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 | Samsung S7330Key features: -3G with HSDPA support -Quad-band GSM support, usable worldwide -Touchpad navigation -2.2" 262K-color QVGA display -3 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash -35MB of user memory, microSD expansion -Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP -USB v2.0 -FM radio with RDS -Smart dialing -ShoZu integration (direct image and video uploads) The S7330 may as well be noteworthy for marking a shift in the Samsung naming patterns. It is the first model by the South Korean manufacturer with a four-digit model designation (the rugged B2700, M3510 Beat and 8510 INNOV8 follow suit). Making the best of a successful design is a legitimate behavior. The Soul looks are worth continuing but too much copycat might easily result in less focused products. We, for one, had a hard time identifying some certain and immediate competition for the S7330. Of course, that doesn't mean an alternative is nowhere in sight. If you're after 3G (not necessarily HSDPA), same screen size and similar imaging capabilities, you'll be looking at quite a range of options. And sometimes, there'll be extra stuff at the same or even lower price. Before we start exploring the options, Samsung U900 Soul is the definitive alternative if you aren't tight on cash. The more lavish version of S7330 carries a 5 megapixel camera, and the same touchpad. Having reviewed the U900 ourselves, we can confirm that its camera is one of the best there is on the market. Sony Ericsson have two similarly-priced handsets to offer. The Sony Ericsson K850 is older but a classic, and a Cybershot after all - while the rugged C702 is a fresh addition with some interesting extra features. They both pack decent cameras and their screens are as large as the one in Samsung S7330. In addition, their interface seems to be more user-friendly and fluid. You can still get used to both, so it's mostly a matter of personal taste. The Nokia offerings in this class also seem quite tempting. The already released Nokia 5610 is a music slider, while the 6600 comes in two flavors - slide and fold. They all look pretty stylish and, much like the two Sony Ericsson handsets, have comparable feature packs to Samsung S7330. Definitely cheaper but exciting enough in terms of design and interface, LG KF600 is also worth having a look at. Samsung S7330 is clearly in for quite a challenge. The price tag will be decisive here, and we can't ignore the fact that at 300 US dollars price point users can go for a juicier spec sheet. Design and construction The design of Samsung S7330 is obviously inspired by the U900 Soul. Not only the touchpad and the controls around it, but almost every element is located in the same place as in the highborn Soul slider. The better part of the front panel is taken by the 2.2" display and the touch-sensitive control pad. On either side on the touchpad there are two rocker-styled regular press keys: soft keys on top, Call and End keys beneath. Above the display we find a video-call camera and the earpiece. We are also pleased with the touch pad but the combination with the controls surrounding it isn't the best. The four keys aren't the most comfortable around and that makes the transition between them and the touch-pad rather hard. On the positive side the sensitivity of the touch pad can be set to one of the three available levels. The vibration feedback strength can also be adjusted. On the right of S7330 we find the camera key and the microSD slot. The latter is hidden under a small plastic lid. The dual action shutter key is quite small but tactile enough and comfortably placed for landscape shooting. The lanyard eyelet is on the left side and so is the volume rocker. Here we also find the USB port, which is also used for connecting a headset or a charger. The top and the bottom of Samsung S7330 are completely plain with no functional elements whatsoever. The neat back panel is a replica of the D780 Duos design. There are two distinct parts: the smooth battery cover with brushed metal looks and the grooved black surface at the bottom. Opening the slider reveals the 3 megapixel camera lens. It's complete with a LED flash and self-portrait mirror. We are to discuss its performance in detail later on in this review. Opening the battery cover (as easy as a simple slide up) reveals the 880 mAh battery. It is quoted at 350 hours of stand-by and 7 hours of talk-time which are pretty good numbers. In reality, we got the quite pleasing four to five days of moderate usage. The Samsung S7330 build quality is more than decent. The metal battery cover is the only special material on the casing; all the other parts are made of plastic. It obviously lacks some Soul sophistication but that's duly reflected in the price. The handset design is a pleasing fusion of Soul elegance and D780 Duos subdued styling. The brushed graphite casing is quite solid and the slider action is smooth and steady. Our only grudge here is that when sliding up and down you can't help but put a thumb on the screen. With the touchpad below you risk launching an unneeded menu when all you want to do is slide up. The handset feels nice in the hand and is generally easy to operate single-handedly. Display is good Samsung S7330 packs a 2.2" 262K-color display of QVGA resolution. While this sounds pretty much standard for the company there is a significant upgrade here. Sunlight legibility is obviously improved, making the phone comfortable to operate even on the brightest of days. Poor sunlight legibility has been plaguing Samsung handsets for ages and we are glad that steps are taken to deal with it. Other than that, the display also has adjustable brightness levels and very good picture quality. Contrast is crisp as usual and the image can hardly be accused of lacking vibrancy. Flat keypad has room for improvement The keypad of Samsung S7330 left us with mixed feelings. The keys that are revealed, once you slide the phone open, might seem large enough, but the combination of wide columns and narrow rows isn't the best. Compared to the U900 Soul, there are now etched borders between keys but that's more of a visual thing than an actual boost to tactility. The metallic ridges that went from side to side on the Soul keypad are now demoted to useless design accents. The top row of keys enjoys sufficient headroom and the Phonebook key, C key and Organizer shortcut are easy to reach and use. The bottom row however