Today we shall analyze the bar model, which means Samsung M3510 Beat b. But first of all let’s think why Samsung needed a new series and what the Beat series presumes to be? To this questions will answer directly the member of the series, M3510 Beat b, after a short inspection.Even from the box we can see the main technical specifications of the phone: as thin as 9.9mm, included microSD card (1Gb), FM radio, 3.5 mm audio output jack, Motion Play (music control through taping/turning/shaking the phone) plus the “Beat” name and the DNSe™ audio processor – all these are proving the musical character of the phone and of the series overall.In what concerning the cause of this new series, I think is obvious, Samsung has many series, but none of them is musical, which was a some kind of lack of the manufacturer. Now we have a new player on the stage next to the XpressMusic edition from Nokia and Walkman series from Sony Ericsson.
Design and construction
As soon as we had the phone in hands and made an overall view on it, only one phone came in mind, Nokia 5310 XpressMusic – the construction resemblance is obvious, especially from the rear view, that’s why we will make some references to this model during our review.The phone has a slim silhouette, as we’ve already mentioned, only 9.9mm thick (exactly like Nokia 5310). The first and the main color variant in which the phone was released is black with some orange accents (the screen frame and the characters on the buttons). The housing is made of plastic with rubber touch feel that holds the phone better in hands. Following the perimeter of the phone we can find the eyelet for attaching accessories in the right upper corner and just a little lower it is the charger/usb/headset port. Furthermore we see a button which seems to be the camera one, but it isn’t, a small orange symbol (looks like a musical note) and the comfortable for the thumb location suggest that this is the dedicated Musica button (it opens the menu with two options: Music player and Music recognition).The bottom edge of the phone is “clean” and we reach the left side where it is located the volume rocker. On the upper edge, next to the left corner, it is the 3.5 mm audio output jack which is closed with a rubber cork.The rear side is almost entirely taken by the battery lid, which unveils the 800 mAh battery, the SIM slot and the one for microSD card. So, the memory card is not hot swappable, fact that can be a little annoying for some people. Above the battery lid is located the 2Mp camera module and that’s all here. The front panel besides the usual elements as the screen and keyboard, has also music player dedicated buttons, which are situated between the display and the control keypad. The management keypad is usual: the D-pad on the center, two soft keys and the call keys. The alphanumerical buttons are comfortable, of a satisfactory size – no complains here. The only thing that spoils a little the navigation process is the navigation keys, which are located too close to the D-pad and sometimes they can be pushed accidentally. However, this is a matter of accommodation, after some time, the mistakes are fewer and fewer.
Menu and software
The desktop of Samsung M3510 Beat b has no specialties and is standard, this is not a smartphone. To access the menu you may think to press the OK key from the D-pad, but you will start the browser this way. The menu is opened with the left soft key and here the “OK” button is ok. All the four directions of the D-pad are shortcuts to different submenus or items, but only two can be changed by the user (left and right), the other two are already predefined for the digital camera (down) and for My Menu (up).The menu is arranged as a 3×4 grid and the icons, as well as the desktop, can be changed with the preinstalled themes. The icons look as well as their order is similar with the ones from U800 Soul b, except two of them. This practice is standard for Samsung and many other manufacturers, that’s why two models relatively from the same class, released in a medium period of time (1 year) will never have radical different menus. The preloaded themes are also three as in U800, but the theme creator was left behind and we cannot find it in M3510 Beat b.The applications section is about the same, but besides the standard items (Image Editor, Memo, Task etc.) we see something new named “Shake and Play”. This submenu is for testing the phone accelerometer and for learning how to use it correctly. There are three applications: “Motion beatbox”, “Dice” and “Lottery” – the most suggestive is the first one, if you ask us, it works like this: two different tracks are assigned for each direction, left and right (the user can change them at will) and when you shake the phone in one of the directions, it plays the respective song. However, we was disappointed hearing only one song, no matter how hard we have tried, the phone had been able to detect only one direction. We also admit that the phone may have had a technical hitch at this point.
