Italian fashion heavyweight Giorgio Armani is the latest to join an ever growing list of designer and boutique labels getting in on some mobile phone action. So far, Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, Levi's, Ted Baker, Mandarin Duck, Elle and Cath Kidston have all launched ritzy handsets to woo the fickle fashion crowd. Throw in automobile outfits Porsche and Hummer and every Tom, Dick and Harriet is seemingly at it.

Like Giorgio’s standing in the fashion world, the finger touch Samsung P520 Armani handset scales the posh end of the mobile phone spectrum. It’s incredibly well put together, with a premium stainless steel feel and a rather sophisticated minimalist design.

But unlike its fiercest touch phone rivals, the LG Prada and Viewty, the Armani is amazingly bijou and slimline, measuring a mere 10.5mm thick and giving it an edge in the slinky stakes.

This slender and card-sized frame could throw up all kinds of problems on the touch navigation front but the 2.6-inch QVGA-quality screen surprisingly accommodates your pinkies, no problem.

The Armani phone is officially Samsung’s second touch phone and it borrows the Croix (it’s French for Cross) user-interface from the F700 handset. Although, not in the same league as the iPhone, the F700’s still ranks as one of the better touch-arrangements doing the rounds.

However, on the Armani, the Croix UI isn’t so receptive to your finger touches. Your taps are still greeted by a vibrating pulse but response can be fitful and sometimes sluggish to react. Similarly, when scrolling through web pages and menus, the UI doesn’t always pick-up your touch and stroke movement.

But the Armani phone isn’t 100% touch, with two call keys sitting under the display while a side loaded hold switch is ready to disable the screen and stop any unintentional brushes or prods while inside your clutch bag or the pocket of your skinny jeans.

As we’ve come to expect from nearly every fashion phone, the Armani is a mixed bag of feature compromises and neat flourishes. For starters, there’s no 3G or Wi-Fi; EDGE is the order of the day, so web browsing is disappointingly on the back foot from the off.

Samsung makes up for this boo-boo with a capable 3-megapixel camera. Admittedly there’s no auto-focus or flash but it nevertheless takes solid snaps with strong colour reproduction. Video capture is also quite slick, shooting in two resolutions: 320 x 240 pixels at 30fps and 352 x 288 pixels at 15fps.

The Armani’s most heinous crime is its tortoise slow memory card processing skills. When is comes to playing music tracks loaded on the hotswappable microSD card, it splutters into life, while skipping tracks takes an absolute age to hit home.

It’s a shame because the music player is one of the Armani phone’s highlights, with its intuitive menu arrangement similar to most good music phones our there. A four-band equaliser is on hand to ramp up the sound while it also supports stereo Bluetooth, should you dabble with wireless headphones or speakers.

Tags: Phones Mobile phones Samsung Armani Samsung P520 Armani

Samsung P520 Armani mobile phone originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Thu, 14 Feb 2008 13:00:00 +0000

If you’re like the majority of the phone-buying public and haven’t got the wonga to afford the obscenely expensive Vertu phones, then Nokia’s own select band of premium handsets have proved a godsend.

Admittedly, the likes of the 8600 Luna and 8800 Sirocco could still cost a wallet-haemorrhaging £450-550 SIM-free (the Sirocco Gold version blings in at £800) or free on an expensive monthly contract, but at least these aspirational handsets were attainable without receiving a concerned phone call from the bank manager.

Nokia's latest passenger on its luxury cruise is the 8800 Arte, follow-up to the Sirocco and the first of its classy fashionistas to actually deliver some feature clout to match the undoubted style. The inclusion of original flavoured 3G (finally!) and a 3.2-megapixel snapper will be welcomed by those disappointed with the Sirocco’s previous vacuous feature set.

The Arte maintains its predecessor’s immaculate build quality and minimalist design. It has been meticulously carved from stainless steel and carries that reassuring but pocket-sagging heft. Its vital stats are also almost identical to the Sirocco, although its design is sharper and profile slightly trimmer.

To fight the inevitable greasy smears that soil stainless steel veneers, Nokia has coated the front fascia in an anti-fingerprint paint. It works to certain extent but the rounded edges still manage to attract oily smudges. The Finnish outfit has also protected the stunning 2-inch OLED QVGA-quality display with scratch-resistant glass.

The signature spring-assisted slider action is still the best in business. The greased-up ball bearings make it incredibly fluid and you’ll find yourself idly opening and shutting the phone just to hear that satisfying clunk.

After the niggly keypad on the Sirocco, we’re pleased to report there is no usability issue with the Arte in this respect. While its keypad arrangement looks similarly cramped, the buttons' bevelled edges make it great to thumb. Otherwise, the Arte plays out like other Nokia phones: intuitive and granny simple to operate.

The Arte also lets you brilliantly tailor the homescreen with a fiesta of shortcuts including a top scrolling bar to access popular features such as music player, calendar, web search and general indicators detailing new messages, appointments, etc.

