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Samsung Monte |
This is Samsungs affordable new handset that focuses mainly on social media.
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It has a lovely 3.2 megapixel camera and a capacitive touch screen interface. The device has great 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity and has a host of widgets designed to make your life easier.
How it Looks
The Monte has a wonderfully slender figure, all curves and rounded edges, just as we like it. Its smooth cover makes it a pleasure to hold and fits perfectly in your hand. With such a slender size and shape there are absolutely zero problems fitting it in your pocket, and you won’t have any horrible bulges ruining your trousers.
The front of the device is Glossy and doesn’t look cheap in the slightest, surprising as its price is so low compared to other smart phones. The interface is capacitive and responsive and we didn’t find ourselves cursing the people at Samsung at all when using the device.
The side of the device has volume controls and a standard 3.5 mm headphone socket which means you won’t be confined to using developers own headphones, which are often not so great. The side of the device is also home to controls for the camera and a lock button, to stop any unwanted phone calls.
Widgets
The Monte doesn’t come with an app store like most modern smart phones but has a whole host of wicked widgets built-in. The app store is not missed as the widgets that are provided deliver all the functionality and features you are likely to need from a hand-held device.
There is a widget hotkey on the home screen which allows you to bring up a menu to let you pick and choose from any of the widgets provided, this means you only have the widgets you want and can remove the ones you don’t.
Thanks to the intuitive touchscreen selecting widgets is just a drag and drop procedure which feels just like using a mouse on a desktop computer.
It's a very well-implemented system.
Within just a couple of minutes of starting up the Monte, we had turned all three of our home screens into a smorgasboard of social-media tools, clocks, calendars, and links to Google, YouTube and even BBC iPlayer.
Listen up
The on-board music player is more than capable and lets you organise your music and podcasts and also allows the creation of playlists. So coupled with the 3.5mm headphone socket you will be able to listen to all your favourite music and find that this phone is an adequate substitute for any portable music device.
The camera is 3.2 megapixels and comes with a feature called ‘smile shot’ which means your camera waits until your subjects smiles before it snaps them up. Clever little features like this make the phone seem smart and fun. The Monte also comes with face detection so it recognises people in the photo and can tell when they are smiling, which is handy for the smile shot feature. The camera can capture video and has a really fast shutter speed so snapping up photos only takes second so you will not be missing any of those ‘Kodak’ moments.
The quality of calls is excellent, we had no problem hearing anyone and nor did they have any problems hearing us. The battery lasts a couple of days which is impressive compared to the batteries on most other smart phones.
Conclusion
Samsung have managed to make the Monte such a useful tool with its host of widgets and quality of service. Everything works brilliantly and even though the main focus of the phone is social networking it still handles everything else well as well. So if you want all the perks of a high end smart phone but don’t want to go over the top on your expenditure this is the best handset for you.
Features:
- SMS, MMS, Email, Push Email, Palringo IM
- WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML
- Stereo FM radio with RDS; FM recording
- A-GPS support
- Yes, MIDP 2.0
- Social networking integration with live updates
- Google Maps 3.0
- Image editor
- MP3/WMA/eAAC+ player
- MP4/H.263/H.264 player
- Organizer
- Voice memo
- T9
Specifications:
- Length: 108.8 mm
- Width: 53.7 mm
- Depth: 12.4 mm
- Weight: 92 g
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