(from: GSMArena team)
Introduction
The Samsung S7070 Diva is a style-conscious phone with a fairly standard front but with a very distinct 3D quilted pattern shape on the back panel. It marks the start of a new product family of female oriented style-driven phones in Samsung portfolio. The signature back pattern is complemented by the diamond back key dead center below the display.
The phone has been obviously designed with young women in mind and offers Facebook and MySpace integration and other social network applications. Other features such as the stereo FM radio and a 3 MP fixed-focus camera with smile shot and up to ISO 800 sensitivity will keep active young people entertained all day long.
Samsung S7070 Diva at a glance:
General: GSM 900/1800/1900 MHz, GPRS/EDGE class 12
Form factor: Touchscreen bar, no keypad
Dimensions: 101.0 x 54.8 x 13.4 mm, 94 g
Display: 2.8-inch resistive TFT touchscreen, QVGA resolution (240 x 320 pixels)
Platform: Latest TouchWiz UI
Memory: 40MB, Non-hot-swappable microSD card slot (up to 8GB)
Camera: 3 megapixel fixed focus camera with Smile shot, face detection, blink detection, Beauty Effect and Lomo Effect
Connectivity: Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP, USB v.2.0
Misc: Accelerometer sensor for turn to mute, FM radio with RDS and broadcast recording, DNSe sound effect, Gesture lock, Pop-up SNS for Facebook, MySpace and Twitter integration, Wish list
Battery: 960 mAh battery
The Samsung S7070 is certainly not your ordinary handset. The pearly white paint job and the 3D quilted back are two things that do a lot to set it apart - not to mention the gem-inspired Back key below the screen. It's certainly a treat for the ladies - an attempt to liven up things in the lower range of the touchscreen market.
Samsung S7070 Diva all over
Now we did have a sneak peek of the Samsung S7070 some 10 days ago before it was even announced but now that Samsung officially unveiled it, it's time for a proper introduction. Join us on the next page for a full body inspection of this sizzling hot babe.
Samsung S7070 Diva
Standing at 101.0 x 54.8 x 13.4 mm, the S7070 Diva is just about what you'd expect from a full-touch handset with a screen that size. The 13.4mm thick Samsung S7070 Diva doesn't impress with its girth but it's fine to hold in the hand.
Design and construction
The Samsung S7070 Diva is entirely made of plastic, and the decorative silver-like frame that encompasses the phone is made of the same material.
The Samsung S7070 Diva in the house
The loudspeaker grill is as usually on the top of the front panel and no other sensors or elements spoil the sleek and stylish look.
Under the display you'll see only the diamond-shaped back key and the call and end keys.
The front panel is sleek and stylish
The left side of the Samsung S7070 Diva sports the volume rocker with two separated buttons, the lanyard slot and the microUSB slot covered with a plastic lid.
The left side of the S7070 Diva
The lock and camera keys are on the right side and have the same shape and size as the keys of the volume rocker on the left. The microSD card slot is hidden under the battery cover, but at least it's not under the battery itself.
The right side holds the lock and camera keys
The Samsung S7070 Diva rear hosts the 3 megapixel camera lens and the loudspeaker grill. The panel has no plastic on the lens, just the circular hole for it to clearly see through its subject.
The back panel of S7070 Diva
Removing the back panel reveals the standard 960-mAh Li-ion battery that powers the S7070 Diva. The manufacturer quotes it at up to 800h of standby time and up to 10h of talk time. With our pre-release version of S7070 Diva we feel it's only fair not to comment on its real life performance.
The standard battery under the back panel
As a whole, we are pleased with the construction quality of the Samsung S7070 Diva. On the positive side, we heard no creaks or other disturbing sounds during the time of our review and we guess the S7070 Diva will hold up against wear and tear.
The Samsung S7070 Diva is nice to hold and easy to operate
TouchWiz user interface continues the long tradition
The Samsung S7070 Diva comes with the latest TouchWiz user interface bringing the familiar experience of Samsung's touch-operated feature phones. Lively, colorful and pleasantly thumbable - the latest reincarnation of the TouchWiz UI has inherited all the virtues of its predecessors and adds some interesting new stuff. It has kept the three non-scrollable homescreens with widgets, and the new, flatter multi-page main menu.
The main menu initially consists of three pages with up to 12 shortcuts on each. A key in the top right corner allows you to rearrange the shortcuts in an order that suits you best. Here's an interesting change - there's a fourth page available. For now, there aren't enough shortcuts to fill all the pages, but that may change in the retail version.
