Samsung S5560 Marvel Review

Samsung is the key player in today’s touchscreen mobile phone market and they have at least one product in every price segment of mobile phones starting from the entry level phones like Samsung Corby to high end smartphones like Samsung Omnia. In their mid range lineup they have the popular and one their bestsellerSamsung Star. The upgraded version of the Samsung Star is the Samsung Star 3G which comes with a few morefeatures and a slight increase in price tag. The Samsung Jet is has more featuresincluding a good quality 5MP Camera. The Samsung Marvel has the similar 5MP Camera but hasfeatures of similar to the Samsung StarWifi Edition and thereby filling up even the narrowest gap in their product lineup. The Samsung S5560 Marvel is built for those who are looking for a touchscreen phone with good quality camera in affordable price tag. Have a closer look at the mobile phone in our review.

1. Design

The design of the phone is nothing new. Almost every touchscreen phone from theSamsung factory now bears the same look and this is not an exception to that rule. The Samsung Marvel looks very much like theSamsung Star and one can easily mistake it for a Samsung Star. The face is similar 106 X 53.5 mm in dimension and it has the same 11.9 mm thickness. The weight is also a minimal 96g and it is only a few grams heavier than the star and one wouldn’t notice the weight difference in practical life. However, the device is much lighter than many full featured smartphones like iPhone, Nokia N97 or any BlackBerry.

2. Touchscreen Display

The phone has a 3.0 inch resistive touchscreen display similar to theSamsung Star models. The touchscreen has a fairly good response and the display is bright and has good color quality of 256K colors though not as vivid as those with 16M colors like Nokia 5800 Xpress Music. We also had some problems reading the display of the device as under sunlight the display screen of the device works like a proper mirror showing lots of glare. The display has a nice resolution of 240 X 400 pixels but again, this is the minimum resolution for a 3.0 inch screen. The display of Nokia 5800 Xpress Music or even the watered down version of the 5800 Xpress Music like Nokia 5230 Xpress Music has a good 320 X 640 pixels resolution. However, the resolution of the device is good enough for some mobile video viewing or occasional web surfing and reading of PDF files.

3. Camera

Camera is perhaps the most interesting feature of this phone. It has a good5MP Camera and can take pictures at a maximum resolution of 2592 X 1944 pixels. It has autofocus and LED flash capabilities. But more interestingly, it also has the smile and blink detection technology along with a image stabilization system which are only found in some high end camera phones. Overall, the camera pictures are quite brilliant and you won’t regret very much if you forgot your digital camera for an important occasion. The camera of Marvel will do more than enough for you. It also has video capability but the resolution is limited to 15 fps QVGA which is nothing extraordinary.

4. Interface

The Samsung S5560 Marvel bears the same Touch Wiz interface of theSamsung Star which is pretty simple and effective. There are other commonfeatures such as accelerometer for screen auto rotate. The smart unlock feature is one of the best things about the S5560 interface. It allows users to not only unlock the phone but they can also dial a contact or open a menu item using this. All they have to do to get this done is to draw a letter on the unlock screen. Any letter from A to Z can be set as the trigger for such an action. You can use it to start the music player, messaging or a Java App. There is also an interesting feature which mutes the phone when turned upside down. This may sometimes become very useful to many of us. The new photo contact feature uses a fake 3D style and you can scrollup or down to select one the numbers and dial it. However, I doubt very much whether it has any practical ability.

5. Connectivity

The phone has good connectivity options like quad band GSM connectivity and common GPRS and EDGE. It is also capable of Stereo Bluetooth with its v2.1 A2DP capabilities and you can also connect your favorite in it through its 3.5mm headphone jack. There is also the option of WiFi and the only thing we miss in the connectivity department is the 3G connectivity option.