Samsung Metro 3500
Maxabout Review
Smart & Affordable Slider
Sunday, June 28, 2009The Samsung Metro 3500 is a low to mid-range slide phone with a smart metallic finish and with a Soul-inspired design and smart metallic looks. It is one of the popular silderphone from Samsung’s Ultra mobile series which is a great mid-range phone. It comes in a variety of color schemes, which has always been a distinctive feature of Samsung's mid-range phones.
The spring-loaded mechanism works pretty well too - the halves slide back and forth effortlessly. On the left there are volume controls, while the opposite side features a dedicated camera button and Samsung's proprietary interface connector used for plugging in chargers and headsets. On the downside, the Metro 3500's memory card slot is housed under the battery. The 2 MP camera module is mounted on the back of the top half, meaning that you can only use it when the phone is slid open.
Samsung Metro 3500 is packed in a brushed solid casing which feels well-balanced for thumbwork while sliding up and down. The keypad is very finger-friendly as the numbers are sensibly spaced and divided by curved ridges which ensures that you always type the numbers or texts accurately and quickly. The softkeys help you to access the menu and phonebook options with ease.
The menu system is regulation Samsung, with a main icon-based grid set-up, and subsequent numbered lists of sub-menu options. Straightforward to operate, with the slider down you can also select options by pressing a number rather than scrolling. The phone has around 45MB of user memory, though you can slot in MicroSD card up to 8GB. You can transfer tracks and other files by Bluetooth too.
Bluetooth stereo headphones can be used as an alternative to the in-box earphones, which are an average quality set with handsfree capability. You wouldn't expect a phone like this to have a standard 3.5mm headphone socket, and the S3500 doesn't surprise, with Samsung's multi-connector slot on the side taking care of business for charger, USB and earphones.
We can’t compare the video and picture quality produced by Metro 3500 camera with the results of high-end expensive dedicated digital cameras or handicams. But with for a sharp shooter 2 mega pixel digital camera, Metro 3500 captures lively pictures and vivid vidoes.
The camera produces outstanding results if you wisely make the most of its view finder, auto-switch and flash functions. You can use the camera for recording videos which can later be watched on the 2.2 inch QVGA display screen which produces almost 16 million colours. It comes with following features:
-- MultiShot: Takes 6, 9 or 15 shots in a rapid succession
-- Mosaic: Your snap will be stitched from a batch of images, on top of that, you can pick of the 18 templates. At a glance, this is a totally useless features, but I found these images great for decorating my standby screen, when selected wallpapers displayed one after another. Single-piece images just don’t look as good there
-- Panorama: Self-explanatory mode
Samsung Metro 3500 is a great phone when it comes to playing and recording music. The loaded music player is very user friendly with the Samsung software which makes it easier for you to organise tracks and play with a touch on Metro 3500 when you don’t use it for talking, watching or recording videos.
You can also sync it with your laptop or desktop pc to transfer videos, audio clips or other documents using the supplied USB cable or Bluetooth technology. Samsung Metro 3500 comes packed with all the essentials including voice recorder, a calculator, a world clock, a stop watch, timer and convenient messaging options.
More out of the ordinary, however, is that one of the shortcuts is designated for Fake Call – press it a couple of times and you can get an incoming call alert you can answer.
You can even chat to a self-made recording, so you can pretend you're taking a call. The idea is that it may get you out of tricky conversations, meetings, embarrassing situations
The battery life is perfect for decent voice calls and provides upto 380 hours of stand by and 5 hours of talk time. Being a quad-band phone, you can use it globally after activation of roaming service by your operator.
Main Features Of Samsung Metro 3500
- 2.2-inch TFT, QVGA resolution (240 x 320), 16M colors
- microSD card slot (up to 8 GB)
- 2 megapixel camera with digital image stabilization and panorama shot, QVGA video
- Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP
- Standard microUSB port