PHOTOS: Samsung Monte S5620 hands-on

MWC 2010: Touchy feely with Monte

18 February 2010 21:09 GMT / By Chris Hall

Samsung announced the Monte S5620 in the run-up to Mobile World Congress, freeing up our time at the show to get all excited about the Samsung Wave.

Monte is actually a family of devices, but at present, the only one coming to the UK is this one - the full touch variety S5620. There is also a Monte Slider and the Monte Bar, but for the time-being, we'll ignore them.

The Monte is actually rather cute and we like the neat design around the sides. This is pitched in as an affordable touch device for those who don't want to go the whole hog and jump up to the premium Wave.

The Monte offers you a pretty full package however, with a 3-inch WQVGA capacitive touchscreen display, HSDPA, Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, FM radio and a microSD card slot to upgrade the memory.

A 3.2-megapixel camera sits on the back so you can snap away, although the video capture is a little disappointing at 320 x 240 maximum, and then only at 15 frames per second.

In our quick hands-on the screen was surprisingly responsive - it is capacitive where many would be resistive, so it's a nice phone to use. You don't get the freedoms you do on higher profile smartphones, but with social networking integration and a customisable interface, it looks pretty smart itself.