Samsung E2370 Review

MOBILE WITH LONGEST BATTERY LIFE

My Rating- 2.5/5

This is my third review on a mobile. I have still 3 more that are left unreviewed :). And here I go with my latest review:

Due to my official assignments I used to travel a lot. And many times I don’t have options of charging my mobile so I start a quest for a mobile with long battery backup. There were many from China based companies but as I wanted to go with a reputed brand. My search ended with Samsung Guru E2370 Power. It boasts of its excellent battery backup, capable of providing a talk time of 22 hours and standby time of around 2 months.

Features Overview
Samsung Guru Power E2370 is a slim and stylish mobile powered by everlasting battery. It features VGA camera, MP3 Player, FM Radio, Video player, Mobile Prayer, Calendar, World Clock and Converter.

HardwareIt is having a 1.8 inch TFT screen with resolution of 128 x 160 pixels. The handset has got IP54 certification that means it possesses resistivity to water, dust and shocks, but it doesn’t mean that it will work under water. It is not water-proof mobile.
The handset has large convex keys made out of rubber which helps in typing easily and smoothly. It is having dimension of 112 x 49 x 19 mm and weighs 115 grams.
The handset has impressive music quality with dual Speakers present which are capable of handling noisy environment.
The phone’s VGA camera is just for namesake. You cannot expect it to give quality photographs. The camera has photo effects-Blue, Gray, Green, and Negative. It is also having video recording feature.
Although the phone supports GPRS, USB, Bluetooth and WAP connectivity but the connection speed is quite dissatisfying.

Software
The phone is Java enabled and thus has a capability of thrilling you with Java apps and games. The phone also has a Fake call utility which can be useful while coming out of a meeting or unwanted situations. Some other attractive features of the phone include a mobile tracker; torch light, convertor, calculator, stop watch etc.

Audio, Video and Music The phone supports audio & video playback. The sound quality is very clear and loud. Background music playback is not supported.
The incoming and out-going call quality is pretty sharp. The accessorial support of vibration alert and MP3 ringtones are also available.

Memory The phone has internal 40MB storage memory that is spacious enough to load good sum of data and other useful stuff. It also supports external 2GB micro SD memory card support allowing you to store lots of videos, contacts, messages, songs, images and lots more.
The phone supports 1000 phonebook entries & 1000 SMS.

Battery LifeIt is the USP of this mobile. The mobile is equipped with a powerful and long-lasting Standard Li-ion 2000mAh battery that ensures you the delivery of maximum stand by time upto 1600hrs and talk time upto 22hrs.
But I have checked the battery life and I found that the standby time is around 800hrs which is much less then claimed by Samsung. Still it is a good figure and suffices my requirements.

Games
It has got the exciting collection of pre-loaded games -Sudoku, Jumpboy, Cricket and Carrom. One will never feel bore with this compact box of entertainment plus communicating device. You can also download more interesting java-enabled games over internet.

Pros
1. 22hrs battery talk time
2. Micro SD memory card support
3. Keyboard which makes typing very easy
4. GPRS & EDGE connectivity features
5. Stereo FM radio with RDS & FM recording
6. MP3 player
7. One-touch button LED Torch
8. Robust body with water, dust and shocks resistivity
9. Low-price.

Cons
1. Poor camera quality
2. No USB cable or software CD with the phone
3. Little overweight and bulky
4. Memory card not hot swappable
5. Internet connectivity very slow

Verdict
It is a powerful handset and worth its price. I bought it online from flipkart.com at price of Rs 2850 in an offer and got an additional battery with it. Just imagine the battery power of this phone with two batteries :).
However, it does not have any fancy looks. It looks like an age-old handset but it is an excellent bargain for people who make long journeys.
As per my knowledge, this is the mobile with longest battery backup from a reputed multinational company

Truly speaking, this is a phone mainly designed for those who treat phone only to be a source which helps you to remain connected always.

Motorola EX115 Review

  NICE DUAL-SIM QWERTY PHONE

My Ratings- 3/5


When I decided to buy a dual SIM mobile, the Indian market was flooded with small manufacturers like Micromax, Spice, Karbon, Lava etc. This particular mobile caught my attention, which is a dual SIM QWERTY mobile phone launched by the Telecommunications giant, and is a step ahead with its competitors.