Music Player, Music Recognition and Motion Control
As we could expect from a Beat edition member, the music player is well realized from the esthetical point of view of the UI as well as functional. While listening to music, we can see on the screen the equalizer, the name of the artist and of the song of course. Also there is the song duration and its progress, plus the controls of the D-pad. The arrangement can be changed and there are some predefined schemes. M3510 Beat b uses music styles instead of presets, however, once a style is chosen, the equalizer is also automatically tuned accordingly.The music can be chosen by numerous criteria, recently played, most played, by genre, by artist etc. in the player settings we have found a new feature for most of the phones – “Music auto off”, the function is similar with the one from TVs. An inconvenience can be the fact that there are only time presets available and the feature is not linked with the phone clock, which would have been logically and conveniently. However, there are many people that fall asleep with the headset in the ears, so this addition is quite welcomed.Also in the player settings, the Motion Control can be turned on or off. Talking about this control – it’s clear that the idea was borrowed mainly from Sony Ericsson (Shake Control) and a little from Nokia (especially from Nokia 8800 Arte which mutes or ends a call when turned up side down). However, at the walkman phones it works well, while we couldn’t change a song with our M3510 Beat b no matter in what direction we were shaking the phone. Another difference is the button that must be pressed to use the shake control in the walkman phones, while M3510 lacks it – both variants has pluses and minuses. We are happy that at least the other two motion controls are working. When turning the phone up side down, the music stops. When the phone plays a song and is tapped (with the finger is most conveniently) on the screen, the music is paused. Another tapping resume the song. The problem is that the tap needs to be more like a hit and you’re not thinking to music, but to your phone integrity. That’s why we were forced to slap the phone several times until a “good” one was pausing the music – this action looks like you intend to destroy the phone and we doubt the usefulness of this method especially because the phone lies on the camera module.As we’ve mentioned at the beginning, M3510 is equipped with DNSe™ audio processor. The sound is really different compared with other “music amateur” phones, being clear and qualitative. A single fact disturbs us a little: the speaker is only one, for both loud ringtones and voice conversations. Being twice more used, with the time, the speaker can weaken and result in a low quality conversation. The phone we have tested was new and even at maximum volume the sound was good and the speaker had not given “signs of weakness”. Let’s hope that Samsung had calculated everything, but in a musical bar phone, there is enough space for separated speakers (like in Nokia 5310 for example).In the Music menu, besides Music player there is one more item – Music recognition. Of course, we know this feature from the Walkman series (Track ID) and we are happy that here it works as well as on Sony Ericsson phones. When you hear a song which beats enjoy your heart, but you do not know the name of the song to have it – Samsung M3510 Beat b is the savior, it is enough to record about 10 sec of the song which the program will analyze it and return the name of the song and of the artist. More of that, Music recognition is also available while listening the FM radio with RDS, it can be found in the Options menu.
Digital camera
Samsung M3510 Beat b it is equipped with a 2Mp digital camera without autofocus and flash. Being a music phone, it is obvious that the camera is not one of the best. However, the pictures are not bad and the camera menu is traditional for Samsung, with enough options. Other comments are not necessary here.
Conclusion
The appearance of a new series is always good news. Launching the Beat edition, Samsung desires to offer something that is already available at its competitors plus a little more. That’s why Samsung M3510 Beat b is the first model which comes to fulfill this task and it almost succeeds.The modern design, the 3.5mm audio output jack, the music player combined with motion controls plus the dedicated buttons and the included memory card makes from M3510 not only a perfect substitution of the traditional portable music player. Being a mobile phone, its functionality was not forget and it was granted all the standard Samsung options which can overfill the requirements of a medium user.The only thing that still needs to be perfected is the motion control which does not work exactly like it should, or like it’s officially claimed. Also the accelerometer was not used at its entire value, that’s why the image on the screen stays still when the phone is turned horizontally and does not change to landscape like can be expected. All these, plus the poor camera, leave a free road for the future, more developed models.Taking in consideration also the price of Samsung M3510 Beat b, we realize that in this category it has to offer innovative options, which cannot be found at its direct competitors and which makes it an attractive and reasonable product.
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