A winner in the D500

Samsung phones are probably known more for their form than their function. But that will change now that the D500, the South Korean electronics giant’s first mobile phone with Bluetooth, is here. Launched last Thursday night at a high-profile, celebrity-studded shindig at Embassy at The Fort, the new D500, which should have a retail price of approximately P26,000, is a business phone that looks so fashionable, it won’t look out of place in the boardroom or on a modeling ramp.

Aside from a 1.3-megapixel camera with flash and digital zoom, the tri-band D500 slide-up phone also features a stunning 128MB of internal memory, 64-chord polyphonic ringtones, an MP3 music player, a 176 x 220-pixel 262K color display, and video recorder.

In addition to Bluetooth, this phone also has an infrared port, e-mail client, SyncML connectivity and Java and WAP 2.0 capabilities. And since the D500 now supports MP3s, you can set your favorite tunes as ringtones as well.

Like its predecessors, the blue-black D500 has a semi-automatic sliding mechanism. It’s slightly bigger than the previous flagship, the E800 (94 x 46 x 24 mm) and weighs a bit more (99 grams compared to the E800’s 85 grams), but the phone is extremely pocketable nonetheless.

On the left side of the phone, there is an infrared port and a volume switch button. On the right side is a camera button, which is useful when taking self-portraits. There is also a connector right above the side camera button which is assigned for connecting a hands-free device or the included SoundMate speaker.

The camera lens system is on the back of the sliding upper part of the phone and beside it are the camera flash and mirror. At the bottom of the phone is the battery jack which is protected by a small plastic plug.

The camera offers six different resolutions – SXGA (1280 x 1024), Mega (1152 x 864), VGA (640 x 480), QVGA (320 x 240), QCIF (176 x 144) and Sub-QCIF (128 x 96) – and three compression qualities – super fine, fine and normal. There are five different shutter sounds and paparazzi wannabes will be delighted to know that the shutter sound may also be turned off.

Camera settings are more advanced than in most camera phones. Aside from the zoom, you can also manually control the exposure compensation, select the ISO sensitivity, use the flash and self-timer, or compose pictures using the multishot feature and various effects and frames. The phone records video at 176 x 144-pixel resolution and saves it in 3GP format. You can record up to a whopping 60 minutes of video.

As for connectivity, both Bluetooth and infrared work seamlessly. And if you think the huge 128MB internal memory isn’t enough for your needs, you can always send your data to your PC or laptop via Bluetooth to free up your phone’s memory. With all these heavy-hitting features, it’s no surprise that the D500 won the coveted Best Mobile Handset title in the international 2005 GSM Association Awards.