The new Samsung M7500 Emporio Armani is a phone for people who not only want their consumer electronics to be functional, but also highly recognizable and fashionable.
Introduction:
In theory Samsung M7500 Emporio Armani is aimed at people who value good looks and music. Samsung M7500 Emporio Armani features quite large screen, 3 megapixel auto-focus camera, FM radio with RDS and an Ofiice document viewer. As the phone has the Emporio Armani branding it is a bit more expensive than other phones with similar specification, so the phone is mainly for people who want to show off. For instance, Sony Ericsson W902 has a comparable price but features a better camera. For a half of Samsung M7500 Emporio Armani price you can get a Nokia 53200 XpressMusic.
Samsung M7500 Emporio Armani pros:
+ 3 megapixel camera
+ Office document viewer
+ Quad-band GSM and 3G with HSDPA support
+ 2.2″ 256K-color OLED display of QVGA resolution
+ 3 megapixel auto-focus camera with smile shot
+ FM radio with RDS
+ Light effects
+ 120MB of internal memory and microSD memory card slot
+ 3.5mm standard audio jack
+ Dedicated music keys
+ Bluetooth (with A2DP) and USB v2.0
Samsung M7500 Emporio Armani cons:
- No flash for the camera
- QCIF video recording
- No accelerometer
- Small display for the price range
The design:
Samsung M7500 Emporio Armani measures 114.9 x 47.4 x 12 mm and weighs 9o grams. The phone is made of high quality materials and has quite nice looks, but to tell you the truth I expected a bit more. Although the phone is made of plastic it does not get too many fingerprints, or smudges. The sides of the phone have a rubbery finish which make it very comfortable and pleasant to handle. The front of the Samsung M7500 Emporio Armani houses the 2.2-inch display and the keypad. Above the screen is the video call camera along with the ambient light detector.on the right side of the phone you will find three dedicated music controls together with the camera key and the volume rocker. All the keys here are responsive and comfortable. On the left side is the standard microUSB port and a big Emporio Armani logo with LED stripes. At the top of the Samsung M7500 you will see only the standard 3.5 mm audio jack. The back of the phone is dominated by the large Emporio Armani logo next to which you can find the 3 megapixel camera lens and the loudspeaker grill.
Performance:
Samsung M7500 has quite a good battery which according to the manufacturer will work for about 290 hours in the stand-by mode, or over 4 hours of talking. The Samsung M7500’s 2.2” screen has good brightness and contrast levels, unfortunately, as in many Samsung phones, the direct sunlight legibility is rather poor. The signal reception in in call sound quality are commendable. What i like about Samsung M7500 is the smart dialing which many phones still lack.
The music player in Samsung M7500 can sort your tracks by artist, genre, album, or recent. The phone has 13 different sound effects (otherwise known as equalizer) and the music player can work in background. The phone also has a music recognition feature, but it cannot compare with what Sony Ericsson phones (like Sony Ericsson G705 for example) have to offer. The Samsung M7500 also had a radio receiver with RDS which can, of course, play in the background. The video player is quite basic, but does the job quite well. When it comes to the audio quality I must say that as the Samsung M7500 Emporio Armani is supposed to be a music phone it performs quite poorly.
Samsung M7500 has a NetFront v3.4 web browser with virtual mouse pointer. The web pages are rendered really well and so you get a nearly excellent browsing experience. Emailing is also very nice with Samsung M7500 as it is enough to provide your email address and password and you are ready to go.
Image quality:
The Samsung M7500 comes equipped with a 3 megapixel digital camera with the maximum resolution of 2048 x 1536. Unfortunately, the camera has no flash. You get plenty of settings, such as: picture size, white balance, resolution, color effects and so on. The phone also has the Smile Shot feature, but it works rather slow and can miss the perfect moment. The taken with the Samsung M7500 look really nice. The photos have low noise level and look sharp.
Samsung M7500 can also record videos, but only in QCIF resolution and at 15 frames per second so I don’t anyone would want to use it too much.
Menus / ease of use:
Samsung M7500 has the usual Samsung user interface with only slight changes to add to the Emporio Armani branding, so you in fact get a few more logos. The Samsung M7500 comes with four preinstalled themes. The main menu can be displayed either as 3 x 4 grid or V-shaped. The dialog boxes are quite customizable and so you can change the font size and colors. The phonebook in Samsung M7500 can store up to 1000 contacts with multiple fields for additional information such as birthday, e-mail address, several phone numbers.
Samsung M7500 has a pre-installed mobile document viewer and very good organizer which consists of a unit converter, world clock, calculator, and memo. Additionally, you get a few trial version of games.
All in all, the Samsung M7500 Emporio Armani is for people who like to have unusual devices and who value good looks more than functionality.
Selected Samsung M7500 Emporio Armani features and specifications:
General 2G Network GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
3G Network HSDPA 2100
Display Type OLED, 256K colors
Size 240 x 320 pixels, 2.2 inches
- Dedicated music keys
Ringtones Type Polyphonic (72 channels), MP3
Customization Download, order now
Vibration Yes
Memory Phonebook 1000 entries, Photo call
Call records 30 dialed, 30 received, 30 missed calls
Card slot microSD (TransFlash), up to 16GB (verified), buy memory
- 120 MB embedded memory
Data GPRS Class 12 (4+1/3+2/2+3/1+4 slots), 32 – 48 kbps
HSCSD Yes
EDGE Class 12
3G HSDPA, 3.6 Mbps
WLAN No
Bluetooth Yes, v2.0 with A2DP
Infrared port No
USB Yes, v2.0
Features Messaging SMS, MMS, Email
Browser WAP 2.0/xHTML
Games Yes + downloadable, order now
Colors Black, White
Camera 3.15 MP, 2048×1536 pixels, autofocus, video; secondary videocall camera
- 3.5 mm audio output jack
- Java MIDP 2.1
- FM Radio with RDS
- MP3/e-AAC+/WMA player
- MPEG4/3GP player
- Organizer
- Document viewer
- Built-in handsfree
- Voice memo
- T9
Battery Standard battery, Li-Ion 960 mAh
Stand-by Up to 290 h
Talk time Up to 4 h 20 min
Other recently reviewed mobile phones:
Nokia E63, LG KC 910 Renoir, Sony Ericsson G705, Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1, Samsung L700, Nokia N85, Sony Ericsson T700.