Samsung S5200 (GT-S5200)

Discontinued
27th May 2009

We have seen a lot of high-end touchscreen phones from Samsung in recent months, but the Samsung S5200 is a much more traditional slider phone aimed at the mass market, and it replaces the old U600 slider.

The S5200 has a 2.2" 240 x 320 pixel display, a 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus and flash, an FM radio, microSD expandable memory, Bluetooth 2.1 and a multimedia player.

Although the camera is only a 3.2 megapixel unit, it does come with face detection, smile shot and panoramic stitching. We have found recent Samsung phone cameras to be pretty good, and we expect that the S5200 will deliver perfectly acceptable results for stills photographs.

The multimedia player copes with MP3, AMR, AAC and Windows media audio plus MPEG4 and H.264 video. Music playback is enhanced with Samsung's DNSe sound technology, and the S5200's USB 2.0 connections and maximum of 8GB of memory should make it a capable music player. The FM radio also comes with RDS, a feature missing from some cheaper phones.

There are the usual personal information management functions plus a web browser and email client. Because the S5200 lacks 3G, it would perhaps not be your first choice as a portable web browser. There's also a "fake call" and "SOS message" function to help out in emergency situations.

Samsung say that the 800 mAh battery can provide up to 5 hours of talktime and 12 days standby time, and this overcomes a key problem with the U600 which had a much shorter battery life. Weighing in at 97 grams and measuring 104 x 49 x 11mm, the S5200 is a very-pocket friendly and slim design.

Overall, it's quite an attractive phone to look at, and although the S5200 is closely based on the old U600, the smarter two-tone design is much more appealing.

Samsung have quoted an estimated retail price of about €230 including tax, which seems expensive as far as we are concerned, but we guess that it will be discounted below €200 SIM-free.. and of course it will be much cheaper with a prepay bundle or contract.

Samsung say that the S5200 should be available from June onwards. At the moment only Russia has been mentioned as a market, but we think that the S5200 will be available widely throughout Europe.