Samsung B3310 review

The B3301 may not look much like a phone – in fact, it looks more like a toy – but, we're absolutely positive that it isn't – although, you might be able to squeeze some from out of it if you really try.

The device itself is all plastic and, as we said, almost childish looking. Apparently, it's aimed at 'young' teenagers, presumabley somewhere around the region of 12 - 13, we'd imagine.

Nevertheless, we decided to give it a look to see what it was made of – besides plastic, that is…

Here you have a small and easily pocketable phone with a small, but surprisingly high resolution, display and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard that is more fitting for someone with small fingers. The keys are rubbery, but usable.

Besides the keyboard, the phone also has a vertical strip of number keys down the left-hand side of the screen. If the build quality was my initial point of concern, the idea of putting the numeric keys in a column is a far bigger one.

Samsung isn't the first handset maker to put number keys in odd formations, but that doesn't make it right. Nokia tried it with the 3650, before re-releasing it shortly after with a proper keypad, while Siemens Mobile also dabbled, and look where they are now.

There's nothing to say you can't practice and get to a point where you can enter numbers quite quickly, but why should you? If you try to enter text using T9 or multi-tap, the experience gets even worse.

It would have been better to remove the keys completely, make the display touchscreen (and bigger), and have done with.

However, removing the number keys would have created a new problem. With its small size, the number keys double up as the top row of buttons for the keyboard.

That's why the numbers are printed at a 45-degree angle. The trouble is, the number keys stick out a lot more than the rest of the keyboard, making it harder to enter both text and numbers at the same time.

So, it's not looking very good for the phone at the moment. If the ergonomics aren't great, what about the rest of the phone? Well, once you've switched the phone on the experience does get better, although you'll need good eyesight to see the content of the tiny two-inch QVGA-resolution display.

The user interface may be getting on a bit, but the simple grid-based menu system and navigation via a D-pad and centre select button is a tried and tested formula that can still stand its own against the current crop of touchscreen handsets.

It's easy to use with one hand, at least until you get to the point where you need to enter numbers or text.

To give the phone a more youthful feel, you can adjust the theme, wallpaper, font type and ring tone to suit your taste. One theme is particularly youthful, while the others make the phone a lot more 'normal'.

The home screen has a sliding row of shortcuts to applications and functions, and social network fans can access Facebook or MySpace, plus services like Flickr, Photobucket, Picasa and Friendster.

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