Samsung Star Wifi S5233w is not released to the market in order to compete with any high-end smart phones out there, since the specifications and the whole aspect of this phone can’t be clashed with those premium smart phones. However, if right now you’re hunting for another portable touch screen smart phone to replace your old boring cell phone, Samsung Star Wifi S5233w could be added in your hunting list.
At the first sight, Samsung Star Wifi S5233w looks really portable. And when I say portable, I mean the size of this phone is simply perfect to hold and comfortable in our hands. Although the back cover of this phone is only produced with glossy plastic material, which is free of finger prints, the overall design of this phone still looks nice and eye catching.
The wide 3.0 inch touch screen that dominates the entire side of front device looks pretty huge. If you can look at the front side, from the bottom position of screen until the top speaker on top position, there is some sort of plastic or glass protection that covers the entire screen from finger prints or nail scratches. It’s kind of cool actually.
3 main physical keys to navigate the touch screen have also been equipped below the screen on the front side. The middle button is designed in square shape with rounded corner. While the other 2 left and right buttons are designed in flat oval shape. They look prominent and also convenient to press.
On the right position, the stylus pen is also provided to you if you want to operate the touch screen in more precise result than using your fingers. However, it needs a little effort with your nail to open that stylus. On the left side, the volume buttons can be found there along with the microSD slot, which can be upgraded up to 16GB if you’re not satisfied with its already provided 50MB internal storage.
On the back side, the 3.15MP camera has been embedded without the support of LED flash. It’s quite a shame that such a smart phone like this one still doesn’t support LED flash. So the photo or video quality looks pretty standard or mediocre.
Anyway, the back cover of this phone is beautifully designed in nice looking textured surface. If you look at this phone in skewed angle from the top, you can see that there are dots on the whole surface. The great thing about the back cover of this phone is that it doesn’t leave finger prints. So practically, this phone still looks clean when being tightly held with your hands.
Released in September 2009, this phone comes with Samsung own proprietary operating system. So the user interface looks standard just like any other Samsung smart phones that utilize this kind of OS. It’s to bad this phone doesn’t use Android OS, because if it does, this phone could be another rival for some portable smart phones around the market.
On the screen, there is a black transparent window on the left side to put your favorite widgets or shortcuts. And on the bottom position of the screen, there are 3 virtual keys to navigate to the Keypad menu, Phonebook and Main menu. You are also given with 3-page Homescreen for some additional widgets or other elements. And if you’re already bored with the background of the screen, you can also change it with beautiful wallpaper or even your own photos.
Samsung Star Wifi S5233w features some basic elements, such as: Bluetooth, USB, Smile detection, Accelerometer sensors, stereo FM radio, Java MIDP platform version 2.0, Document viewers and something that I’ve just heard today called Shazam find music service. Not to mention, if you want to surf internet wherever you’re on the go, there is a WiFi connection on this phone, besides normal GSM network. Unfortunately, this phone doesn’t support 3G connection, only 2G network.
The sound quality of this phone can still be helped a little bit with the support of DNSe (Digital Natural Sound Engine).
So in conclusion, if you compare Samsung Star Wifi S5233w with other portable smart phones out there, the most prominent “weaknesses” of this phone are the screen specs, the absence of 3G network, no Android OS or even Bada OS, and its short battery life. Actually, a lot of Android devices around the market have a poor battery life. So the last weakness can be ignored.
As a rival for Samsung Star Wifi S5233w, another portable smart phone from Sony Ericsson called Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro will definitely win the battle in the whole aspect. Especially if the price of these 2 phones is at the same level, then Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro is absolutely at the top of your hunting list.
Phone Specs
- TFT resistive touchscreen
- 240 x 400 pixels
- 256K colors
- 3.0 inches
- ~155 ppi pixel density
- Accelerometer Sensors
- Java MIDP 2.0
- 50 MB Internal storage
- microSD support up to 16GB
- 3.15 MP Camera
- Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g
- USB
- Bluetooth
- DNSe (Digital Natural Sound Engine)
- Stereo FM radio
- Document viewer (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF)
- Shazam Find Music service
