Samsung D500 review: Groundbreaking

Just name the key features: Bluetooth, MP3 player, very good megapixel camera, huge memory, and excellent display… That's Samsung D500 - the first Samsung phone, which will satisfy also the technically demanding users. This phone is Samsung's correction of all reproaches that we've ever had to its mobile phones.

Key features

• conservative and elegant design
• excellent 262K colors display
• Bluetooth support
• MP3 player
• memory capacity
• synchronization with MS Outlook
• reasonable price

Key drawbacks

• MP3 player don't play on the background
• stability (phone being restarted by itself several times)
• e-mail attachments must contain together less than 200 kB of data
• it plays a sound when entering the Java menu
• memory card would be nice

Samsung is stylish and it prefers impression to functionality. The definition that can be otherwise related to every contemporary Samsung phone is not valid anymore. The SGH-D500 model is a completely new type of Samsung phone. Of course, that you will not be short of tackily colored interface, voiceful ringing melodies and other well-known features but Samsung also comes up with other features that will attract those users, who would not otherwise even touch a Samsung phone. For all of them let me name e.g. Bluetooth or MP3 support.

Black color fits to the phone

I am very glad that I did the Samsung E630 review in the end of last year. That time I was saying that Samsung phones almost haven't changed during a year. If I would get a new D500 after a year, I would be thrilled how the Samsung has improved within a year. Nothing like this - it has not improved. It is an overnight jump to a higher class and the older models did not even signalize that this could happen.

Get ready for a very positive review. Samsung took it seriously and rectified perhaps all that we've reproached to its phones in last years.

 

Black elegance

D500 is a sliding phone; using the same construction as the older models E800/E820 or E630. It resembles the E630 also by its look. The sliding is fortunately - in contrary to the "cheap" E630 with the plastic-to-plastic friction - supported by a special mechanism. So just touch a protrusion below the display, push a little and the upper part slides easily. The phone gets closed in the same way. If I would be a D500 owner, perhaps I would always play with the sliding - therefore I am curious what the mechanism can stand. However, I cannot evaluate duration yet in this review.

Sliding mechanism is constructionally a bit different than e.g. at the Samsung E800

Samsung D500 is a mid big and a mid heavy phone, even it does not look like on the pictures. Its size is 94 x 46 x 24 mm and it weighs 99 grams. The E630, which looks likewise, is noticeably smaller and lighter. New model has very elegant black design and I've got a good first impression from the construction, too. Despite the sliding system, the phone is very solid - in short typical Samsung. Black color is not always the same - glossy and matte spaces are shifting on the phone. Covers are made of plastic and they are not exchangeable.

Comparing to a credit card

 

Display: we can do 262K colors

It seemed after introducing D410 model, Samsung has given up displays featuring 262K colors and D500 is the next one that disproves our assumption. Size of the display is 30 x 39 mm and hence it is larger that at the other Samsungs (except the D410). With resolution of 176 x 220 pixels, we can anticipate that the display belongs to the best ones and it is active, of course. You will presumably be disappointed from the introductory animations and greetings. It is likely that Samsung has used older pictures with less color. But you will be amazed from the quality of the display from the moment when the standby display appears. The image is excellent..

Display is larger that at the most of Samsung phones

Bigger resolution allows different arrangement of items on the display. Wallpaper is in the center, as usually, and it can be animated - I recommend the rolling sweeties. Status bar is placed atop and there is still some space left where you can find a clock displayed in a large font. You can turn off an operator logo or, if you want, set the text color according to wallpaper that you currently use.

Main display demonstration (note the new bar with a clock) •
setting the font on the main display and also an example of new horizontal list

The look of the main display indicates a change inside it. It is true, but I will write about the internal menu later on. Missed calls and messages, which appear on the display, are stored in folders, from where you can pick them one by one.

Missed events appear in the folders

What a pity that there is no place left for a lighting diode, which could warn you of missed events even when the display is off. Actually the display is not turned off; just the illumination is turned off and then you can see a display saver with clock, date and icons of call or message. This information is readable from some angles but also you can miss them easily. Lighting diode just would have been nice.

