Review of GSM/UMTS-handset Samsung SGH F-310 Serenata

Mobile-review have posted their review of the Samsung Serenata. Here is the final conclusion.

Conclusions
Wrapping it all up, I offer you to take a look at the Serenata’s good and bad sides – the reason being that I really like it, and can’t judge it objectively, like any other offbeat thing, though.

The good:
Decent music quality, which no other phone can come close to (in terms of volume and how good its lows are)
Top-grade materials and build quality
Very good call quality
Potent display
Tremendous sales package
Well-implemented Album Art mode
Long battery time

The bad:
Design is as good as it is horrible
Overly complicated and unintuitive controls
It could use a conventional design
Touch-sensitive controls could be more responsive
Various issues with handling images, text files, etc
Inability to install Java applications
Awkward browser, problematic email
Inability to deal with call centers and similar situations

That’s the thing – on balance, it is a fashion-savvy and extremely reliable phone (I didn’t spot any bugs over two months of quality time with the Serenata) that does very well on the music front and delivers great call quality. This way, I was happy to have it as a secondary handset in addition to my smartphone, as well as in the capacity of my primary phone, although it fares better when used purely for entertainment.

But. As always, there is one, or even a couple of “but”. Firstly, the Serenata will retail for around 1500 USD, which isn’t an adequate price in my books. I have no idea how many rich folks will be willing to live with all oddities of this phone solely for the sake of its music quality, but I don’t think there will be too many of them. Secondly, the maker is very unlikely to cut the handset’s price – they have a good understanding of what the Serene was, and thus are not counting even on some meager sales (not thousands, but hundreds of units, and not in a quarter, but in two, although I’m exaggerating it a bit). Thirdly, the Serenata is not like the Serene – in fact, it does have some newsworthy fortes on offer. That’s why the circle of owners may well include not only rich ladies and gentlemen, tradition-conscious people who have already decked out their mansions with B&O products, but also technology leaders. They won’t have something to dig into here, but the Serenata offers an offbeat design; likewise, they won’t be able to browse the Web day in day out, but the music quality will keep them amazed and attached to this phone until the day when they will have to throw it away. I can recommend this handset to everyone looking for a solution with top-notch materials, and aiming only to make calls and listen to favorite tunes with it – if that’s you, then the Serenata is a way to go, despite all its letdowns.

For Samsung, the debut of this phone along with a couple of other solutions, signifies another barrier broken – it is sort of a show for the competition and consumers, as they have teamed up with a legendary designer offered cutting edge technologies and emphasized their Europeanization. In my eyes, the latter is more crucial, as it allows struggling against the mindset “Look, Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson – they make mobile phones. Samsung? Are they into washing machines?”, which is the archgoal that can not be achieved without super-phones like the Serenata.

Over my quality time with this phone I collected a pile of reviews and opinions about it, and I have to say they are pretty polarized, but I didn’t meet a man who wouldn’t get curious about it. They all craved for a little hands-on, tried to figure out how it functioned, some even asked me to let them hear some music with it. Here are some of the comments: “They (Samsung) have the courage to roll out quirky phones – that’s great”, “Instead of focusing on normal phones they keep making something crazy”, “I would buy one, just because it exists”, “You know, B&O’s things are good because you hang them on the wall in your living room solely to revel in the design. But you can’t do that with a handset, right? Think of it, you will need to use this crazy thing every day!”

However, the best part about it came along when a girl from Motorola, who I was unfamiliar with, spent 15 minutes of her life, trying to figure out how the Serenata worked. Of course, this small fact means nothing, but still…