In case you need a refresh, the widgets are basically convenient mini-applications for customizing your home screen. If you've used Windows Vista or Mac OS X then you've probably used widgets - they are in the Sidebar or Dashboard respectively.
Traditionally in TouchWiz, all the widgets are stored on a bar on the left, which you can toggle by using the small arrow in the lower left corner or just by tapping an empty area of the homescreen. You can pick which widgets to display by simply dragging them onto the display and placing them where you want. If you want to remove any of them, all you need to do is drag them back to the bar.
The TouchWiz UI and the main menu
The Music player widget has been slightly redesigned - it has gained two buttons, one brings up the current playlist and the other brings up the full player interface. Tapping the title bar of the widget displays the playlist and not the player interface like it used to.
Smart unlock allows users to not only unlock the phone but open a menu item or an application, or even dial a contact, just by drawing a letter on the unlock screen.
The smart unlock is one of the best things about the S7070
Each letter from A to Z can be set to trigger one of those actions. For instance, you can use it to start features like the music player, messaging, web browser, Java apps or the dialing keypad. It also makes it a piece of cake to call some of your favorite contacts without even needing to unlock the phone.
User interface: calendar, messaging, Google apps, converter
Music player and Radio redesigned
The music player got a face-lift - now the album art takes the entire top half of the display with the basic controls underneath it. Track name, artist and album are just below the album art and below them are the play, previous and forward keys (which double as fast-forward and rewind keys). At the very bottom are three more keys - Playlist, Send via and More. These take care of things like sending a track to someone or setting it as a ringtone.
The music player allows filtering tracks by author, album, and genre. Automatic playlists (recently added, most played etc.) are also generated and can subsequently be used as filters. If that doesn't seem enough, you can create your own custom playlists. The music player can naturally be minimized to play in the background.
The music player is up to scratch
The music player also has a dedicated widget, allowing quick access to the full version of the application with a single tap. You can also start, stop and skip tracks directly on the home screen.
The Samsung 7070 offers an enhanced music experience thanks to the built-in DNSe chip, which enables the Mega bass, Concert hall, Music clarity, Wow HD, Bass enhancement, externalisation sound presets. The lack of 3.5 mm audio jack though puts a cramp in the music player's prowess.
The Radio app got a similar update though its widget remains the same. It offers every radio-related feature there is - RDS, Find Music recognition service and even FM boradcast recording.
The radio application has a fresh new face
Bare-bone 3MP snapper
The Samsung S7070 Diva is equipped with a 3 megapixel autofocus camera that can take photos with a maximum resolution of 2048x1536 pixels. The hardware is pretty bare-bone - all you get is the camera, no flash or lens protection, nothing besides the shutter key.
It's good that the camera still has a number of nice built-in features including the Samsung proprietary wide dynamic range option, the anti-shake digital image stabilization, face detection, smile shot, blink detection as well as viewfinder gridlines.
The Samsung S7070 Diva offers video recording too, but it's nothing to get excited about - it manages QVGA at 30fps.
The camera interface is nicely touch-optimized - it's the same interface as on the Samsung Jet. The autofocus settings are not visible on the viewfinder, which is our only major quibble. We'd like to remind you again that we tested a very early version of the Samsung S7070 Diva so things are subject to change.
The camera user interface - don't mind the flash settings, this isn't the final version of the interface
Unfortunately, we won't be publishing any camera samples as our pre-productionsample of S7070 Diva it's not really ready for prime time in that department.
Two of the advertised Samsung S7070 Diva camera features - the Beauty Effect and the Lomo Effect are not present in our unit, but we've seen enough of clever image effects to know they can't be a selling point.
First impressions
The Samsung S7070 Diva is certainly female-targeted - the default UI theme is called Feminine if further proof was needed. It's style over function with the S7070 Diva and the diamond-patterned back has nothing to do with a certain species over at the HTC camp where geeks find their thing.
With the S7070 Diva it's ladies time. Similarly equipped to the Samsung S5230 Star, the Samsung S7070 Diva will hardly try to match its sale numbers. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. The S7070 Diva is clearly focused on getting a specific target audience interested. Value for money and decent performance aside, the Samsung Star obviously isn't hitting a homerun with the female audience. And that goes for most of them affordable touch phones too. Save perhaps for the LG Pop.
Samsung S5230 Star • LG GD510 Pop
It seems the segment of affordable touchscreens has been largely oblivious to the needs of female users. The Samsung S7070 Diva will be trying to do something about it.
No comments:
Post a Comment