What does a middle button do?

You will find a block of soft keys below the display. It is possible to use the phone even if it is closed; in this case, all functions, which do not require keypad control, are available. You can access also messages editor but then you can just look at it - it is not possible to write without the keypad.

Middle button mostly confirms

One can assign start of a chosen function to each of four ways of the main button - except a phone book. The latter's default button is the right soft key and in contrary to older models it directly opens the list of names and that is quite OK. Just a remark to manageability: it is a little bit hard to press a top part of the four-way button due to the protrusion for sliding.

Assigning the functions to the four-way button

A key in the middle of the main button (a formerly hated element that started a wap browser without a warning) works in the standby mode the same as ever. It starts wap and elsewhere it is also used for confirmations and hopefully Samsung will never get back. Five other - normal - keys trim edge of a closed phone.

An incoming call can be answered in a closed position by pressing a key or opening the phone. It's possible to turn off the second possibility in the phone settings and keep the confirmation only for keys with earphones, if you prefer like this. It is not necessary to answer a ringing phone call - you can mute the sound by pressing a side key.

Setting of opening and closing actions

 

I'm going to lose that plug in two days

I am turning the phone backwards and cannot see anything else but a black space. It is a cover combined with a Li-Ion battery with capacity of 800 mAh. Samsung claims duration time 300 hrs on standby and 390 minutes of speech. I cannot provide you with accurate information about a real duration time. A plastic plug protects system connector and regrettably, it is not attached to the phone. It is very small and you will easily lose it. A sliding plug protects another connector on the right side, which looks like a USB and it is assigned for connecting a handsfree. In the corner, you can find an eyelet for a wrist strap.

Nothing in the back • just a SIM card slot under the cover • a key and the handsfree connector, which is protected by a sliding plug

Plug of a system connector is not attached • eyelet for a wrist strap

On the left side of the phone, there is an infrared port and a volume switch button: it controls keys' beeps in standby mode and the earphone volume during a call. On the right side, you will find a camera button, which is functional only when the phone is in the open position. That is because the lens system appears only after sliding the upper part. Beside that, there is a mirror for self-portraits and strong lighting diode. Let's now describe the camera possibilities.

Rock switch button and an infrared port • camera, mirror and diode • diode in action

 

Top-class camera phone

Samsung D500 stands among the best camera phones, beside Sony Eriksson S700i and Nokia 6630. It features resolution 1280 x 1024 pixels, so it is 1, 31 MP. In common with all the camera phones, it depends on luck: sometimes you make a perfect picture and sometimes it is not worth a candle. Overall, the quality is great. D500 keeps colors, does not overexpose white spaces and shadows are quite authentic. If I would criticize, I would focus on a soft mist that covers every picture, useless digital zoom (which is available only by lower resolution) and not really good macro.

Camera main menu

Camera settings possibilities are better than average. Besides the zoom you can manually control also the exposure compensation, use the self-timer, sequence shooting and also it's possible to insert more scenes in one picture (multiple exposure). You can use the integrated white diode to light up a dark close up scene; in the camera settings you can select the ISO sensitivity, center-weighted average exposure metering or turn off sound of a shutter. I miss maybe just recording of the exposure parameters to an EXIF header.

Shooting environment • settings • scheme of key shortcuts

Shooting with the Samsung is a bit slower, it takes a while until the camera starts up and also the shutter release has a little delay. After pressing the release a circle appears in the middle of a picture; it says: "Do not move with the phone, it's shooting right now". This occurs only at the highest megapixel resolutions; handling the small formats is going fast.

It's possible to use effects during shooting • and frame a picture

I complained at the Samsung E630 that I can't see whole taken scene on the display; that I can see only a crop. It's the same how the D500 works, but it shows full format after pressing the star key. I'm not sure whether this is possible also with the other Samsung phones, which are suffering from the same "illness".

