Samsung S3650, better known as Corby is a pig inexpensive alternative
for those who want a mobile with a touch screen for low price. Actual
drop away is with a little over one thousand patch to become the proud
owner of an unlocked Corby without subscription.
Corby on steroids
Do you see a small notch past the tap screen, a Corby may get more than
simple, a tempting price tag notwithstanding.
Do you want a cheap touch mobile without any compromise, Samsung has now
launched an alternative, namely the M5650. M5650 is that it should be
also given a proper name as well, namely Lindy.
M5650 Lindy looks at first glance like a clone of Corby, but going to
Lindy at the closer look it seams you will see that the newcomer is a
bit more modern than the original.
Samsung has a host of cheap touch phones in its portfolio, and we have
looked more closely at what distinguishes Lindy from the rest of the
gang.
Splash of color from Samsung
Our test sample had a shiny, not to say strident, blue back, in addition
to a blue square below the screen on the front of the phone. It should
be added to the Lindy that they are also available in a neutral black
color if you want a more discreet mobile phone.
The first thing you will notice compared to Corby, is that you have
three dedicated keys to control music player in front of the phone.
Another sign that Lindy should work as a music player is the headphone
jack which is standard mini jack, so you can use your own headphones.
Touch Wiz with mind blowing suit
Lindy not only has a color rich exterior but also the menus are in a
youthful form. By default, Lindy is set with a neutral theme in the
well-known Touch Wiz menus, but you can change the theme cartoon if you
wish.
When you get a more fit subject of comic book style with some nifty
animations, as we are familiar with the Touch Wiz, you also have some
other options for menus. Among other things, you can choose between four
different fonts.
On the whole it is much reminiscent of Corby in the menus. You have a
variety of widgets to choose from, so that for example, you can get
Facebook updates or Twitter messages directly on the start screen.
On the side of the phone you will find a key to lock the screen. In
addition, the so-called smart resolution, which means you can unlock the
screen by writing a given letter on the screen.
When you touch the screen you will get feedback in the form of
vibration. This vibration can be adjusted in intensity or turned off if
you wish.
Many menu items for money
Lindy has three different start screens, which you can fill with
different widgets. The main menu is in the same street, with icons
spread across three different screens. As we commented when we tested
Corby, it may be more than many icons at the top level of the menu.
Response is otherwise impeccable, like most phones, with Samsung’s
proprietary Touch Wiz variant.
Good response, you also have the three keys below the screen. Here you
have the usual call and hang up keys, plus a key to go back on the menu.
Since Lindy have common keys, you are required to enter numbers and
letters by touching the screen. You use a common virtual numeric keypad,
and you have natural dictionary available.
We also still missing a full virtual QWERTY keyboard. Even if the screen
is in no way gigantic, it is often quickest to enter text in this way.
The screen is touch sensitive, however, is independent of physical
pressure to respond.
The low price must of course reflect on some points. Accessories is one
of these. First of all, the card we miss, something you rely on if you
are using Lindy as a music player. As usual it is the Micro SD memory
card type that is used so that the return is a good chance that you
already possess a suitable memory card.
What is included in the kit are:
- Telephone
- Battery
- User Guide
- CD with software
- Charger / Data Cable
- Headset with 3.5 mm mini-jack plug
The biggest problem Corby-owners had to swallow to get a phone call to
raffle prize, was probably the slow data rate.
Fortunately, 3G, Super 3G found its way under the shell-up to Lindy. In
addition, Samsung has also found room for WiFi capability, which
certainly gives plus the margin for a cheap mobile like this. Now you
can in other words, surf Facebook or download the mail in impeccable
speeds.
Job Mailer release the other hand away when you’re on the go with a
Lindy. Obviously, this is no pro phone, and then support for syncing to
the Exchange a feature you have to look long after.
One-finger zooming
While browsing, you can zoom with one finger, which Samsung also points
out in his commercials. Well it works fine, and you can double-tap the
screen to automatically zoom in and out. However, we do not think it’s
not as practical as a solution such as iPhone where you zoom in the
browser and the slide show by moving two fingers apart on the screen and
the other to zoom out. We would probably not be called too loudly about
how wonderful one-finger zooming is.
Otherwise, the browser works well, some support for Flash, Java and the
presence of Super 3G contributing to. An improvement over previous
versions is that you do not get an error message if you change to full
screen before the page is finished loading.
The memory of up to 70 MB is enough to hold solid bunch of photos but
will almost instantly be too small when you start playing music with
your Lindy.
Utility for everyday use
Although Lindy lack the heaviest features, you are still the most you
need for everyday use. The clock helps wake you up in the morning, the
countdown timer ensures that the egg for breakfast is just the right
smile, while the calendar has reminded you to serve a small gift along
with the aforementioned egg for the birthday child on the other side of
the table.
Besides the simple new features, the Lindy actually has an application
that displays common document formats. That is, the Word document you
received as attachments to e-mail can be read directly on the phone.
The low price has not left its mark on the Bluetooth connection. Here
are namely support for full speed when transferring data, as well as the
ability to connect to wireless headphones with stereo sound.
Motion sensors, however, was struck by the ax. This means that the
screen does not rotate automatically for example if you put the phone
onto the page when browsing.
Good battery is useful for everyone, and you do this job in Lindy. We
went three or four days between each charge, which we’re happy with.
Despite the fact that Samsung provide very moderate battery times for
Lindy. It helps, of course, the battery time the phone is unable to
stand and synchronize continuously against the corporate email server.
The sound during a call, we have nothing to defer to. We did not
specifically talk of quality when we used the Lindy, which is a good
sign. With input mini jack and dedicated music keys, we expect a decent
music player with Lindy.
