Samsung S7330 review: Soul junior

3 megapixel snapper

Samsung S7330 carries a 3 megapixel camera with a maximum image resolution of 2048x1536 pixels. While not a top-of-the-line cameraphone, the S7330 performed rather well in the photography field.

The camera interface very much resembles that of the good old Samsung G800. The four shortcuts that are assigned to the touch pad do help here but the result is still not the most user friendly. However, the available settings are quite a lot so we are willing to accept the somewhat complicated menu.

The camera user interface

Some of the more important settings are picture size, shooting mode (single shot, multi-shot, mosaic, and frame), effects (black and white, sepia, negative etc.) and 3 white balance presets. The additional camera settings include contrast, saturation, sharpness, exposure metering, picture quality and auto focus settings. Exposure metering is also configurable and auto focus can be switched off if necessary.

The picture quality of Samsung S7330 is rather good. The image processing algorithm is decent though noise reduction is a bit too aggressive and eradicates fine detail. On some of the pictures the contrast isn't great either but neither of those is too bad. On the other hand, the low noise levels and the precise colors are welcome benefits.

Here come the sample photos so you can see for yourselves.

Samsung S7330 camera samples

As far as video recoding is concerned, Samsung S7330 totally disappointed us. The highest resolution available is QCIF and this is only good for MMS. Anyway, miracles were not to be expected, as even the U900 Soul only managed QVGA video.

Well-rounded connectivity

With Samsung S7330 you can count on 3G with HSDPA support and GPRS for browsing internet on the go. There is also EDGE which is essential for browsing in areas where 3G coverage is missing.

In addition to the network data transfers, Samsung S7330 also supports USB and Bluetooth, both version 2.0. A2DP support is available.

The phone works without a glitch when transferring data to and from PC. The USB connection has PC Studio, Media player and Mass storage modes. Each of them can be set as default or otherwise the user will be prompted for action upon connection.

Browser limited in features

Our hopes for the S7330 web browser weren't too high, given our disappointment with the high-end Soul. You get a NetFront 3.4 web browser, which is capable enough, but its capabilities were seriously trimmed down in the S7330.

There is no landscape view mode and the page resize feature doesn't work that well. When reducing the size, the font isn't handled properly and any text on the screen becomes compressed to being downright illegible.

The web browser in normal and smart-fit modes

There is also no trace of the mouse pointer we've been seeing in some of the recent Samsung and Sony Ericsson handsets, that use the same version of the NetFront web browser.

On the positive side, pages are rendered well in both desktop and Smart-fit view mode. However, as mentioned, this only holds true if you are using the default page size.