Today, we take a look at Samsung’s P520, the Armani phone which is expected to be a hit among society’s upper-crust and trendsetters.
Now this phone takes the cake for sheer elegance and class.
Designed by fashion guru Giorgio Armani, it is as small as a credit card and just less that a centimeter thick — making it easy to slip on the front vest pocket of businessmen or into a socialite’s handbag. No cellphone bulges here, folks.
Other topnotch designers have also designed phones but I can assure you that the P520 is different and reflects the sense of style of Armani and his legions of fans.
It has no keys except for the call and end-call button (which also serve as the power button), the volume button on the left side and two other buttons for the camera on the right side. Everything else is operated mainly through the touchscreen and the fabulous menu system.
Crystal-clear calls can be made through the contact list or by pointing your fingers on an onscreen keyboard that will fill the screen with a tap of finger on vortual keypad icon on the screen’s upper right hand corner while on default mode.
Writing and sending text messages though may be quite a chore because of the lack of a keypad. But once the fashionista user masters the touchscreen, it may eventually be a breeze.
The menu system is similar to the two other Samsung models we have reviewed.
This classy phone may be thin but it also has a 3.2-megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom for snapping photos and videos during parties and events.
Similar to the G800, the Armani phone’s camera also sports digital camera-like functions in its menu.
A pop-out slot for micro-SD cards is also available for memory expansion just in case the built-in 60mb memory becomes too small for comfort.
Connectivity options include GPRS and EDGE, Bluetooth and through the USB cable. It is triband too to satisfy the needs of jetsetting types.
Other functions: email, speaker phone, MP3 player, voice recorder, image editor, a world clock, converter, memo, alarms, calendar, and other standard fare for mobile phones.
To protect the phone, Samsung and Armani also designed a handsome and equally-classy jacket made of leather and hard plastic.
Here are photos of the phone jacket:
Finally, the phone inside the special jacket:
The verdict: The P520 is for society’s upper crust who wish to have a really different phone and one that is designed by Armani, no less. It is nearly complete, except for 3G/HSDPA connectivity and WIFI. Nevertheless, Samsung and Armani have given us a winner of a choice here. Warning: This phone is not recommended for text addicts. (SRP: P26,000)