The phone can also record a video in resolution of 176 x 144 pixels and saves it in 3GP format. A record can be very long because it uses full-shared memory and the memory has capacity… No, I will tell you later.

Video: environment • settings • key shortcuts

D500 camera is Samsung's masterpiece. Have a look at the original sample pictures that we have made.

Various exposure compensation settings

Sample pictures in full resolution

Lighting diode in action: a teddy bear from a distance 0,5 m • and from 1 m

Pictures in full resolution for comparison

Digital zoom in VGA resolution

Proper keypad

As we have already opened the phone, we are now looking at the keypad. It is black, as the entire mobile phone, with white illuminated legends and silver stripes, separating single rows from each other. Keys go properly; by pressing them, we can clearly feel breaking a membrane and hear a soft click. Only the top row could be further from the sliding part, because a finger frequently breaks on it.

Keypad details • illumination

Main menu of the D500 is of a matrix form as at other new models, but icons are bigger and more detailed; picked item is animated. Entering the main menu is possible by pressing a cursor key or numeric key shortcuts, which continue to the lowest level of the menu. These "deeper" levels are just of a text form, as it was before. The new feature that we can find here is a horizontal list. We have to use left/right arrow keys to move and select in the list, it's not possible to roll it out. It took me some time to get used to it. Colors of the menu can be selected from four different variants.

Main menu • next level menu • four color variants of the menu

The phone is very fast except the delay of the camera control application. It reacts immediately on every action; messages' writing goes fast. I do not have any remarks. I was fighting only with stability of the phone. Samsung D500 restarted itself always when I tried to turn off Bluetooth while the connection was active and it also "crashed" once during dialing a number.

I usually write about memory of the phone in a chapter about controls and user interface. This time I will thrill you a bit longer …

 

Synchronization works! It really works!

One more time I have to praise very good sound of an earphone during a call. It is not due to a function for quality improvement, which has not again an audible influence. The sound is overall high quality and that also stands for the built-in handsfree. As at the earphone, the sound is pretty bass and full, clear and authentic.

We can improve the sound quality when we connect an external loud handsfree - Sound Mate. It is a black pyramid, which can be split in two parts and then we can plug it to a connector on the right side of the phone. The sound is not louder but richer and more bass. With the D500, you will get also a personal handsfree combined with stereo headphones.

Earphone is below the silver decoration • Sound Mate • headphones

D500 displays phonebooks from the memory and from a SIM card together and can contain up to a 1000 contacts; you can save twelve items to each contact. And now, behold! A premiere: it is possible to synchronize the phonebook, as well as other Samsung D500 databases, with a PC, with Microsoft Outlook. It is the very first time when Samsung has offered this possibility. I will write some more regarding the synchronization in the conclusion chapter, where I will describe software available for this phone in detail.

Detail of a name in the phone book • editing an entry • calls register

I've already written that you can access the list of names just by pressing a single key. Then you can search by a continuous writing letters of a name. You can assign a picture to every name in the phone memory; you can also differentiate them by a ringing tone and classify them to caller groups. In addition, caller groups can have its picture and ringing melody assigned. Profiles are not available, likewise a calls filtering.

Searching in the phone book • picture at an incoming call • caller groups

Ringing tones consist of 64 voices with a very good quality. It does not matter that the melodies are still the same because Samsung D500, again for the first time, supports MP3 ringing tones. Just load an MP3 file to a memory and set it as a ringing tone. Only for messages, you can use just ten standard sounds that cannot be extended in any way. The phone cannot play a tone and vibrate at the same time; perhaps it can do it just at some special melodies containing a vibrations track.

Standard melody • music in MP3 • only ten most common sounds can be used for messages

 

Messages and e-mail

There is also a new feature in the messaging: it is possible to turn off T9 dictionary permanently. To be exact, the phone keeps the last setting in memory and repeats it when you next time enter the editor.

Choice of messaging functions is not standard. You can write text messages, create multimedia messages but also there is an e-mail client, which we have seen at Samsung's for the first and the last time at the sliding model D410.

