Samsung D500 (SGH-D500)
Discontinued 7th October 2004
The Samsung D500 is the first Samsung
handset that we've seen supporting Bluetooth, a notable
omission from previous handset models, and comes with
a 1.3 megapixel camera and impressive 80Mb of internal
memory.
It's not a very radical phone to look
at, taking many design cues from other Samsung handsets,
notably the D410 and E800 sliding phones, but it's practical
enough to use and looks quite smart. The display is
a large 176x220 pixel TFT LCD unit in 262,000 colours
that we've seen in some other recent Samsungs, and the
camera comes with 7X digital zoom and a flash.
The
Samsung D500 weighs 99 grams, coming in between the
E800 and D410 in weight terms. Physical dimensions are
94x46x24mm. At time of going to press, battery life
has not been confirmed, but will probably be around
4 hours talktime. The antenna is housed internally too.
As we said, one of the most significant
additions to the D500 is Bluetooth, something that's
been hampering adoption of some of their higher-end
handsets. Indeed, we understand that Samsung has had
some real problems finding carriers to adopt some of
it's higher end phones, partly because of the lack of
Bluetooth.
The Samsung D500 can play back MP3s
and other media and record video clips and store a very
reasonable number of pictures from the 1.3 megapixel
camera. Internal memory is a good 80Mb, but there's
no way to expand this, however 80Mb will be enough for
most applications. SyncML support means that the D500
can easily be synchronised with a PC, and it also has
an email client and WAP 2.0 browser, along with the
usual stuff such as polyphonics and Java.
We think that this is a pretty decent
handset, but to be honest Samsung should have gone down
the Bluetooth route some time ago and this late adoption
really shows up some of their other upcoming handsets.
We understand that Samsung have other Bluetooth handsets
due to be announced soon. The D500 is expected to be
available before the end of 2004.
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Samsung
D500 at a glance
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Available:
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Q4
2004
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Network:
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Tri-band
GSM
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Data:
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GPRS
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Screen:
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176x220
pixels, 262K colours
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Camera:
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1.3
megapixels
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Size:
|
Medium
slider 94x46x24mm
/ 99 grams
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Bluetooth:
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Yes
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Infra-red:
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Not
specified
|
Polyphonic:
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Yes
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Java:
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Yes
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Battery
life:
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Not specified
|
|
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