What’s in the Package?

• The Phone it self
• micro USB Travel Adapter
• micro USB Data cable
• Wired stereo headset
• Two CDs which contains Samsung mobile connectivity solutions “KIES”
• One Leather Pouch
• 2 GB micro SD card
• In ear Headset with mic
• User manual etc.

Specifications:

Network: Quad-band GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900

UMTS 900/2100 MHz, HSDPA 3.6Mbps

Dimensions: 113.5 x 55 x 12.9 mm

Weight: 109.8g

Display: 3.2” 240×400 16 million colors, WQVGA TFT Capacitive touch screen with multi-touch support

OS: Android 2.1(Éclair) with Samsung proprietary Touch Wiz 2.0 UI

Battery: 1500mAh

Memory: Internal – 170mb, External – Expandable up to 32 GB

Camera: 3.1 mega pixel with Auto Focus

Multimedia: Video – MPEG4, H.263, H.264, DivX, XviD, WMV, Audio – MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA, AMR, OGG, MIDI, FM Radio

Connectivity: Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0 with A2DP, microUSB port, GPS receiver with A-GPS, 3.5mm Audio Jack

CPU: 667MHz

Others: Accelerometer, Swype Text Input, Layer Augmented Reality browser, Document Editor, SMS (Threaded View), MMS, Email, Browser, Lots of other stuff

Design:

As you can see in the specifications section above the phone is rather small, handy and light weight. Phone body made out of plastic completely.

On the front you can find two sensors, ear speaker and Samsung logo placed on top above the screen. Below the touch screen two touch sensitive buttons and D pad placed firmly.

On the left side of the phone volume up/down key and there are no buttons on the right side of the phone.

On top you can see the power button, microUSB port and 3.5mm audio jack. If you open the back cover you can see there are two slots, one for SIM and one for microSD card. If you want to change the SIM or memory card there is no need to remove the battery which I felt comes really handy.

On the back of the phone you can see the Camera, Google logo, loud speaker and Samsung logo printed.

Display:

Galaxy 3 is equipped with 240×400 WQVGA display screen which I didn’t quite like when I switched the phone on for the first time. Text doesn’t look sharp. And the screen fades out when you are using it outside, you can barely see the screen in the direct sunlight, which is something that you will have to bear with. The touch feature is very good and responds very quickly. The benefit of this phone is that it supports multi-touch , a reason to bring on that biiiiiiiiiig smile !! ; you can enjoy multi-touch in Gallery, Browser etc.

UI:

This phone uses the Samsung proprietary “Touch Wiz 3.0”on the Android OS. On the home screen you can add up to six home screens—Now isn’t that a “WOW”

In other Android phones the Applications menu is vertically scrollable but as in this phone the Application icons are arranged in pages.  Application icons are very close to each other which is a little difficult when you want to  find the right application to open. Several times I’ve accidentally opened Google maps while trying to open Android Market .  Applications open pretty fast.

The only problem and the one which is critical for a phone is that, it will not open quickly, those are Contacts and Messaging. Shortcut for dial pad is missing on the home screen. Opening dial pad is a two step process and sometimes three steps.  To dial a contact you need to place the particular persons contact shortcut on home screen or browse through the long list of contacts. If I want to dial a contact from contact book I need to browse the contact and select the contact then click on the call button which is a three step process, same process to dial a contact from the call log. Android is famous for its usability but some of the major functions of the phone is not  really user friendly . I liked the way of unlocking the screen, all you need to do is Sweep the transparent thin glass away

I can easily switch On/Off the Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and Vibration by dragging the top status bar down. You can add more home screen and widgets without hassle. I liked the live wallpapers on Android phones but this phone doesn’t have that option and I so wish it was there… It, you know brings a lot to your phone. Browsing through home screens and application menu screens slides very smooth without lagging. Layer Augmented Reality Browser is only useful if you are living in Metros & other big cities. As other sites say there is no in-built compass application, I’ve installed it from Android market.

The overall UI is inspired from Samsung own BADA OS platform as you can see it on Samsung Wave.  As you all know there is no perfect phone in the world.

Need to wait till Samsung updates the firmware to Android 2.2(Froyo) which is not confirmed till.

Battery:

Battery backup is good with its 1500mAh Li-Ion battery.  The Phone easily runs for two days (48 Hrs) with GPRS and Wi-Fi turned on. Low resolution screen also helping with battery life I guess. Thanks to Samsung .

