Introducing the SGH-E700

Samsung has finally removed the antennae from their clamshell mobile phones with their latest SGH-E700 handset. Prior to this release, the entire line of clamshell mobiles from Samsung has an unsightly antennae sticking out from its otherwise exquisitely designed exterior. Not only was the antennae a thorn in the eye, it is also a point to consider when one is shopping around for a mobile phone. The exterior antennae, as we know it, has been deemed as an outdated and redundant design for mobile phones ever since Nokia introduced its antennae-less 3210. Suffice to say that from that point forth, antannae-less designs were the kind of phones that everyone was going after.

Nothing sticking out no more

With the E700, Samsung have gone ahead to integrate a CMOS camera into the flip. We heard you, and we know integration of camera into mobile phone is by no means a new rave anymore, but what’s great about the E700 is the on-board VGA camera. That’s right, you can now snap pictures going by the 640x480 pixels resolution. Unlike the bulky V200 with its 180º rotating lens camera, the antenna-less E700 is comfortably slim, light and fits nicely into both the palms of ladies and men. Without the inconvenient stick-out antennae, the phone can be swiftly taken out of your pocket without it getting caught and entangled by the surrounding cloth (Ed. - and worse of all, stray strands of strings) in your pockets.

Our unit from Samsung is adorned in an indigo blue tone with matt silver as the base theme (there’s another with an all silver theme available in the market). On the top flip, a metal rim bearing the Samsung name frames the external secondary 96x64 pixels OLED (Organic Light-Emitting Diode) display which can pump out 8-bit (256) colors and also acts as a viewfinder for taking self-portraits. On the inside, a relatively large primary display greeted us when we flipped this ‘clam’ open. This LCD has a resolution of 128x160 pixels, capable of exhibiting 16-bit (65,536) colors and thanks to the Samsung name powering the TFT LCD on this phone, wallpapers, text and menu animations were vivid, colorful and of high contrast (though a faint yellowish tint is visible when we look straight at the primary display). Similar to the external secondary display, the entire 128x160 pixels doubles up as a viewfinder when the camera mode was initialised.