Samsung S3650 Corby review: Hot, young and social

Introduction

Like every maker out there, Samsung are keen to keep users coming back for more. But serving, inspiring and entertaining today's crowd is not enough it seems. So the next step is raising future Samsung users. The S3650 Corby is tech-savvy and fresh - just like its target audience. And this entry level touchscreen seems to quite nicely suit both the user's liking and bill-payer's budget.

The S3650 Corby is for youngsters that are keen on technology, for active social networkers, for those who like to personalize and customize. The budget price implies no fancy stuff but the wide range of features is absolutely relevant to the target audience.

Samsung S3650 Corby official photos

Samsung S3650 Corby is a very fresh looking handset too - distinct shape and bold paintjobs. It won't really make much sense in adult hands but the Fashion Jackets - bright-colored interchangeable rear covers - are perhaps as strong a selling point as the capacitive touchscreen. There're two extra Jackets in the retail box to make the time spent with the S3650 Corby even more personal experience.

On the social side, the Samsung S3650 Corby offers Facebook, MySpace and Twitter integration, while photo and video sharing are taken care of with direct uploads to YouTube, Flickr, Picasa and Photobucket. You can update your status on the various social networking sites and receive updates from your friends via a neat pop-up notification feature. All that is a tap away on the 2.8" capacitive touchscreen.

Key features

• Quad-band GSM/EDGE
• 2.8" capacitive TFT touchscreen of QVGA resolution
• 90 MB onboard storage, microSD card slot (up to 8GB)
• 2 megapixel fixed-focus camera with smile detection, QVGA@15fps video recording
• FM radio with RDS
• Find Music recognition service
• TouchWiz and Cartoon UI
• Social networking integration with direct file uploads
• Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP, USB v.2.0
• Office document viewer
• Smart unlock
• Interchangeable rear covers (Fashion Jackets), ships with two extra panels
• Relatively low price for a full touch phone (around 150 euro)

Main disadvantages

• No 3G
• The camera has no autofocus or flash
• No accelerometer for screen auto rotation
• No on-screen QWERTY keyboard
• Proprietary connectivity port
• No smart dialing
• microSD slot under the battery cover

Samsung S3650 live shots • S3650 Corby's fresh paintjobs

Budget and low end can be easily mixed up with the Corby. But along with the features mentioned above, the basic handset has a lot of the technology used in the more expensive Samsung Jet. The S3650 Corby supports the same finger zoom feature, it has smart unlock and runs the widget-based TouchWiz user interface - not to mention the nice Samsung's home-brew web browser.

Samsung S3650 Corby style photos

The S3650 Corby is by no means different than the latest crop of low and midrange Samsung touchscreens but its distinct styling and targeting sure make it worth a peek. Hit the jump for more cool photos and a 3D spin. We then proceed with handling and ergonomics.