Samsung has been pushing their phones in the Indian market for a long time now, but most of their models have always had something missing. Take, for example, the E880: a really compact phone which still includes a 1 megapixel camera, MP3 player, 80mb memory, Bluetooth and all that jazz. What’s missing? FM radio and a card slot. The more recent super-slim X820 also had all the aforementioned features, but again lacked an FM radio and a memory card slot. Even their higher end models such as the slim slider, the Ultra Edition 1.9 (D900), lacked an FM radio tuner in spite of being so expensive. This has been a problem for Samsung. Other competing brands have something in the sweet spot (the mid-range) – the Sony Ericsson Z550i, the Nokia 6085 and the LG KG300 Dynamite. Go a little higher and you get the new Nokia 6300 or the Sony Ericsson K550i. These phones are all-in-one and don’t cost too much. Samsung has nothing in this range.
It’s this problem that Samsung is trying to tackle with the new E250. The E250 is a very inexpensive all-in-one phone. It looks very stylish and only costs Rs. 7,000. Will the E250 revive Samsung’s performance in the lower mid-range segment alongside The Nokia 6085 and the Sony Ericsson Z550i? Let’s find out.
The E250 is also one of the first three phones that Samsung has launched with security features such as Mobile Tracker, Emergency SOS alert and Privacy lock. We’ll talk about those later.
Design
The E250 looks almost exactly like the D900 which costs more than twice as much. It’s surprising why Samsung would want to do this – it’s one thing to give budget buyers an excellent looking phone and it’s a completely different thing to actually clone the design of the highest end phone in your catalog and sell it for cheap. D900 owners are upset because now every average to mid-range buyer can now consider upgrading to a phone that looks like it costs Rs. 18,000.
The E250 looks hot. It’s slim, it’s stylish and it’s a slider. In fact, the E250 is the only slider phone that looks this good and sells for this price. Compared to the 6085 and the Z550i, the E250 clearly stands out. Unlike other low-end slider phones, the E250 has a spring-loaded slider, so you just need to nudge it up or down and it does the rest by itself. The little ridge right below the screen (which facilitates sliding the phone open) is a little too flat in the E250, making it a little difficult to use. You’ll be better off sliding the phone up by holding its sides. The sliding construct, however, feels solid and has very, very little play. It won’t break easily.
Buttons and ports on the E250 have been kept to a minimum. There’s a microSD card slot on the left side and a headset/charger port on the right side. Combining ports saves space, but because of this, you won’t be able to use the headset to listen to music or the radio while you’re recharging the phone. On the left, there is also the volume rocker. There is no shortcut to launch the camera or music player, other than the navigation pad shortcuts, which are configurable.
The phone comes in three colors – silver, black and a relatively uncommon pink. The silver one looks fine, but the black is the real deal. Don’t get me started with pink!
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