Samsung are showing the love to low end prepay users with the launch of the Samsung C3510 Genoa. The C3510 is squarely aimed at the youth market, for young people moving onto their first prepay phone. Part of the colourful Corby/Genio range (The Corby Moniker is an abbreviation of Colour By, as in Colour By Samsung) the C3510 comes with a few surprising features as Samsung look to distinguish themselves from other manufacturers in the cut-throat budget prepay market.
The C3510 Genoa has a familiar look, in line with many other recent Genio devices; kind of oval in shape, with a smooth, rounded look, the C3510 has a 2.8 inch TFT touchscreen, with a resolution of 240 x 320, which supports up to 256,000 colours. It is a measure of the way the industry has progressed in recent months, that a ‘low end’ device ships with a 2.8 inch display; 18 months ago such large screens were the preserve of mighty smartphones like the Nokia N95 8GB. A nice touch on the C3510 is the inclusion of the Samsung Smart Unlock feature. This allows for the phone to be both unlocked and a pre-determined menu item or application opened, just by tracing a letter on the screen.
The C3510 is compact and lightweight, measuring 104 x 55 x 13mm, and weighing little more than 92g. An ideal device to have around as a ‘going out phone’, the handset has some nice options including a 3.5mm audio jack for using your own headset, plus the Genoa supports DNSe (Digital Natural Sound Engine) for excellent music audio quality. There isn’t a great deal of internal memory on the device, just 30MB, which is to be expected on a handset in this price range, but there is a memory card slot allowing the capacity to be expanded up to 8GB with the addition of a MicroSD Memory Card, offering ample storage for hundreds of music tracks. Multiple file formats are supported, including MP3, WMA and AAC, plus the media player can also play MP4, H.263 and H.264 video files. In addition the C3510 offers an inclusive Stereo FM Radio with RDS support, as well as an FM recorder, which allows you to record straight to the handset from the radio.
To give the phone further credibility with the youth market, the C3510 Genoa is a capable messaging device, with tight integration for the popular social networking sites, with live updates sent to the device. So far so good, the C3510 is shaping up to be a really decent handset, but keeping in mind the low entry price point it is only natural to look at where the cost savings have been made, and with the C3510 this is in the imaging capabilities and connectivity. The C3510 does have an integrated 1.3 Megapixel digital camera, however image quality isn’t great. Fine as a point n shoot camera, or for sending as MMS, but little more than that. The camera is capable of recording video, QCIF resolution at 15fps. Hardly YouTube quality, but again, for recording clips and sending via MMS it gets the job done.
The connectivity options for data are restricted to Class 10 GPRS and EDGE; there is neither HSDPA nor 3G here. Bluetooth 2.1 is included, and this also supports A2DP for stereo Bluetooth transmission, which is a welcome bonus.
As Samsung battle for market share, it is the success of handsets like the C3510 that will see them raise their status towards number one, rather than the headline grabbing smartphones. The Genoa C3510 is well set with a competent range of features, and is set to be popular among a wide range of consumers when it launches, which is expected to be during Q1 2010.
7:21 am
Hey, I just wanted to say that I have bought this phone and its totally awesome, if your thinking about getting it get it. There is no cons, only pros, its an awesome touchsceen, great bluetooth. I dont even have a memory card and I already have so many things on there. The camera is so great you cant tell its less megapixels, my photos are very good.
4:14 am
I think it is a great phone, based on the reviews and opinion of tech people through their blogs, sites etc.. I'm planning to buy one.
8:36 am
does it have wifi?
2:06 am
I have bought one, it's nice, but it is NOT a top mobile, nor even pretends to be. There is NO wifi, NO GPS, NO modem either. In my opinion, the best part of it is its sound. Excellent mobile and mp3 player. The camera is just 1.3M, so don't expect too much, but ok with daylight. The memory is very limited to install programs, no chance to install them to memory card. It's a light, thin mobile, excellent to take everywhere. But it's far far away from being a very good mobile.
4:57 pm
yes of course and gps aswell, ;D
9:15 am
my mom is planning to buy that one for me..but i can't decide which color is the best for teenagers like me???
11:55 pm
The Samsung c3510 has impressive specs. My phone has been in for repair and has come back with the same faults. After only a week or 2 it would switch of by itself, and you could not turn it back on. By leaving the battery out for half an hour and replacing it it might come back on. Its specification says the stand by time is 720 hrs, I need to charge mine every 3 days (72 hrs) I might only have on short call in that time. I just want my money back because it is a lemon. I will definitely not be recommending a Samsung to any one (phone or camera)
1:58 pm
My phone has faults and won't work. The camera, lock, volume and middle button wont work. I've had it for about 2 mounths already, before the faults it was gr8!!! i loved it soo much but now it's soo annoying.
LOL
5:57 pm
wow, this phone is awesome..... i love it to bits!!.....
11:58 pm
has it got a slide out keyboard and does it have apps i need to know asap because im gettin 1 for xmas plz and thxs
7:06 am
The Genoa phone is great but my radio does not have stereo reception. Why is this happening and how can I solve it?
4:35 pm
Low battery life, very heavy and fat, bad screen quality (small, easy to reflect), the phone lock is quite bad because it unlocks itself and goes on to the internet which i then have to pay for (i didnt get any internet usage on my contract). In fact the only good thing i have to say for it is the camera which is still(comparing it to many other phones) bad, but for me it was ok. The quality of the touchscreen is not very good, and it turns itself on and off.
Thanx