is kind of sunk beneath the ornamental frame of the keypad bed and thus hard to access. Pressing a key is marked by a distinct click and that's a point in favor of the flatbed keypad. The backlighting is strong and even. Great at making calls Making calls with Samsung S7330 Soul is generally trouble-free. Voice quality is good enough on both ends of the line and we had no trouble with the handset at all. Usual Samsung, the S7330 has a number of dialing animations to choose from - most of them rather childish but still amuzing. In this particular case the options are: Quill pen, Sticky note, two named "Normal", Living world and Theme. The last two vary a little according to the currently selected theme or your location. The Smart dialing feature (called Search as spelling by Samsung) can assist dialing by looking up automatically once you start dialing. When you dial in some digits, the handset fetches not only the contacts who have phone numbers containing those, but also contacts whose names match the keypad input (much like T9 but for dialing). Effectively, that means that you may never need to dig in your contacts list to find a contact to dial. Picture gallery The picture gallery of the S7330 is an inherent part of the file manager and not a separate application. This isn't necessarily a fault, as launching it is still as simple as opening a folder that contains images. You can copy or move images to any folder of your liking, unlike some older Samsung handsets where only the Images folder was available for that purpose. Pictures are displayed as a list with small thumbnail next to each filename. Sorting can be done by date, type, name, and size. Once you open a picture to view, you can scroll sideways to see the next images without having to return to the image list. Pictures are normally viewed in portrait mode, but when fullscreen is applied the screen switches to landscape. Setting full-screen view is as simple as a simple tap on the touchpad confirmation centre. Finally, you can also zoom in on a picture to see greater detail though we must warn you that zooming in and out is quite slow and irritating. The Samsung S73300 has ShoZu integration, meaning you can upload images directly to ShoZu straight from the Image gallery. If you wish you can also edit your pictures using the integrated Image Editor - it's one of the most capable image editing applications for mobile phones. It allows you to apply a whole bunch of effects and adjustments. Transformations and crops, as well as insertion of various items, are also available. All in all, the Samsung S7330 offers you virtually all of the most popular editing capabilities you could possibly use on a cell phone. We really doubt it though that anyone is serious about editing images on a cell phone. Music in your pocket Samsung S7330 has the typical feature phone music player with nice looks and decent functionality. The list of exciting goodies isn't too long but we are happy with it as it is. The Music player application allows filtering tracks by author, album, genre and composers. You can also choose to play either the tracks you've recently listened to, or the ones that you've played the most. Custom playlists can be created too. As with the U900, the S7330 music player has no equalizer presets, but sound effects instead. The difference is that the sound effects also include wide and surround options in addition to the six available presets. There are also three types of visualization and you can enable fading out on stop if you like. The music player can naturally be minimized to play in the background. It can then be controlled with the touchpad straight on your stand-by screen. Pressing the End key closes the application. Video player likes touchpad The video player is one of the phone features that makes best use of the touchpad navigation. All the controls are always at hand with no need of irritating text over your video. Controlling the video player with the touchpad covers all essential features, including fast forwarding and rewinding, and these are easily accessed without going through menus. In addition, you can enjoy the videos fullscreen. The camcorder works in MPEG-4 format, so there is no doubt the player supports it. That makes converting your favorite clips and movies to watch on your Samsung S7330 much easier. Audio quality is pleasing Samsung sure know how to produce handsets with good quality audio output. The S7330 is quite a decent musician, though somewhat short of the best we have seen. All of its readings are good with no disturbing issues to note. 3 megapixel snapper Samsung S7330 carries a 3 megapixel camera with a maximum image resolution of 2048x1536 pixels. While not a top-of-the-line cameraphone, the S7330 performed rather well in the photography field. The camera interface very much resembles that of the good old Samsung G800. The four shortcuts that are assigned to the touch pad do help here but the result is still not the most user friendly. However, the available settings are quite a lot so we are willing to accept the somewhat complicated menu. Some of the more important settings are picture size, shooting mode (single shot, multi-shot, mosaic, and frame), effects (black and white, sepia, negative etc.) and 3 white balance presets. The additional camera settings include contrast, saturation, sharpness, exposure metering, picture quality and auto focus settings. Exposure metering is also configurable and auto focus can be switched off if necessary. The picture quality of Samsung S7330 is rather good. The image processing algorithm is decent though noise reduction is a bit too aggressive and eradicates fine detail. On some of the pictures the contrast isn't great either but neither of those is too bad. On the other hand, the low noise levels and the precise colors are welcome benefits. Well-rounded connectivity With Samsung S7330 you can count on 3G with HSDPA support and GPRS for browsing internet on the go. There is also EDGE which is essential for browsing in areas where 3G coverage is missing. In addition to the network data transfers, Samsung S7330 also supports USB and Bluetooth, both version 2.0. A2DP support is available. The phone works without a glitch when transferring data to and from PC. The USB connection has PC Studio, Media player and Mass storage modes. Each of them can be set as default or otherwise the user will be prompted for action upon connection. |
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