And the music player is good to use and has the key features such as
playlists and random play. You also have a widget that provides access
to music player from the home screen.
The buttons that control the music player works when you open the music
player, and when the phone is in standby mode, ie when you are on the
home screen of your phone. Are you in the menus or, for example surf the
net, you have to go out of what you are doing currently.
Now there is hardly any crisis if you do not get changed songs while
playing a text message, but if the Crazy Frog should appear in the play
list it is conceivable that you might need to change songs.
Sound in the ear
The headphones provided is with no good in the long path to reflect your
music and have your own headphones you’d rather use the mini jack input
that comes into its own. The headphones supplied are of the type that
sits inside the ear.
Same with some other headsets from Samsung, its the way the microphone
that sits on the cable networks and very elegant. It’s almost not to
expect that the small device has a button to answer calls, but it has
the words.
You can enjoy your music, as you said, still with the memory card
itself. To allow others to control your music, you can leave the show to
the built-in FM radio, which also has RDS.
Whether the sound comes from your own music files or from the radio, you
can enjoy great sound quality. The sound is rendered neutral with good
dynamics, and background noise is moderate.
If you look at the film, however, its not Lindy something good choice.
Not only is the screen in the smallest team to see a movie, but the
problem is that there is very limited video files which Lindy is
actually able to play.
Single Camera
Lindy is not an expert to capture video. Videotapes taken by Lindy is
suitable only for viewing on small mobile screens.
Images are chopped better, but this is not a top camera phone. The
camera is struggling with large contrasts and if the balance is not
always very good, indoor photos will go blurry, even with good indoor
lighting.
Games are not Lindy’s strongest side. We did not find a single game with
our test sample.
Samsung M5650 Lindy Specification
- Design:
Full Touch Bar (Touch Screen ) - Platform
- GSM&EDGE: Band Quad Band (850/900/1800/1900MHz)
- 3G Band: 900/2100
- GPRS: Yes
- EDGE: Yes
- 3G: HSDPA 3.6Mbps
- Operation System: Proprietary
- HTML Browser
- Java
- Weight: 97g
- Dimension (HXWXD): 105.9 x 56.5 x 12 mm
- Display: 2.8 262K Colour TFT LCD QVGA 240 x 320
- Battery
- Capacity (Standard): Li-ion 960mAh
- Talk time (Standard): Up to 3 h
- Standby (Standard): Up to 300 h
- User Interface: TouchWiz UI Full Touch Screen
- Camera: 3 Megapixel
- Video player: MP4 / H.263 / H.264 / WMV9
- Video recording/messaging/streaming/telephony
- Music & Sound
- Music Player: MP3 / AAC / AAC+ / e-AAC+ /
WMA9 - Poly/MP3 Ringtones
- DRM
- Music Library
- Music Player: MP3 / AAC / AAC+ / e-AAC+ /
- Fun & Entertainment
- Embedded JAVA games
- Embedded Wallpaper
- FM Radio
- Business & Office
- Offline Mode
- Voice Memo & Voice Mail
- Messaging
- SMS/MMS
- Predictive Text Input T9
- Cell Broadcast
- vCard / vCalendar
- Connectivity
- Bluetooth 2.0
- USB 2.0
- WAP 2.0
- USB mass storage
- Internet HTML Browser
- WiFi
- PC Sync Application
- Memory
- User Memory: 70MB
- External Memory: microSD ( up to 16GB )
- Personal Information Management
- Calendar
- Scheduler
- Clock
- Worldtime
- Alarm
- Currency Converter
- Converter
- Calculator
- Memo Book
- Stopwatch
Summary
Samsung has plenty of clean touch mobile. Latest additions to this long
range is M5650, better known as Lindy. Where its predecessor Corby fell
short in the areas of data transmission and connections, Lindy has been
significant upgrades.
Among other things, makes the Super 3G and WiFi that this is a full
mobile browsing, which can be useful for everyone in these times in
which even the grandmother is on Facebook.
Lindy do not have good keys. Besides the physical buttons to dial, hang
up and go back in menus there are also three dedicated music keys on the
front of the phone.
Along with the minijack input, the key improvements is for those who
want to use mobile phones to play music. If you want to be wireless, you
can use wireless headphones with stereo audio along with Lindy.
Combined with good sound quality the result is a good music phone.
Memory card is not included, so if you do not have a Micro SD memory
cards at hand, be sure to buy with such if you decide to become Lindy
owner.
First and foremost, however, Lindy is a telephone. In both writing text
messages or calling Lindy works well and the charger should not present
undue often either. The screen is not the largest or most sophisticated,
but works well to scroll through menus and surf the net. The screen is
the touch-sensitive type so that you only need to touch the screen just
to use the phone.
The menus are so-called Samsung Touch Wiz menus. When selecting the
right theme, you can get cool menus in comic style. Whether you have
three initial screens available, you can fill with various handy widget.
Some improvement can be found, such as the absence of a virtual QWERTY
keyboard.
About Lindy, it can beat their chests when it comes to certain points,
so the camera is no force at Lindy. The camera with 3.2 megapixel
resolution is barely acceptable quality, but is mostly for ease of use.
Video recording is pretty much well, just forget if you are looking for
better quality than a mobile screen can give you. The same is true if
you want to play the movie with your mobile phone.
Lindy is not designed for the professional user, so even if you have the
most important new features for general use, for example, you do not
synchronize with Exchange server at work.
Conclusion
If the price tag is important than fast browsing and good music, you can
save some money by going for the cheaper Corby from the same
manufacturer. If you want a cheap phone calls without providing either
the touch screen, fast data transfer or decent music player, however,
Lindy a good choice. And if the camera quality, or the ability to play
the movie has something mean to you, Lindy actually is a very good
alternative.