Multimedia:

The ‘In-built mp3 player’ is good which has lot of options to choose from several Equalizer and Effects. When using Equalizer presets I have observed volume up and downs which is irritating.  May be the player is trying to normalize the volume. Bass is missing little bit.

Video player is good, mp4 video files played smoothly. FM I haven’t used it till now but I suppose should be as good as any other. Photos taken by Camera are good in daylight but poor when taken at night. Same as above applies to videos. This doesn’t bother me as I do not use these functions regularly.

Calls & Messaging Functions:

Call voice clarity and signal strength of the phone is Excellent. Messaging is easy to use but little bit slower. I found that even if you delete the messages they still appear in history tab in contacts section. So all those boyfriends and girlfriends… in the love race, better be careful! No front camera for video calls is a minus to this phone. If it was there it’ll be the complete 3g Android budget phone in the market.

Pros:

• Overall phone look & built quality is good
• Not slippery
• Typing is comfortable.
• Good call clarity
• 3.5mm audio jack is a plus
• USB charging
• 1500mAh battery
• Touch Wiz 3.0 UI
• Hot swappable SIM and microSD slots

Cons:

• Lack of Camera button
• Lack of front camera to make video calls
• Beveled Power button   . Its peeking presence on the top of the phone keeps switching the menu on and off !
• Same as the above goes to volume keys… this is more annoying than power button as it keeps increasing the ringer volume when I accidentally press it.
• I couldn’t find any use of D pad button other than accessing recently opened applications
• You can see your own reflection on the silver coated front which means.. you use it as a mirror !! GIRLS this is a feature that can be used by you
• Attracts finger prints
• Only 2 GB memory card
• No Flash means poor indoor photos

Conclusion:

In my opinion this is a very good phone for those who want to use an Android phone in a limited budget. Very easy to use, fast and a wide range of applications available for free from the Android market app. This is the phone for those who can not afford to go for High-end phones like Samsung Galaxy S, Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, Htc Desire and Motorola Milestone etc.

I’m waiting to get my hands-on & review the Samsung Galaxy S and Samsung Wave phones.

Did you know!! FOTA: FOTA stands for Firmware Over The Air

In this update the new things I found so far:

1) Added Kinetic scrolling to Menu
2) Now you can see a small thumbnail of the album art beside the song name in Music Player Application
3) New Ovi Sync icon in Applications
4) Browser automatically switching to full screen when accessing web pages.
5) Fast switching between landscape and portrait modes.
6) Now my phone memory is showing 55Mb free. Before the update it was showing 40MB.

I’m pretty happy with this update. But I’ve expected home screen widgets in this update. The kinetic scrolling in the Menu is not so smooth.
Will update once I found more.

2) Samsung launched it’s new CDMA phones Corby TV and Metro TV. Corby TV priced at Rs 9699/- and Metro TV priced at Rs. 6999/-. Full Article – Telocomtiger

3) The next time you go clubbing, look around… … you might find yourself an unreleased iPhone lying around, if the San Jose incident is anything to go by. Yeah I’ll definitely look around who knows may be I can find a 5g phone .. haha. Full Article – CIOL

4) Backup your Gmail Inbox Online – There might be a chance your email account can get hacked and sweeps out your Inbox. So here is the way to how to take backup of your gmail inbox. Full Article – Digital Inspiration

5) Average Internet Speed in India is 849KBPS [Global average is 1.7 MBPS]. Full Article – Plugged

Probably because in today’s date.. we are more concerned about communication and it being India.. We know.. A toilet is never too far .. You just let it out.. where you want !! Unlike the other western countries. To counter this we either have a strong law to prevent peeing and poo pooing in public or public places and making more toilets.. SULABH SHAULCHALAYA SHOULD BE ON TOP OF IT NOW !! And of course.. then the statement can be..” Indian Toilets and Cell phones — Both on a rise” !! (Thanks to Vikrant Patnaik helping me with this statement.)

