So each new phone plays up one big feature: for some, it’s the fancy camera, with zoom and digital effects. Others emphasize the large giga-space allotted to MP3s, doubling as a music player.
But have you ever wished you had a calculator that doubled as a cellphone? No? That’s probably because you already have a calculator on your cellphone. But that hasn’t stopped Samsung from coming out with sleek, ultra-slim cellphone model that looks like a calculator. At a nano-thin 8.9 millimeters wide, it has to be the least imposing cellphone out on the market. But it is very sharp-looking. With its edgy silver and black design, it looks like the latest in cellphone technology. Place it on a desk, and it could easily pass for a high-tech calculator. It even has a big face to display your phone numbers and sums – useful in spots where you don’t want to squint.
It’s so thin, in fact, that I became concerned that I would lose it or break it if it traveled in my pocket. Fortunately, the SGH-P300 comes with a leather carrying pouch that doubles as a battery – it keeps the thing at least partially charged for longer, with a flip-top to protect the face. (Samsung sent me a German user’s manual, by the way. Do I sprechen sie Deutsch? Nein. So I wasn’t able to figure out how to lock the thing, along with many other vital functions.)
Its smallness, actually, makes it an unlikely design for a cellphone. As one user showed me, the mouthpiece barely reached from his ear to the end of his sideburn. People might feel less than confident talking into a phone that’s the size of playing card. But that’s technology for you: they will build it, because they can. Function must now follow form in the ever-growing thicket of cellphone models.
I wanted to love this phone, but my technological limitations often prevented me. Also my fingers: I found the digits even smaller and less manageable than on my old Nokia. As a phone, it has the same keypad layout as other Samsung models, which, to me, is frustratingly counterintuitive. Suffice to say, I don’t like to hit three or four keys just to send or delete a message. Simplicity is still best.
I’m sure Ethan Hunt (of the Mission: Impossible movies) or 007 have never had this problem with gadgets: they just grab the latest widget being offered by Q, fiddle around with a few buttons, and off they go. They’re never struggling desperately to find the "receive" button or locate punctuation for a text message while stuck along EDSA. But this is the real world.
As for the phone’s other functions, they are familiar to Samsung users. It has a 1.3-megapixel camera that can take night shots, with zoom and flash and all the other bells and whistles; the camcorder is 353x288 pixels with a 1.8-inch screen, but lacks real audio. It has a WAP browser. It has Java. It has Bluetooth. It has voice recognition and voice dialing. It has a 1,000-number phonebook capacity. It has a memo book, a scheduler, a countdown timer and a stopwatch. And it works fine as a calculator, too (once you figure it out).
The speakerphone is readily available with a push of the thumb (I stumbled upon it accidentally), also useful in driving situations. Like most up-to-date models, this Samsung has a foreign currency converter, as well as a converter for lengths, weights and temperatures. I found this helpful. I also liked the World Time function that allows you to pan across a digital globe, on which the current time of most world cities is displayed.
All this for about $400, according to the Internet. Samsung has penetrated the Philippine market with its sharp and clever phones, becoming (according to Samsung) number 2 here behind Nokia. If you want a slim, sleek, card-sized cellphone that will catch your friends’ interest at the restaurant table and make them want to pick it up and play with it, this is a good one. The Samsung SGH-P300 makes for a splendid conversation piece, if only for its hip, compact design.
(Now all I need to do is learn German.)