM 1900
3G: HSDPA 2100

Formfactor

• Touchscreen

Connectivity

Messaging

• SMS, EMS, MMS, Email, IM

3G

• HSDPA, 7.2 Mbps

Bluetooth

• 2.1

WiFi

• Wi-Fi 802.11b/g

USB

• 2.0

EDGE

• Class 10

GPRS

• Class 12

Screen Display

• Size: TFT touchscreen, 16M colors. 
Type: 480×800 px 3.0″, Flash UI

Memory

• Internal memory: 8 GB 
External Memory: MicroSD card slot up to 32 GB

Call Log

• Dialled: 40, Recieved: 40, Missed: 40

Phonebook

• Yes, Photocall

Additional

• – Dolby Mobile
- Document viewer (PDF, DOC, PPT, XLS, GIF, JPG, TXT)
- 3D S-CLASS UI
- Google Search, YouTube and Google Blogs
- Tactile Analogue Alarm Clock 
- Radio Tuner 
- TV Out
- Widgets
- HTML browser

Photo

• 5MP, autofocus, Face tracking, Image Stabilizer, ISO 800

Push to Talk

• no

Touchscreen

• 3D Class UI

Video

• Camcorder, D1 video recording, DVD-resolution, 120 fps
Video Support: H.263, H264, MP4, WMV, ASF, AVI, DivX/Xvid,

Player

• MP3 Music Player, Dolby Mobile surround sound, 3.5 mm audio jack
Audio Support: MP3, AAC, AAC+, RA, WMA

Radio

• FM Radio, Radio Tuner, in-built FM Transmitter

PDA

• no

Email

• IMAP4, SMTP, POP3 protocols, Gmail

GPS

• aGPS, geo tagging, Google Maps

Ringtones

• Polyphonic (72-chord), MP3

Battery

• Talk time
  230.0 m
  Standby time
  300.0 h

Other recently reviewed mobile phones:

Samsung S7350 Ultra s, Samsung S7220 Ultra b, Samsung S8300 UltraTOUCH, Nokia 5130 XpressMusic, Nokia E75, Nokia 8800 Gold Arte, Sony Ericsson W508, BlackBerry Bold 9000, Sony Ericsson T707

Overview:
Sony Ericsson W508 is a new clamshell phone and in fact it is very similar to Sony Ericsson T707 which we recently reviewed. The two phones have similar specs, design and performance and the difference between them is that the Sony Ericsson T707 is more women-oriented. The W508 has Shake control, Gesture control and multi-tasking support.

Sony Ericsson W508 pros:
+ Quad-band GSM and 3G with HSDPA support
+ 3.15 megapixel camera
+ 2.2″ 256K-color TFT display with 240 x 320 pixel resolution
+ Secondary monochrome OLED external display
+ Touch sensitive external music control keys
+ Hot-swappable M2 card slot, 1 GB included
+ Walkman music player with Shake control and SensMe
+ FM radio with RDS
+ Gesture control

Sony Ericsson W508 cons:
- Camera with disappointing image quality
- Low-quality video recording (QVGA@15fps)
- No web browser screen auto rotate
- No document viewer/editor

The design:
Sony Ericsson W508 measures 93.5 x 50 x 14 mm and weighs 98 grams. Inside the Sony Ericsson W508 you will see the main 2.2” display working in QVGA resolution. The screen displays 256K colors and had very good sunlight legibility. Above the display is the video call camera along with the earpiece. The keyboard is very comfortable to use and the button are placed in a way that makes errorless writing almost certain. The left side of the Sony Ericsson W508 features the FastPort, whereas the right side houses the volume rocker and lock slider. On the front of the phone are music controls and the secondary display. Both displays are covered with scratch resistant surface, yet the external one is monochromatic. It is very handy and shows you time, battery information, network type and signal strength. Although the phone looks cheap it seems very durable.

Performance:
The Sony Ericsson W508 has quite a decent battery performance and good reception. Also the voices are always audible while making phone calls. The phonebook in Sony Ericsson W508 can store up to 1000 contacts with multiple fields for information. Although the name and surname are written in only one filed you can search contact by either of those and the phone knows what you intend to find. The Sony Ericsson W508 features gesture control which means that if you get a call the phone activates the front camera and uses it as a motion detector. So when you wave your hand in front of the cell phone the call is silenced. Messaging with the Sony Ericsson W508 is a pleasure and the phone supports push email. It also supports threaded messaging and you can view it as the so called conversation style.

