Samsung M7600 Beat DJ review: Scratching the beat

Organizer (continued)

The alarm is quite customizable. You can set up to 10 alarms, each with the following configurable options - custom ringtone, volume, repetition days and name.

Alarm clock application • world clock • the nice unit converter

The calculator of the Samsung M7600 is very basic. Among the other organizer offerings are a voice recorder, a world time application and a unit converter. The voice recorder limit is set to 60 minutes. A countdown timer and a stopwatch also come in useful.

The calculator is simple • voice recorder limit is an hour

There are also to-do and memo applications for putting down tasks and notes. You can also use the memo widget to place a memo on the homescreen where you're unlikely to forget it. The widget and the application are separate so don't expect your memos to automatically pop up on screen. Oh, and there's a to-do widget as well.

Finally, the Samsung M7600 comes with an office document viewer that supports Word, Excel, Powerpoint and PDF files. It's an application produced by Access and is one of the nicest additions to the software package.

Samsung Beat DJ has no problems handling office documents

The documents viewer is quick enough when opening files; however, panning is rather slow. The document viewer also works in landscape mode (rotating the screen automatically), which makes reading a little easier.

GPS positioning

Samsung M7600 comes with a built-in GPS receiver. No Samsung Mobile Navigator (a rebranded Route66 product) though. Instead you'll have to get by with Google Maps.

The GPS setting

You can of course download another Java alternative such as Yahoo Go!, Amaze, Skobbler or WeTravel but as usual using any Java software that's supposed to recognize your on board GPS receiver might be a game of luck. Not to mention we have had varied luck in even starting some of those apps on other Java phones.

In the Samsung M7600 case, we successfully used Google Maps and Amaze, so at least they should have you covered.

It's the music, not the games

Typical of Samsung recently, the M7600 only offers a bunch of trial games. Entertaining though they might be, they can only keep you occupied for a short while and the full versions have to be bought for a small fee. Since Samsung didn't bother putting really playable games in the handset, we don't see the need to get into any detail about the demos offered.

The only thing in the games section that isn't a trial is the well-known Tumbling dice app, which uses the built-in accelerometer. Shaking the phone for an occasional roll of the dice is a fun way to try your luck, and while it's free, it's not practical or entertaining.

Tumbling dice is a nice acclerometer-based app

Final words

Samsung M7600 Beat DJ has teen written all over. That's not necessarily a bad thing though. It's hard to imagine the M7600 will ever reach beyond the younger crowd but if it can entertain and entice its target audience, it has all the right to hope. It will probably never be more than a niche product though (especially with the price as steep), but one thing we can't deny: the M7600 Beat DJ has that niche all to itself.

All right, the Beat DJ may be just too focused to achieve mass appeal but it definitely isn't a concept only handset. It sure rides on a unique feature (cunningly highlighted by a unique design) but the platform is a very welcoming, familiar and friendly touchscreen by Samsung. The nice OLED screen, good imaging, video playback and fast data do round off a nice package.

Samsung M7600 Beat DJ is hard to compare to what seemed the main competitors at first glance due to its unexplainably high price tag at the moment (above 400 euro). A price like this puts it into a whole different market category where other, much more capable phones reign supreme.

We are not even going to compare it to those, as it would be like apples to oranges. It just feels a lot more appropriate to measure the Samsung M7600 up against the LG Cookie and the rest of them affordable touchscreens - in both performance and equipment.

To wrap it all up, we began by calling the M7600 Beat the DJ. We don't intend to go on and on now about how it's not quite the DJ we hoped for. Nor are we gonna ask how many Samsung Serenatas you've actually seen around. We guess a niche device will always be a niche device, no matter what spin you put on it. It's obvious that the BeatDJ app is not a dream come true but it sure leads its own little way of exploring the opportunities of touchscreen.