Samsung CorbyPRO B5310

Full Review

The Samsung B5310 CorbyPRO is the second reasonably priced touchscreen phone I have reviewed this week that comes with a slide-out keyboard and unlike the LG GW525, I have no qualms recommending it as an excellent purchase.

Features

The B5310 uses Samsung’s proprietary TouchWiz interface and it’s almost the same as the one used by other Samsung phones such as the OmniaHD, and the S8300 UltraTouch. The CorbyPRO gives you the option of three home screens customizable with widgets and shortcuts. Some of these widgets which caught my attention included social networking widgets for Facebook, Twitter and MySpace; a widget for YouTube and others for news from Bloomberg and CNN. Other applications that came pre-loaded with the Samsung included a music recognition tool, a voice recorder and organizing and scheduling tools. Overall, the CorbyPRO is quite packed with applications. However, its online repository of applications seems quite small and in fact, when we tried to download games using the “Get More Games” menu, it took us to a page listing Samsung phones that didn’t even mention the B5310.

The phone’s resistive touchscreen is quite good looking and colors look vibrant on it.

The phone has a 3.15MP camera that also records QVGA videos at 30fps but no flash. Like the HTC Tattoo, the CorbyPRO also has a complete set of connectivity features that includes Wi-Fi, GPS and 3G support. Also, to top things off, Samsung has helpfully provided the ubiquitous microUSB port and a 3.5mm jack. The phone also has a 2.8 inch resistive touchscreen that displays a resolution of 240x320 and is capable of an impressive 16M colors output. The CorbyPRO also has an internal storage of 150MB expandable to 16GB through microSD.

Design & Usability

The B5310’s main draw is its slide-out keypad and let me state right at the outset that the keyboard adds a lot to the phone. It is well-built and although the keys aren’t spaced apart, they are large enough to type with two thumbs. The phone is also solidly built and the keypad slides out smoothly without any unwanted movement. However, although the phone looks petite, it is quite bulky but fortunately, not very heavy.

The phone’s resistive touchscreen is quite good looking and colors look vibrant on it. The hardware buttons on the phone are also easy to access and use and a nifty addition is a button to lock the phone.

The phone’s touch-input is responsive although not as much as the HTC Tattoo’s. Also, the interface is noticeably sluggish while you are swiping through home screens or menus. The phone also throws up an alpha-numeric keypad when the QWERTY keyboard isn’t out and the virtual replacement is efficient. The CorbyPRO’s browser is as good as the one on the Tattoo and it rendered pages well along with responding nicely to my touch input.

Multimedia

In terms of multimedia performance, the Samsung’s performance looked like one from a phone that costs at least Rs. 5,000 more. I was thoroughly surprised by its 3.15MP camera which reproduced noise-free, good looking photos (albeit a little dull outdoors). Its video-recording was also passable. The Samsung’s audio playback is very good and almost as good as some of the more expensive phones I have reviewed. Plus, the phone outputs loud, clear audio and also offers a number of EQ options for you to choose from. The external speaker mirrors this performance and is also quite loud.

Bottom Line

For Rs. 13,900, the Samsung B5310 CorbyPRO is a very good purchase. Not only does it offer a well-built QWERTY keypad, but also impresses with its feature-set and multimedia performance.