Messages main menu

Text messages editor is clear; one page can contain eight rows of text. You can work with EMS objects and set size of the text. The editor counts down written characters and displays how many parts is the message split on. There can be twelve of them. Internal memory can accommodate up to 200 text messages. Samsung D500 offers also another new feature: SMS barring. You can set up to ten phone numbers you do not want to receive messages from. You can be sure that you will not get any until you turn the barring off.

Writing a text message

Also multimedia messages editor is fast and clear. New feature is a possibility to insert a video in the MMS, which Samsung phones couldn't really do before. One message can contain up to 300 kB of data. I experienced quite strange behavior of the e-mail client when I couldn't insert objects with more than 200 kB size to an e-mail. I expect the opposite.

Creating a multimedia message

Otherwise, the e-mail client is usable. It understands POP3/IMAP4/SMTP protocols and also it can read messages in HTML format. You can set whether it has to download only headers or entire messages. Alike with the text messages, also with e-mails you can bar addresses, so that you won't receive any messages from them. It's possible to set also an interval of mailbox checkouts; one-hour interval at least.

E-mail client menu

E-mail didn't work as I expected during the test. The phone appeared to be connected but it couldn't download anything and moreover it couldn't get disconnected. I wasn't successful to find whether that's the fault of the phone or of the GSM network.

Samsung D500 is short of modern functions Push to talk and instant messaging.

 

Calendar

I don't count "the first times by Samsung D500" anymore. Here is another one: in a calendar, the week starts by Monday.

Month, week and day view on a calendar

Calendar has nice month view and also a week and day view. Beside that, you can display all repeated events and you will find a to-do list here. Alike the calendar it can be synchronized with a PC. 400 items can be entered in the calendar in the phone.

To enter a new event, you can select from several types of items:

Scheduler: normal meeting; it's possible to enter a title, start and finish time (in different days), add a reminder and set repetition

Birthday: there you enter just a date without exact time and reminder. You can also tick an every year's repetition for the birthday

Various: the same as "Schedule" but without the repetition

Tasks: it's possible to enter just a date, not a time; you can assign a priority. Reminder for tasks can't be set but it's possible to tick it off after completion.

Creating new event • to-do list

Alarm clock is without any change. There are three alarm clocks; you can choose when they will be active and whether they'll alarm you when the phone is switched off.

Alarm clocks and their settings

Samsung supports also text notes. These cannot be synchronized with the Outlook and it's possible to enter just a hundred characters to each note.

Notes overview • detail of a note

I will mention just briefly a stopwatch, countdown timer, calculator and unit's converter. Extra chapter is a voice recorder. It is using again entire shared memory and it can save up to one-hour records. They are saved in AMR format, which can be later used e.g. in multimedia messages - in this case it is useful to set a length limit (for example one minute long records). It is a pity that the voice recorder does not work during calls and it is not possible to record a call that is in progress.

Calculator • converter • countdown timer • stopwatch

 

Samsung and the MP3 player

MP3 support is absolutely new at Samsung's. I have mentioned it at the ringing tones, where it is possible to set an MP3 file instead of a classic ringing melody. The phone can be used as a limited MP3 player. It is not a limit of memory, which has a record-breaking capacity, but it's a problem of communication with a PC. Loading data via Bluetooth or infrared port is not the right solution; you need to get an USB cable if you mean it seriously.

MP3 player interface

Player functions are another limit. It allows you just to skip among tracks and not to rewind or go forward and get e.g. to the middle of a song. During playing a music other people can call you but you can't do anything else; e.g. write messages. Once a call is finished, the playing won't continue from a place where it stopped - a song will start to play from beginning.

List of MP3 files

The sound quality is good. That stands for delivered stereophonic headphones, which can be used as a handsfree, and also for loud playback directly from the phone's speaker. Also you can connect the Sound Mate, which will improve the sound quality. Just a pity that the connector is not a standard jack and we can use only delivered headphones, as they aren't really top-quality.

