Review: Samsung's P520 Armani Phone

Samsung's SGH-P520 Armani phone is a high-fashion cell phone that is meant to take on the likes of Apple's iPhone and LG's Prada phone. It certainly has the good looks, and it packs some solid multimedia capabilities into its svelte form, but has Samsung been able to adapt to the concept of finger basic touchscreen navigation the way the other two have?

When it comes to physical appearance and design, the Samsung Armani phone has what it takes. It is no larger than 9 or 10 stacked credit cards, 88mm x 55mm x 10.5mm (3.5" x 2.2" .4"), and weighs only 86g (3.0oz). The included case that it snaps into adds a good layer of protection for an additional 34g (1.2oz), while still providing access to the camera and all of the buttons and ports on the phone's edges. It is probably a good idea to use the case, even though the Armani's 2.6", QVGA resolution display seems reasonably rugged.

The display is touch sensitive and intended to be used with a fingertip, just like the one on the Apple iPhone. It senses even very light finger touches on its surface, but also seems responsive to indirect finger touches as well. For example, I was able to fumble through the menus and dial pad on the phone while wearing a pair of insulated leather gloves, something that I found quite surprising. Considering that the touch screen works in spite of leather, paper, or plastic most of the time, it seems quite possible that it is somewhat pressure sensitive, even though the display doesn't appear to have any real give to it. The touch action doesn't work as well as the iPhone's, but overall it works better than LG's Venus and Prada handsets do.

The only two keys on the front of the phone are the call send and end keys. The volume, camera, and hold/lock buttons, along with the microSD slot and power/headset/data port are found on the sides of the phone. A safety latch on the bottom releases the rear battery cover, which sits below the camera lens and flash.

In terms of accessories, the Samsung Armani phone ships with a USB cable, a stereo headset, and an Armani cleaning cloth - all packed in a soft black bag. In addition to the previously mentioned snap-on cover, the phone also comes with a soft pouch for storage.

The overall build of the phone is rock solid and very attractive. It has all of the appropriate hardware keys, and a sufficiently large and useable touchscreen. The hardware design of the Armani phone is a good one.

The contacts system in the phone is functional, storing numbers and email addresses as well as photo and group assignments, but the search feature is awkward to use due to the full screen design of the virtual keypad on the Armani. The fact that the included PC synchronization software failed to link up with my copy of Outlook 2007 (giving an error message that consisted solely of an exclamation point) meant that I had to add contacts to the phone manually, which is a tedious process. There appears to be a complete lack of voice dialing on the phone, though it is possible to access speed dials with the virtual keypad.

Another place where the SGH-P520 is lacking is its profiles system, or rather its lack of one. There appears to be no simple way to change ring profiles on the phone without going through the various menus in the Settings section of the device. The volume key normally only changes the volume of screen taps, and even though it changes the volume of the ringer when a call is coming in, that adjustment is not saved. The vibration alert on the Armani phone is pretty weak, making it useless for many situations even when at its strongest setting. While there is no real profile support, at least a silent mode can be entered easily enough by long-pressing on the speaker icon at the top of the standby screen. Silent mode can be configured to work with or without the vibration alert.

The on-board 3 megapixel digital camera, which is equipped with a flash, takes reasonable photos as long as the subject is not too close and there is plenty of light, and it appears tailored for scenery shots rather than people shots. The camera's user interface is nice and intuitive and easy to use, and I like how swiping motions can be used to change the digital zoom or brightness level, even though this is not obvious. The photo viewer application, however, is painfully slow at times and even though it, too, has a nice interface, the overall sluggishness of the system detracts greatly from the user experience. The camera can be used for recording decent video clips at up to 352x288 pixel resolution. The P520 has about 60MB of internal storage available and ships with a 1GB microSD card in the box.

On paper the Samsung SGH-P520 Armani phone looks like a solid phone. The physical design is quite good, the touchscreen seems to work well, and it even appears to offer good reception characteristics. Sure the lack of 3G data will bother some, but I feel that the biggest faults in the device are its poor user interface and the sluggish performance of the multimedia applications, which are otherwise quite good. If you are looking for the Armani name, or just a very small credit card sized phone, then perhaps the P520 will suit you. But even with the solid physical design and good looks, I just can't recommend this device to users.

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