Multimedia:
The Sony Ericsson W508 has the Walkman 3.0 music player and supports shake control. The music library can be sorted by artists, genre, album. The music player displays album art, or visual effects. The audio quality is really good so the Sony Ericsson W508 may be used as a MP3 player replacement. The phone has also radio with RDS and can remember up to 20 radio stations. Both the music player and radio may be minimized to work in the background.
Sony Ericsson W508 comes with the Access NetFront web browser which makes surfing the interned a real pleasure. All the websites are rendered very well and thanks to the virtual pointer and ‚find on page’ feature you can easily and quickly get to the most important information.

Camera / Image quality:
The Sony Ericsson W508 comes with 3.15 megapixel fixed focus digital camera built in. The maximum image resolution is 2048 x 1536 and there is no flash so don’t count on taking excellent photos in low light. Although the phone has no GPS receiver the cell inserts geolocalization information right into the photos. There is a bunch of manual settings such as white balance, color effects and shooting mode. In fact, almost entire camera interface and performance is identical to the recently reviewed Sony Ericsson T707.

Menus / ease of use:
The menu structure in Sony Ericsson W508 is quite standard. It has the usual theme-dependent icon layout. The entire User Interface is visually appealing thanks to the choice of a few flash themes and it works fast. This Sony Ericsson cell phone can also work in flight mode, yet it requires a SIM card. The Sony Ericsson W508, of course, comes with the usual time saving applications such as calendar, unit converter, timer, stopwatch. Additionally, you get the Walkmate – useful for sports-oriented people, AccuWeather and Music Quiz.
Selected Sony Ericsson W508 features and specifications:
Network

• GSM 850, 900, 1800, 1900
• HSDPA 2100

Screen

• 256, 000 colors, TFT
• 2.2 inches, 240 x 320 pixels
• Auto rotate accelerometer sensor
• Scratch-resistant

Memory

• 1,000 x 24 entries: with multiple contacts storage per entry
• 30 (received, missed & dialed calls)
• Internal memory: 100 MB
• Memory Stick: Micro (M2) up to 16 GB

Data Service & Connectivity

• EDGE Class 10
• GPRS Class 10
• 3G 384 kbps
• Bluetooth v 2.0
• USB

Camera

• 3.15 MP, 2048×1536 pixels
• Video recording

Battery

• Standard battery, Li-Ion
• Talk time up to: 10 h
• Standby time up to: 400 h
• Video call time up to: 2 h

Others

• SMS, MMS, IM, EMS, Email
• WAP 2.0, xHTML, HTML (NetFront)
• Speaker phone
• Organizer
• Built-in hands free
• T9 function
• FM-Radio with RDS
• Walkman media player
• Image viewer & editor

Other recently reviewed cell phones:

BlackBerry Bold 9000, Sony Ericsson T707

Overview:
BlackBerry Bold 9000 is a full QWERTY cell phone with comfortable keyboards, high resolution, large screen, built in digital camera and document viewer and editor. Additionally, the latest BlackBerry has a standard 3.5 mm audio jack and very good audio quality and excellent connectivity.

BlackBerry Bold 9000 pros:
+ 2.6″ 65K-color TFT landscape display with a resolution of 480 x 320 pixels
+ BlackBerry OS v4.6
+ 624 MHz CPU, 128 MB RAM
+ Comfortable four-row full QWERTY keyboard
+ Quad-band GSM support and tri-band 3G with HSDPA
+ Very good build quality
+ Wi-Fi and built-in GPS and BlackBerry maps preloaded
+ 2 megapixel camera, LED flash
+ Responsive trackball navigation
+ Hot-swappable microSD card slot (up to 8GB)
+ DivX and XviD video support
+ Good web browser

BlackBerry Bold 9000 cons:
- Poor camera performance
- No email support without BlackBerry Internet Service account
- Lack of radio
- Won’t handle 16 GB memory cards

The design:
BlackBerry Bold 9000 measures 114 x 66 x 14 mm and weighs 133 grams. The phone is made of hogh quality and durable materials which make good impression. Additionally, the phone comes with a leather carrying pouch in the box. The front of the phone is dominated by the full QWERTY keyboard and the 2.6” landscape display. On the left side of BlackBerry Bold 9000 there is one of the loudspeaker grills, the 3.5mm audio jack and the miniUSB port. Also on the left if the convenience key (highly customizable) and the microSD card slot. He right side of the BlackBerry Bold 9000 houses the second loudspeaker grill, volume rocker and second convenience key. On the top of the cell phone you will find the Mute key, whereas at the bottom the microphone, the lanyard eyelet and back cover release button. The back of BlackBerry Bold 9000 is covered with faux leather and features the 3 megapixel camera lens and LED flash.

