Samsung B5310 CorbyPRO

The S3650 Corby was just the beginning of a lineup that appears to have no visible end. There is a Corby for the touchscreen addicts, a Corby for the music buffs, Corby for the heavy texters, Corby for the young, and one for their parents. That’s pretty much everyone, don’t you think? We guess there should even be a Corby for the bored-with-the-Corby.

The founding member of the Corby wasn’t announced so long ago, but so much has been changed. Well, if you put the S3650 Corby and the recently announced B5310 CorbyPRO side by side you'll notice one thing that hasn't changed at all: design. But on the inside they are very different, indeed.

The Samsung CorbyPRO is meant for a different range of users altogether. It combines great texting and the intuitive touchscreen control tops that up with a nice connectivity package (such as HSDPA, Wi-Fi, GPS and a 3.5mm audio jack) and all that is delivered at a bargain price.

Key features Quad-band GSM/EDGE Dual-band UMTS support with HSDPA 2.8" resistive TFT touchscreen of QVGA resolution Four-row side-slide QWERTY keyboard 150 MB onboard storage, microSD card slot (up to 16GB) 3.15 megapixel fixed-focus camera with smile detection, QVGA video @ 15fps FM radio with RDS Find Music recognition service TouchWiz and Cartoon UI Social networking integration with direct file uploads GPS with A-GPS support Wi-Fi and GPS 3.5mm audio jack Accelerometer sensor for screen auto rotation Office document viewer Excellent web browser Push email Smart unlock Replaceable rear covers (Fashion Jackets)

The original Corby was all about design, about touchscreen, about budget. The CorbyPRO, on the other hand, has managed to keep all that but goes much further by adding some killer features that are well above the S3650 league.

For instance, now you get UMTS support with HSDPA which will dramatically boost web browsing. But the really big news here is Wi-Fi support. It is a great addition to the comfy QWERTY keyboard and the numerous social networking services that the phone gives you access to.

Strangely, the latest of the Corbies also has an integrated GPS receiver. You can use it for image geotagging as well as for navigation. Unfortunately, if you decide to use your CorbyPRO into a GPS nav device you'll have to solely rely on the preloaded Google Maps app or on a third-party Java alternative.

And when it comes to the Corby basics, we shouldn't forget to mention the 2.8" touchscreen. Well, it turned out to be resistive this time around but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. The colorful UI is also aboard and, unfortunately, so is the fixed-focus camera (3-megapixel this time).

Design and construction Just like the S3650, the B5310 is all plastic. It's a different form factor though and the increased weight actually works in its favor. The phone doesn't feel too heavy, it handles well and the weight distribution is just right for a comfortable hold.

The front of the B5310 CorbyPRO makes it a S3650 Corby twin. The rear also looks quite similar. Another feature the Pro shares with the original Corby is the replaceable rear covers. Unfortunately, the Fashion Jackets aren't compatible across the Corby lineup.

The 2.8" resistive touchscreen display takes centerstage on the B5310 front. It has a 240 x 320 pixel resolution, just like most touchscreen feature phones by Samsung (including the original Corby).

Image quality is middling: indoors the screen is quite good; however, we must say we expected better sunlight legibility. The CorbyPRO screen is comparable to the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic. Another downside is the somewhat poor touch sensitivity.

Pleasing QWERTY keyboard The Samsung B5310 CorbyPRO packs a four-row side-slide QWERTY keyboard, which is surprisingly good never mind the space constraints. The actual keys are set within a frame of very sturdy feeling plastic, which is supposed to sustain and endure the frequent slider action.

Typing on the CorbyPRO is extremely comfortable: the keys are well sized and nicely convex, and have a very distinct press. Numbers are accommodated on the top row instead of using a numpad layout. The top row by the way enjoys plenty of headroom.

The QWERTY keyboard has dedicated shortcuts to web and messaging. The Arrow keys, Backspace, Enter and OK buttons make sure the keyboard can actually be used full-time for navigating the CorbyPRO menus. Overall, the humble midrange CorbyPRO boasts a full keyboard that easily puts to shame some heavyweight business messengers.

TouchWiz the Corby way Lively, colorful and pleasantly thumbable - the TouchWiz interface feels right at home on this touchscreen messenger, where fun and ease of use are key.

The B5310 CorbyPRO offers three different homescreen panes that you can alternate by sideways sweeps. The current selection is indicated by three small bars at the top of the screen. The whole thing works in both portrait and landscape: the screen rotates automatically when you slide out the QWERTY keyboard.

You can fill up each of those homescreens with as many widgets as you like. The different wallpapers are actually three parts of a single panoramic desktop, just like on the Samsung S8000 Jet for example.

In case some of you have missed it, widgets are nifty mini-apps that reside on your home screen. Some of them seem to have more purpose, such as the calendar and world clock, image gallery or the mp3/radio players, while others range from fun to pointless.

Traditionally, all the widgets are stored in a tray running down the side of the screen, which you can pull in and out as needed.

You can pick which widgets to display by simply dragging them onto the display and placing them where you want. If any need to be removed, you simply drag them back to the tray. The nice accelerometer-based option to auto-align widgets by shaking the handset is at your disposal too.

So, the B5310 CorbyPRO interface is typical Samsung (or at least the latest revision seen on the Samsung S3650 Corby). You have a tab at the bottom of the display which holds the three or four contextual keys with varying functionality based on the currently active menu. There are also some nice animations and transition effects throughout the interface.

The main menu displays as a 3 x 4 grid of icons, while sub-menus appear as lists. Listed submenus are scrollable with the arrow keys on the QWERTY keyboard too.

