Samsung E720 (SGH-E720)

Discontinued
25th January 2005

Samsung's E700 series phones first hit the market in late 2003 and at the time were one of the smartest looking clamshells on the market, breaking away from the traditional Samsung silver with a neat, slightly squared off handset with an internal antenna.

Although the E700 and later E710 and E715 were pretty well specified phones for their time, technology moves on apace and there are strong indications that Samsung has another E700 series phone, the E720, although we are still waiting for an official announcement.

Although on the surface the phone looks very similar to previous ones, we understand that almost every aspect of the handset has been improved. Firstly, the camera has been upgraded to a 1 megapixel unit with a flash, the internal screen is now a 176x220 pixel TFT display in 262,000 colours. An obvious addition is three keys on the outside of the case to control MP3 playback (we understand that the E720 has around 90Mb of internal memory). And, unlike almost every other Samsung before it, the E720 now includes Bluetooth.

Also, we understand that the Samsung E720 comes with a WAP 2.0 browser, email client, video capture and playback and now it's a tri-band GSM 900/1800/1900 handset.

If you compare features with the Samsung D500, it's clear that a lot of the same technology has been used in both phones. What's remarkable is that Samsung have resisted the temptation to redesign the E720 from a cosmetic point of view, but instead have decided to build on the E700's distinctive looks, rather than come out with something radically different. In size and weight terms it's perhaps a little heavier than the E710/E715 but it's still likely to be less than 100 grams.

Exact release date isn't known, but the SGH-E720 looks to be strongly competitive with the Motorola V635 and it is quite possible that it will beat the Motorola to market. This is an understated but highly impressive phone that should produce strong sales and certainly be something for the competition to worry about.

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