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Re-Invention Of The Slider Phone? Not Quite

I find the current trend to try to turn mobile phones into fashion accessories bewildering. I imagine I’m far from being the only for whom this is true. I suppose, with the average life expectancy before replacement of a mobile being under three years, that the concept of making them disposable fashion accessories was only a matter of time before some stuffed shirt in product marketing put two and two together and saw a quarterly bonus.

This is why we have the slider form factor – a simple candy-bar phone wasn’t enough, and flip phones have become so passé. Now that mobile phones have become commodity products, and in America, handed out as rewards for signing contracts, it’s creeping into more and more places. Witness the Samsung E950 for a case in point.

Because touch screens are now trendy, most of the E950’s functionality is done with the phone closed – using a thumb-pad. Sure, it looks stylish, and it’s the fab new thing (I think I just made a hipster choke!), but still, it seems kind of odd that the functionality of moving through menu options can only be done easily when the phone is closed and unable to process your call.

 
 
I’m also one of those people who shoves their mobile phone into a coat pocket, my wife throws hers into a purse, and both of us experienced the phone randomly activating because the touch page got bumped by change, a pen, or being crushed on the tube en route to work. So, all in all, a clever idea, but not one with much consideration for the practical world.

In terms of features, the phone is slim – when folded up, it will fit into a “skinny jean pocket”. It’s a fully functional 3G phone, able to do GSM and HSDPA networking for connectivity. Do be aware of the price of your data plan; all these wireless enabled phones can eat your budget quickly.

The phone has 70MB of basic memory, and has a decent, but not stellar, 3 megapixel camera built in. You can supplement your onboard storage with a microSD slot. That storage is overkill for things like snapping photos, but the phone, like virtually every mobile since the invention of the ROKR, is a digital music player.

Cell reception was decent, but not stellar. Sound quality was better than average in our experience, and the speakerphone function is nearly useless. Still, it’s a functional, good enough phone that doesn’t try to be a smart phone. Its “fashionista” influences are kept more or less at sane levels, and the light weight and slimline aspects are good as well.

Overall, it’s a nice incremental upgrade to the much thicker, and less functional, E900 phone from 18 months ago.

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