I purchased this mobile in Dec’10, so I think its time to write a review and let all make aware of its pros & cons.
The Motorola EX-115, code-named Starling, has dimensions of 109 x 61 x 12.4 mm and weighs 102.2 gms. It is a well built mobile having solid looks. The back panel is made of rubberized plastic and offers amazing grip. The phone is very slim and has a single port which is used to connect the charger as well as data cable. On the other side, there are attractive looking metal-made volume control keys. At the top is the 3.5mm jack to connect headphones/ earphones.
The mobile screen is 2.3 inch TFT, capable of displaying 256K colors and has a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels. Two SIM card slots are under the battery, whereas micro-SD card slot is hot-swappable. The phone supports memory card capacity of up to 32 Gb.
The keypad is my personal favorite- quick responsive which make messaging a nice experience. The D-pad is used to navigate the menus and control the media player. There is a dedicated camera key as well.

Connectivity

This phone is a quad band GSM phone with EDGE Class 10 support. The phone comes with Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP. The phone supports USB 2.0 connectivity and can be connected to the pc. The phone doesn’t come with a data cable or PC suite. So it’s a big problem to connect it to PC. I am using data cable of Samsung Corby to connect it to PC that too in only mass storage mode. Till now I am unable to find a way to access phonebook from PC.
The phone has a default browser & also comes with Opera Mini. The speed and performance is OK. It has no 3G but has EDGE support. Overall there is no great browsing experience in Motorola EX115.

Media

The media player supports MP3, H.263, WAV, AAC, MIDI, AMR NB formats. The sound quality of the loudspeaker is good & loud. There are no individual Video or Audio playback options. Audio & Video are seen in “All Media Files” under Media Player. Whenever media files are opened, a pop-up message is displayed- ‘Updating library will take a long time. Continue?’, which is very irritating. Every time I have to select ‘no’ to access media files. Searching a particular song is also very cumbersome process.

Camera

The phone has a fixed focus 3.0 MP camera with digital zoom (zooming can be done by volume control keys). The snaps are good with bright colors but still it is not comparable with Nokia mobile’s 3MP cameras. Since mobile has no flash, night snaps are not that good. The camera has many customization options (Capture mode, Effects, Scene mode, Image size & White balance). There are loads of effects- Normal, Grayscale, Sepia, Sepia Blue, Color Invert, Gray Invert, and Embossment & Sketch. Last two are new & very innovative; I haven’t seen them in other mobiles. Image can be taken in 4 sizes- VGA, 1MP, 2MP, & 3MP. The video recording is of poor quality.
The image viewer application is decent and the phone also comes with a photo editing software.Messaging

The Motorola EX-115 is capable of handling all the common message types including SMS, MMS and audio messages and also included email handling.
The keypad is very good, unlike Samsung Chat. The keys are bumpy that avoid typing errors. There are some minor bugs in messaging. After ‘full stop’, the letter doesn’t automatically convert into uppercase (to be done manually).
Major Drawback- No Group messaging on this phone. Also, we cannot select multiple contacts at one go; we have to manually select one contact after the other.

Calling
The signal reception on this phone is quite well. The call quality & clarity is not as good as Nokia phones. The loudspeaker is excellent and offers loud, crisp and clear sound. The phone has both SIMs active at all times. You can receive calls on both SIM cards and can select the SIM card to make outgoing calls or outgoing messages. But we have to manually select the SIM1 or SIM2 while making outgoing calls. There is only one button for making calls, unlike other dual SIM phones which have two buttons. The SIM selection can be done in the settings menu. It is dual standby, not dual active phone.
When receiving a call from SIM1; SIM2 is not reachable or switched off. Where as call on SIM1 becomes a waiting call.

Applications

The phone has quite a lot of features to offer. The navigation is simple using the D-pad. There is a small lag while switching windows. There is no inbuilt theme provided with the phone. The phone comes with 50 Mb of inbuilt memory. The Organizer section has standard features- calendar, world clock, alarm clock and tasks. Calculator and currency converter tools are also included in extras.
The settings section has the usual phone settings, network settings, security and connectivity settings and the dual SIM settings.
The phone has no pre-installed games. But you can download & install JAVA games online.
The phone has pre-installed ‘Social Networks’ application which allows access to different social networking sites like Myspace, Gmail, Facebook etc.
The phone has FM, FM recorder & inbuilt sound recorder as well.
The phone-book can store unlimited contacts. Phone-book can be set to display contacts from the phone memory, SIM memory or both. Ring-tones, Caller picture & Caller video can be assigned to each contact.

Battery

The 930 mah Lithium-ion battery offers talk time of nearly 180 minutes and a standby time of almost 240 hours (This is as per specification provided on Motorola website). Usually the battery lasts for almost two days with normal usage.

Verdict

The Motorola EX-115 is a dual SIM phone which looks very elegant. It is extremely well made, well finished and feels heavy if you hold it. The performance of the phone is acceptable. The Motorola EX-115 cost me Rs.4800 inclusive of two-year extended warr