Performance:
The 2.6 TFT display works in 320 x 480 resolution and shows great colors. Moreover, it has very good direct sunlight legibility. The QWERTY keyboard is very responsive and comfortable to use. The phone runs on BlackBerry OS v4.6 which looks really good. As most BlackBerry cell phones the BlackBerry Bold 9000 comes with a document viewer and editor, yet, unfortunately with no PDF support. The phonebook is practically unlimited and with multiple fields for information.
The biggest disappointment in BlackBerry Bold 9000 is its 2 megapixel camera. In times when cell phones tend to offer 5 or 8 megapixel BlackBerry Bold 9000’s 2 megapixel seem poor. Moreover, the image quality is, in the best case, average. Even the manual settings of the camera do not help too much. Thus, as you might expect the video recording is even worse and it is only suitable for recording MMSs.
The BlackBerry Bold 9000 also comes with a bunch of timesaving applications such as calendar, calculator, alarms, To-do, timer and stopwatch. They offer the usual bunch of features well known to anyone who has ever used a cell phone. Yet, the BlackBerry Bold 9000 also comes with 5 quite playable games.

Multimedia:
The music player in BlackBerry Bold 9000 is truly amazing. Although it might not be the most impressing from Th. Point of view of graphics, but as it sorts the music library automatically, allows you to browse it in a few different ways and has superb audio quality I think that that’s what counts. The noise levels are very good and the stereo crosstalk and dynamic ranged are even better. Of course, the player may be minimized and work in the background.
The video player in the BlackBerry Bold 9000 supports DivX and XviD videos out of the box. Unfortunately not all of videos will work, but ‚only’ the vast majority. With the high resolution, large screen the movies look really good.
The web browsing experience is also very good thanks to the display. The websites are rendered just like on a computer, they are readable and as you can zoom in and out, pan and scroll there is really not much more you could expect.

Menus / ease of use:
The BlackBerry Bold 9000 runs on BlackBerry OS v4.6 which is pleasant to work with and quite straightforward. However, due to its numerous business oriented features new blackberry users might get lost in the abundance of settings at first. However, after just a few hours, or days of using the phone everything seems natural and easy. All in all, is taking pictures with a mobile phone is not your priority wheres business-related phone features are the BlackBerry Bold 9000 might be just the right phone for you.
Selected BlackBerry Bold 9000 features and specifications:
Price: US$ 377 /unit

Network: GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 / UMTS 1900 / 2100
Form Factor: PDA
Antenna: Internal
Navigation: Trackball / QWERTY Keypad
Battery Type: 1500 mAh Li-Ion
Talk Time: 5.00
Standby Time: 312
Memory: 1.0 GB
Expandable Memory: microSD / TransFlash

Imaging
Main Screen: 65000 colors (TFT)
480 x 320 px
External Screen: N/A
Camera: 2.0 MP / Flash / 5X Zoom / Video Recorder

Audio
MP3 Player: MP3 / AAC / AAC+ / eAAC+ / BlackBerry Media Sync
FM Radio: N/A
Speakerphone
Push-To-Talk: N/A

Multimedia
Wallpapers: 480 x 320 px
Screen Savers: 480 x 320 px
Ring Tones: MP3
Themes: N/A
Games: J2ME
Streaming Multimedia: MPEG-4 / H.263

Messaging
SMS, EMS, MMS
Email: POP3 / IMAP4 / SMTP / Microsoft Exchange / Lotus Domino
Chat: AOL / ICQ / Windows Live / Yahoo!
Predictive Text: SureType

Applications
Calendar
To-Do List
WAP: 2.0 (BlackBerry Browser)

Connectivity
Bluetooth: 2.0 (A2DP / AVRC / HFP / HSP / OPP / SPP)
Infrared Port: N/A
High-Speed Data: HSDPA
Wi-Fi: 802.11 a/b/g
GPS: BlackBerry Maps
PC Sync: USB 2.0

Other recently reviewed mobile phones:

Sony Ericsson T707