Full Article – DNAINDIA

Sony Ericcsson Introduced two new “Walkman” series phones “Zylo” and “Spiro”. Full Article – TechTree

Beware ! Opening a PDF file from your email can cause your sensitive data ending up being opened in CHINA !! Full Article – The Economic Times

Did you know !! PDF : PDF stands for Portable Document Format

Profit & Revenue made by Microsoft, Apple & Google from 1985 until today, Full Article – Pingdom

Consumer reports on Microsoft Kin commercial: Encourages sexting. Full Article – Product-Reviews

Samsung unveils two new CDMA mobiles Corby TV and Metro TV which comes with a preloaded TV apllication. Full Article – Samsung Hub

Did you know !! CDMA : CDMA stands for Code Division Multiple Access

So. I searched for a slim and small phone to use as a secondary phone within a budget of Rs. 1500/- to Rs. 3000/-. I tried Nokia 1662, Samsung Guru and some other popularly branded mobiles but disappointingly no phone attracted me as much as this “little dude”. THE KARBONN K415 (Dual SIM )!! When the sales guy showed me Karbonn K415 (Dual SIM) my eye caught it immediately. It had all the dude like things that I wanted.. to carry with me.. Compact, a decent UI and of course served the purpose of a basic Secondary phone I was looking for. You can view the pics of the phone below.

I am starting to add this new initiative in my blog where I would be updating my readers with some information that you come across every day but may not know about it !! So here’s the first one !!

Did you know !! SIM : SIM stands for Subscriber Identity Module

Okay, Here is my review.

What’s in the Package?

1. The phone it self
2. Charger
3. Battery
4. Wired Stereo Headset

hmmm.. I wasn’t expecting more from a 2000 buck handset.

Design, Size and keypad

It is slim, small and color is Wine red same as the colour of my bike (I guess that is the reason this phone looked attractive to my eye). On the top of the phone there is provision for neck holder tag which I usually do not use but can come handy to those who forget their phones here and there.. LADIES.. I am talking about you !! Bottom of the phone is provided with one connector which will be used for charging and connecting to a PC. The Rear side hosts a vga camera. This phone fits in to my hand easily and the grip is good. It hosts alpha-numeric keypad which is hard to use for texting but can be managed easily. I suggest text freaks to stay away from this phone. The keys are easy to press – provided you have a small thumb {Smirks}. Overall, the design is good.

Call & Signal Quality is good and there you can experience volume going up and down in poor signal areas.

Display & other features

Display is 128×128 65k 1.5in color screen. This phone has a microSD card slot and doesn’t come with a memory card in box, So you need to buy it seperatly. My primary phone Nokia 5800 did have an extra memory card, which I wasn’t using, so I checked the box if it supported an 8gb card. It did not But it says it can support upto 4gb, I was a little unconvinced with that and asked the sales guy to test it with using my 8gb microSD card. Viola! it worked like a charm.

Contact book can store upto 500 contacts in phone memory. You can set the preferred storage phone or SIM.

Mesaaging is the difficult part in this phone as I felt. Reading SMS and composing SMS are a little difficult to use. I mean when reading an SMS I can read only two lines of text that comes around four to six words at a time.

Camera is VGA and it is only to show off that it has a camera. You can take pictures in 128×104 and 352×288 resolutions. Photos taken are not very sharp. I think the camera feature only for name sake. You can take videos too but the quality is not very good and remember as this is my secondary phone and I’m not going to is it for taking pictures and videos.

And the one feature I really liked is the mp3 player. I liked playing music on it’s loudspeaker. Switching song sometimes takes time to load… I mean a 5sec gap between song to song but that only happens if you have loads of songs in your memory card. No playlist feature and equalizer settings. We need to use “*” and “#” keys to control the volume this is something weird to me. I was confused at first but was fine once I started to use it.

You can listen to fm radio and record the radio. To listen to radio you would need to connect the headset provided. There is an option for scheduled fm recording where you can set time to start the recording automatically.

It supports mp3 ringtones and midi as well or you can compose your own using “Melody Composer”. There is a sound recorder application where you can record sounds in AMR & Wav formats.

A “File Manager” to browse through your mobile memory and microSD card makes things a little easy.

There are 3 games on board which are not player friendly.Features like Calendar, Tasks, Alarms, World clock, Calculator, Currency Convertor and Stopwatch which come in handy sometimes.

Themes, wallpapers, screensavers and profiles are as usual same like other phones.

We can connect it using USB cable but I haven’t tested it yet as I don’t have a cable. As far as I know you need to switch off your phone when connecting it to PC. Only then it works.

That’s all folks. For 2000 bucks you can get all those features which are a good steal for your money. I never thought I would buy a chinese mobile even if it is branded. But why should I not ?? if it is meeting all my primary requirements.

Feel free to ask any questions and your comments using comment section below.

You can checkout “The Other Guys” & “Tron Legacy” Motion Posters Below.

Right click and click on “play” from the context menu if it ended.

Click the button on the top right side to replay. Enjoy!

Via FirstShowing & Collider