Samsung S3500

Sure, when it comes to high-end range-toppers like the Samsung Tocco Ultra Edition our eyes light up just like any other gadget lover's. But in this penny-pinching climate, we're as keen as anyone to entertain more cost-conscious efforts, like the Samsung S3500.

Pitched at around the £80 mark on Virgin Mobile and Vodafone pre-pay, the S3500 sliderphone aims at wallet-friendly chic, with an attractive metallic look and a slimline design that's trickled down from Samsung's Ultra series lineup.

Features-wise, we're not talking drool-over high-end tech here; this is a quad-band GSM handset with GPRS and EDGE connectivity rather than 3G or Wi-Fi. But it does try to cover the fundamentals - with an onboard music player and FM radio, a modest 2-megapixel camera with video capture facility, and MicroSD memory card expansion (with cards up to 8GB supported).

Design and handling
It may be relatively inexpensive, but it doesn't look cheap. With silver-look bodywork plus a brushed metal control panel, and a substantial chrome-look navigation pad, the Samsung S3500 sliderphone has a low-key smart look and feel about it. It feels solid too, weighing 95g, while the 100(h) x 48(w) x 13.9(d)mm body feels well-balanced for thumbwork when both open and closed.

Looking similar to the Nokia 6500 slide, the S3500 has a reasonable 2.2inch QVGA display, resolving up to 16-million colours. It's bright and clear, though Samsung's rather functional menu graphics don't stretch it too much. Samsung has adopted a familiar menu look and feel, with grid-based icons in the main menu and scrollable numbered lists (which you can select by number-pressing with the slider out).

No problems with the slider - it has a safe, solid spring loaded action. The keypad, on a single piece of plastic, is sufficiently finger friendly, with numbers divided by curved ridges that allow for accurate number tapping. Texting action is sufficiently responsive too.

Working the large navigation D-pad in the centre of the control panel, it's straightforward negotiating the phone's navigation system. It's pretty intuitive to get around and will be familiar territory for existing Samsung owners.

One of the pre-loaded D-pad shortcuts is a bit quirky though - a Fake Call function. Some of Samsung's latest handsets are including this feature, which enables you to activate a bogus incoming call, so you can free yourself from awkward conversations or dodgy situations by pretending to take a call. For added authenticity, you can record your own fake voice "call" that plays back when you answer. Potentially useful, we can see, but just don't get caught using it...

The grid-based menu system and associated numbered lists of sub-menu options are standard fare, however, with no real surprises.

Features
The S3500 may not push the boundaries of mobile phone gadgetry, but it has the essentials in good working order. The music player provides a decent sonic set-up, with a regular Samsung tune player tidily taking care of business. It has standard Samsung music player software, with tunes listed in familiar MP3 player categories, and controls operated by the D-pad.

Its audio performance is reasonable through the boxed stereo earphones. The headset is run-of-the-mill average, and sound is acceptable but not ear-caressingly lovely; it can be a touch trebly, particularly at higher volumes, with bass lacking real presence.

Unsurprisingly for a budget phone, there's no standard 3.5mm headphone socket or adapter in-box, Samsung using its normal multi-connector socket on the side for all plug-ins - earphones, USB and charger. There is a MicroSD card slot - it's under the battery pack - which can support cards up to 8GB, though no card comes in-box. The phone's onboard memory is around 45MB, so if you're fancy more than a handful of tracks, a cheap MicroSD card is a wise investment.

You can enjoy plenty of free music though - via the phone's FM radio, another functional but perfectly serviceable standard piece of kit.

Camera
With a 2-megapixel shooter, the S3500's cameraphone performance is limited, and it doesn't have an autofocus system or flash to help the snap-taking. The camera user interface is more mid-tier than basic, however, with the viewfinder auto-switching to landscape mode at the touch of the side camera button.

It's an easy to follow set up, with control adjustments and effects clearly laid out and labelled.

The slider has to be opened to take pics, as the camera lens is tucked away behind the bodywork when closed, but the phone still feels comfortable to hold, and there's no slider-wobble when snapping.

A phone camera like this is never going to stun with its imaging performance, but it does alright for this level of snapper. Images are bright and colourful in good light, and snaps are acceptable for this grade of shooter - though detail is restricted and you can't get precise snapping or crisp close-ups with the fixed focus lens. With no flash, low-light shooting is best left to your digital camera.

Typically average quality video can be shot with this handset. Clips can be recorded at up to QVGA quality (320x240 pixels), at 15fps, so don't expect anything too refined.

Running data over GPRS or EDGE rather than 3G, the workmanlike NetFront browser does a respectable enough job at rendering web pages. It's not especially speedy, but it gets the job done without fuss. The interface is normal mid-range phone-style lists of options rather than anything more sophisticated, but sites mostly look OK onscreen.

Email is, of course, included as one of the S3500's onboard messaging options, while it has the sort of organiser tools we've regularly seen on mid-tier Samsungs - including calendar, memo, tasks, voice recorder, world clock, calculator, convertor, voice recorder, timer, and stopwatch. A cluster of trial games are loaded in demo form, with a couple of free players too.

Performance
Getting the essentials right, the Samsung S3500 puts in an decent enough voice calling show, and battery life is perfectly adequate for a handset like this. Samsung quotes power figures of up to 400 hours standby or 4 hours talktime, and we comfrotably managed over 3 days of normal phone use on this quad-band GSM handset.

Summary
The Samsung S3500 isn't pitched at anyone looking for an exciting or novel phone experience, but instead at buyers opting for an affordable handset that looks presentable and offers good value.

Obviously, at this price point there are some compromises, such as the limited camerawork, lack of 3G connectivity, and so on. Its competent functionality may not thrill like some handsets, but its smart value-for-money looks may hit the mark for some in these credit-crunched times.

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