Multimedia and entertainment: functional infrared port

Samsung improved also multimedia files handling. Perhaps we all remember reproaches to older models when it wasn't possible to send and receive a picture or a ringing tone via an infrared port. That's the past already, D500's infrared port is working in both ways. I experienced problems just with java programs. The phone declined to receive such files, perhaps due to a copyright protection. Also via Bluetooth we can send all multimedia files in both ways.

Gallery • detail of a picture • editing possibilities

Samsung D500 supports Java MIDP 2.0 and ranks among slightly better than average phones. In jBenchmark 1.0 test it reached a result 1473 and 154 in version 2.0. Three java games are straight in the phone. To get to them you'll have to go through a nosy melody, which plays by entering an appropriate menu. Same melody sounds during downloading java applications from wap - why?!

Games menu

Forgotten Warrior game is 2d arcade game - a prince must rescue a kidnapped princess. Freekick is a nice football game, where you kick on a goal. Arch Angel is a fly-and-shoot game.

Three integrated games

 

Data: the first one with Bluetooth

It is still early for EDGE at Samsung's; we have to wait for enhanced model D500E. Normal D500 supports GPRS class 10. We can connect the phone to a PC via a cable, infrared port or Bluetooth. You can download a pack of programs called Easy studio from the Internet and it includes a utility for easy setting of data profiles.

Data connection can be used with an e-mail client and also for wap. Nine rows of the classic text can be displayed on the large display; it is quite a comfortable reading.

D500 is the first Samsung phone that is supporting Bluetooth. No problems occurred during transferring files to the phones and back to a PC but most programs in the PC couldn't recognize the phone. After all it was successful with the synchronization; I had to use the infrared port for the rest of cases. In the Bluetooth settings you can select if the phone will be visible to other devices and it's possible to authorize approved devices, so next time the connection will be initiated automatically. Samsung supports profiles Handsfree, Headset and other common profiles (serial, data transfer, object push, dial-up connection).

 

Programs for the computer

With the handset, you will not get any software CD but you can download EasyStudio package on the producer's web page. Get yourselves ready for 124 megabytes of data. Package consists of several parts, which are installed separately. Installation itself has a new look and signalizes that many has changed.

Installer interface • icons on the desktop

PIM & File Manager: classic application that we know from former Samsung phones. You can edit and backup the phone book; transfer various data to a PC: text messages, calendar events, notes and also call register data; export databases to database files and load them likewise. Part of the application is a file manager, which has direct access to the phone and you can use it for example for download of pictures you've made.

Same program as at the former Samsung phones

PC Sync: for synchronization data with a PC. It's a new feature because Samsung phones hadn't supported full synchronization ever before. It is ready to work with Microsoft Outlook and is obviously the first version. But it works and that's the important. Just set Outlook databases you want to synchronize with, select rules how to solve conflicts and press a button. The program will do the rest. At the first time, I was a bit fighting with spontaneous termination of synchronization but finally it helped to unlock access to Outlook for longer time.

Synchronization: interface is not a big deal but it works

Internet Access: program for easy setting of an Internet connection via the mobile phone

Internet connection setting

USB driver: driver for a USB cable, which you can buy

Image Editor: program for pictures editing

Graphical editor

Samples: wallpapers and ringing tones

Simply excellent mobile

Samsung SGH-D500 is excellent phone. In D500 Samsung rased all drawbacks that we have ever reproached to its older models with the exception of the welcome melody when entering the java games menu. Otherwise, the phone is equipped with plenty applications and except few details it has comfortable and ergonomic control. Excluding smartphones, Samsung D500 is in the same class as Nokia 6230, Sony Ericsson S700i and K700i, i.e. in the top class.

Now it's the right time to uncover a secret of the memory capacity. Samsung D500 can manage 92 MB of data and another 4 MB are reserved for java applications.

Package content

Samsung is delivered in a black box with silver signs

• phone
• battery
• charger
  
  
   
• headphones combined with handsfree
  
  
   
• additional loud handsfree
  
  
   
• Sound Mate