| It used to be quite exciting talking about smartphones. | | | | common feature in many affordable touchscreen |
| What OS they use, what apps they have and what | | | | monoblocks. But it gets better with a capacitive |
| features to drool over can take the wind out of any | | | | touchscreen that few smartphones have. It has the |
| discussion about mobile phones. But over the course | | | | usual gravity accelerometer for auto rotate viewing |
| of mobile phone evolution, the line drawn between a | | | | and a gesture-like turn-to-mute but no proximity |
| smartphone and a regular feature phone is now | | | | sensors. |
| almost as meaningless as a penciled line on a piece of | | | | - A 3.2 megapixel fixed focus camera is fairly |
| paper. | | | | common even with midrange smartphones. It even |
| Except for the OS and its multitasking PC-like flexibility, | | | | features with smile detection, geo tagging from its |
| a smartphone no longer enjoys any advantage. Take | | | | GPS capability and a decent QVGA video recording |
| a look at the new Samsung S5620 Monte | | | | at 15fps that many affordable smartphones have. This |
| full-touchscreen handset recently announced just | | | | one has a front-facing CIF camera that is useful with |
| before the 2010 Mobile World Congress. With its | | | | your 3G video calls. |
| features, and they are by no means ordinary, one | | | | - The handset won't be complete with the expected |
| would think it's a smartphone. It looks like one, it even | | | | multimedia experience it brings. It has the capable |
| acts like one. But it's just a feature phone. | | | | media players we've come to expected from a |
| Very Smart Dumbphone Features | | | | Samsung mobile phone, a stereo FM receiver with |
| Samsung ported its TouchWiz 2.0 UI on the RTOS | | | | RDS and 3.5mm headphone jack. It gets the |
| (real-time OS) of the Monte giving it look and feel of a | | | | Samsung's own DNSe (Dynamic Natural Sound |
| smartphone. Feature-wise, there's little to betray the | | | | engine) that promises to bring a listening experience on |
| fact that it's just a feature phone. Take a look. | | | | the road with surround effects or a simple stereo |
| - It's a 3G phone with dual band UMTS with HSDPA at | | | | widening. |
| 3.5 MBps as well as a quad band GSM/GPRS/EDGE | | | | - There's only 227 MB of internal memory storage with |
| on 2G. WiFi 802.11b/g, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP and | | | | up to 1,000 photocall-enabled phone entries. But you |
| standard microUSB 2.0 HS brings its local data | | | | get microSD expansion slot for up to 16 GB that's |
| connectivity at par with any upscale handset. It also | | | | hot-swappable. There's a 960 mAh Li-Ion battery that |
| has built-in A-GPS receiver with Google Maps 3.0 to | | | | can get you up to 9 hours of talk time and 770 hours |
| give you the SatNav functionality in many | | | | of standby time. As a nod to the social networking |
| smartphones. There's also Google Latitude that | | | | markets, the Samsung S5620 Monte has the SNS |
| pinpoints your exactly location coordinates anywhere | | | | apps for integrating with Facebook, MySpace and |
| you go. | | | | Bebo. Its other built-in apps include push email with |
| - A 3-inch Wide QVGA (240 x 400) with 256k colors | | | | Emoze, instant messaging with Palringo and document |
| used to be rare in feature phones but is now a | | | | viewers for PDF and MS Office files. |