| Samsung recently unveiled a new line of low-to-mid | | | | and a 2G phone on the quad band GSM/SPRS/EDGE |
| range full-featured handsets that should further cement | | | | radio. It has HSDPA at 3.6 Mbps for fast social |
| its hold on the budget-conscious mobile phone markets | | | | networking access and downloading. There’s the |
| everywhere. This is the Shark line that starts out | | | | usual Bluetooth 2.1 and USBO 2.0 for wireless and |
| with three models with decent to near-upscale | | | | wired data connectivity, respectively. |
| functionalities housed in the conventional slim candybar | | | | You get a smallish 2.2 inch QVGA display with 256k |
| and slider form bodies that have earlier established | | | | colors typical of entry level candybars and sliders. |
| Samsung’s hold among the younger and trendier | | | | But it’s an AMOLED display that is fast getting |
| mobile markets. | | | | widely used in mobile gadgets. While brilliant indoors, |
| Never to forget its roots, the Korean leader in mobile | | | | AMOLEDs are not as good under the bright sun. It |
| phones is positioning the Shark line as an affordable | | | | advantage comes with no backlighting common in LCD |
| versatile mobile phone that it hopes will appeal to a | | | | displays. This conserves power consumption. Talking |
| market that has little interest in touchscreens or full | | | | about power, its 960 mAh lithium ion battery delivers |
| QWERTY handsets, smart or otherwise. | | | | one of the longest talk times in the market: 11 hours. |
| One of them, the Samsung S5550 Shark 2 which | | | | You also get 26 hours on standby when fully charged. |
| carries the best feature set of the three, is sure to | | | | The Samsung S5550 Shark 2’s multimedia is |
| capture the social networking crowd with a | | | | served with media players that support the popular |
| no-nonsense handset that is both friendly to the | | | | image, audio and video file formats. There’s the |
| pocket as it is to the wallet. | | | | familiar DNSe 2.0 sound enhancer for widening and |
| The new Shark phone is no SatNav gadget with | | | | getting surround effects. It also has an FM stereo |
| GPS. There’s no WiFi; no QWERTY keyboard | | | | receiver with broadcast recording facility and its |
| and no humongous capacitive touchscreen that can | | | | Bluetooth has A2DP support allowing you to use |
| triple its price tag. It’s your basic communications | | | | wireless stereo earphones. |
| tool whose charms lie in its elegantly styled slider body | | | | Your multimedia files won’t fit in its modest 110 MB |
| made of a blend of Kevlar and real metal to give its | | | | of internal memory but you get microSD expandability |
| sculpted body a nice feel to the hands. | | | | for up to 8 GB according to its technical specs. But |
| But that doesn’t mean it won’t be indulging its | | | | we’re almost sure that you can use 16 GB |
| users. It has a 5-megapixel autofocus camera with | | | | microSD cards as well. |
| LED flash, image stabilization, face and smile | | | | From a software standpoint, Samsung has refined its |
| recognition and a very capable QVGA video recording | | | | non-smartphone user interface to be more responsive |
| at a smooth 30fps frame rate. This feature is often | | | | and flexible. You get instant access to your favorite |
| reserved to upscale smartphones and is wanting in | | | | social networking sites like Facebook, Bebo and |
| some, making the Shark 2 one of the best full featured | | | | MySpace right from widgets on its homescreen. It |
| camera phone in its price point. | | | | comes with a communities software that allows fast |
| Features at a Budget Price | | | | and easy updates to popular media sharing sites like |
| The Shark 2 is a 3G phone on the dual band UMTS | | | | Flickr, YouTube, Picasso and Photobucket. |