The main menu itself stretches over three different screens and is sweep-scrollable sideways. The reason that so much more space was needed is the fact that almost all apps are now brought to the main menu, arranged in a flat iPhone-like structure. You will only need to dig deeper for the settings.

The Samsung B5310 CorbyPRO also supports multitasking, which means that Java applications can be minimized to run in the background. A long press on the center button brings up the task manager.

Samsung B5310 CorbyPRO also has the Smart unlock feature, previously known as Gesture lock. Smart unlock allows users to simultaneously unlock the phone and open a menu item, application - even dial a contact - just by drawing a letter on the unlock screen.

Each letter from A to Z can be set as a gesture by the user to perform the various actions in question. For instance, you can use it to start apps like the music player, messaging menu, the web browser, Java apps or the dialing keypad.

The B5310 CorbyPRO sports a cute little theme designed especially for the young audience. You've already seen it in the original Corby. The Cartoon UI has neatly drawn icons and hand-writing font in the list menus.

Great phonebook The phonebook of the Samsung B5310 CorbyPRO has it all. Up to 2000 contacts can be stored with multiple fields. It can display the names on the SIM card, the phone memory or both at once. Searching is done by gradual typing of the desired contact's name.

Telephony, video calling included The Samsung B5310 CorbyPRO is excellent at its main job - making calls - we experienced no reception or voice quality drops for the time of our review.

There's not much to say about the dialer. You dial just like you would on any touch phone. There are three virtual buttons - phonebook, more and back. When you type a number or look it up in the contact list, by tapping More you can access options such as voice call, video call, send message or add to phonebook. Of course you have the hardware call buttons too.

QWERTY-fied messaging As you might expect, the Samsung B5310 CorbyPRO handles all common message types. The handset has a shared editor for SMS and MMS and a separate one for emails. You can either use the on-screen numpad (in portrait mode only) or you'd better go for the hardware QWERTY keyboard, which is quite comfortable.

There is also a native email client. It failed to retrieve Gmail settings automatically so we had to enter them manually, but once that's done, emailing is a breeze.

The attachment limit for sending and receiving is 5MB, which is enough for most file types. If you receive an office document as an attachment, you will be able to view it as well thanks to the integrated office document viewer.

Surprisingly for a device in this class, the CorbyPRO also sports Push e-mail. Naturally, being a Java app, the Emoze application works only when the app is open - but keeping it running in the background is easy thanks to the nice task manager.

Plenty of social networking services As promised by the manufacturer, the B5310 CorbyPRO comes with social integration disguised as four neat homescreen widgets - MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and Bebo.

All four widgets have similar interface - a big update button at the top, a text field for your current mood/status message and some buttons at the bottom.

In the MySpace widget the available options include checking your messages, getting into chat and adding friends. The Facebook widget offers checking your messages, adding new friends and its last option is poking a friend, while the Twitter widget has only two virtual keys - friends and followers. The Bebo widget packs a total of two buttons too – for adding new friends and starting a message. The Settings button is available everywhere offering options for auto-refresh and adding a photo.

Fast file browser The B5310 CorbyPRO's file browser can display the files and folders on the phone memory or the memory card, and both at once.

There are folders for different types of files (images, video, sounds) to let the handset sort the memory contents.

However, you are not forced to follow this structure - you can place your files wherever you want and the phone will have no problems handling them.

Basic but useful gallery Unlike some Samsung phones, the B5310 CorbyPRO has only one picture gallery. However, this isn’t an issue since the gallery it does have is fully functional. You'll most likely not miss the Photo browser despite its eye-catching qualities.

The B5310 CorbyPRO gallery is an inherent part of the file manager and launching it is as simple as opening any folder that contains images.

Once you open a picture to view, you can sweep your fingers across the screen to see the next image without having to return to the image list. Browsing the images is really fast and responsive with no lag.

Zooming in is easy enough though not as responsive as we would have liked it to be. You have the one-finger zooming too and it seems to work better here than on the Samsung Lindy.

To zoom in quickly from thumbnail size to 100% you can just double tap on the screen. If you repeat, the image will go back to thumbnail size.

Browsing images in landscape mode is also available. Thanks to the integrated accelerometer, you can switch to landscape view by tilting the phone or sliding out the QWERTY keyboard.

Music player and FM radio The music player of the Samsung B5310 is almost exactly the same as in the original Corby and hasn't been altered much from the M8800 Pixon.

It allows filtering tracks by author, album, and genre. Automatic playlists (recently added, most played etc.) are also generated and can subsequently be used as filters. If that doesn't seem enough, you can create your own custom playlists. The music player can naturally be minimized to play in the background.

The music player does the job

The music player also has a dedicated homescreen widget, allowing quick access to the full version of the application with only a single tap. You can also start, stop and skip tracks straight from the home screen if you prefer.

The equalizer department offers a long list of presets including pop, jazz, classic, mega bass, bass enhancement etc.

Last, but certainly not least, the player is nicely touch-optimized to include fast forward and rewind, just like on the S5600. This adds up to an excellent music application that can fully replace your portable MP3 player.

The video player is OK The video player has a simple interface with not too many features. All the basics are covered though, and that should really be enough as the screen size doesn't really imply first rate portable video watching.

Very good audio quality The audio output of the Samsung B5310 CorbyPRO is pretty good generally, the handset scored excellently on most parts of our traditional test.

The frequency response is spot-on with very minor deviations at either end of the audible range. The stereo crosstalk is excellent and so are the noise levels and the dynamic range readings.

The slightly high distortion levels are the only thing that separates the CorbyPRO audio output from perfection. They aren't too disturbing but we are still below average and so we have to point them out.