Nokia has fitted the Arte with a couple of quirky but useful tricks. Firstly, you can mute the incoming call ringtone without actually killing the call, simply by turning the phone face down while if you need to discreetly check the time, just tap the phone below the display and an analogue clock will appear. However our review sample didn’t seem at all receptive to our light pats or firm prods.

The 3.2-megapixel camera with autofocus is pretty decent but don’t expect pin-sharp K810i Cyber-shot picture quality. Snaps are blighted with a hint of digital noise and a magenta tinge but it won’t spoil your appreciation. However, the lack of any flash or macro focus is disappointing. Video capture on the other hand is surprisingly slick and easy on the eye, shooting in a 640 x 480 pixel resolution.

Elsewhere, the built-in music player spins the standard MP3, AAC, eAAC+ and WMA formats. It’s great to use and sounds lively, with a seven-band equalisers to adapt the audio and support for stereo Bluetooth. But with only 1GB of internal memory and no memory card slot handy, the music player’s talents become severely limited. Sure, you can use it like an entry-level Apple shuffle or Creative Stone but remember the memory has to be shared with all your other multimedia clobber.

Tags: Phones Mobile phones Nokia Nokia 8800 Arte

Nokia 8800 Arte mobile phone originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Wed, 06 Feb 2008 13:53:00 +0000

When the Nokia E50 rocked up mid-2006, it was seen as a capable replacement for the legendary 6310i, a phone still seemingly favoured by crusty old business bods. This Symbian Series 60 smartphone was the closest any Nokia handset had come to matching the 6310i’s straightforward design, epic battery life and user-friendliness. But if there was one major criticism, it was the remarkable lack of high speed connectivity options.

Thankfully this oversight has been addressed with its follow-up the E51 with HSDPA and Wi-Fi now on-board. If you’re looking for a close comparison, then this smartie is essentially the E65 slider in candybar form, topped-up with HSDPA.

And like the E65, the E51 is impressively built with a metal-plated trim and battery cover. It’s also incredibly slender and great to handle. While it won’t completely seduce you with its looks, compared to the prosaic E50, it’s still a classy and elegant handset.

The E51 is simply a joy to operate. Its front spacious keypad is teeming with shortcuts galore with dedicated buttons for firing up email (if you have more than one client set up you can target a specific account), Bluetooth, calendar and contacts. Factor in the two customisable soft keys and the Symbian standby screen and pretty much all your favourite and important functions are but one click away.

The important business of syncing the phone with all your Outlook gubbins is also pretty trouble-free. You can transfer and manage all your contacts, calendar entries, tasks, etc., via Nokia’s bundled PC Suite software and the procedure is straightforward.

If you have a web-based email account like Gmail or Yahoo or a home-based ISP client then setting up email is a breeze. Nokia has installed a Setting Up wizard that takes all the faff out of entering all that outgoing and incoming server guff, so just your email address, username and password is required. However if you’re hooking up with your work’s Exchange Server for push email capabilities then you might want to get pally with the IT officer. Naturally, a QuickOffice suite is embedded so you can easily view Word, Excel and PowerPoint document attachments.

The QVGA-quality 2-inch screen is sharp and bright, brimming with 16-million colours and this seems to be the standard now for mid-range and beyond Nokia handsets. However, its size does restrict the view a tad when web browsing but nothing too major. Now it has fast HSDPA and Wi-Fi connections download speeds are brisk and you can either view web pages in full desktop glory (aided by Nokia’s marmite MiniMap navigation technique) or compacted to neatly fit the screen. Abuse the web over Wi-Fi and the battery will drain quite quickly. Otherwise used sparingly and the E51 will last a number of days before needing a re-charge.

As a business-class phone, Nokia has understandably toned down the E51’s multimedia potential but there are nevertheless still a host of features to muck around with. The fixed focus 2-megapixel lens shoots in a 1600 x 1200 pixel resolution so it won’t have you clamouring for the photo printer. Picture quality is average and good enough for MMS, wallpapering and blogging. Video capture resolution is higher than expected at 320 x 240 pixels but is compromised by the 15fps, so is dogged with judder and drag.

You probably wouldn’t expect to see a business-style handset to excel on the music front but the built-in player is particularly skilful, sounding dynamic with help of equaliser sound boosters. There’s even support for Stereo Bluetooth and should you tire of your tunes, an FM radio is ready to entertain. The 130MB wodge of user memory is more than helpful but is dutifully backed up by a non-hotswappable microSD card slot under the battery bonnet. We got a 1GB card with our review sample but if you want to load the E51 with more than 250 average-sized MP3 songs you will need to up the capacity.

Tags: Phones Mobile phones Nokia Nokia E51

Nokia E51 mobile phone originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Fri, 01 Feb 2008 13:00:00 +0000