Samsung Beat270 – Latest Addition to the Beat Series

It’s Got the Looks
The Beat 270 is the second phone in Samsung’s music phone series and after the Beat450, this phone brings new music features to the mobile world. The phone is a dual slider and the first thing that we noticed about the device was its Apple iPod like circular dial on the front panel. We expected it to work the same way too, but that did not happen.

The circular dial consists of two rings, which function as a dual D-pad. The soft keys for menu and contacts are placed on the outer ring along with the short keys for music player and FM radio. The inner ring sports the short keys for operating the music player and FM radio during background play. When not in use for listening to music with immersive sound these keys by default act as short keys for the camera, calendar and messages but can be user defined.

On sliding up the alphanumeric keypad is revealed which is smart and comfortable to use. On sliding the upper panel down, the dual speakers become visible and users can reach the music menu directly as it get displayed on the screen. The sound quality through the dual speakers is commendable.

The left panel has the volume keys and the slot for microSD card. The camera short key is placed on the right panel of the phone along with the three-in-one slot for the charger, USB and headphones. The device comes with an additional 3.5 mm earphone jack at the top of the phone. Hence, the user can attach earphones of any other music player.

Multimedia Front

Along with good looks the phone also comes loaded with multimedia features. To start with, it has a 2.0-megapixel camera with video recording and playback capabilities. The picture quality in both still and video modes is acceptable.

The handset comes with the usual options for adding effects and improving picture quality. Photo editing using the image editor feature is a fun experience. One can add effects, adjust brightness and contrast, and add nice frames, clip art and emoticons to photographs.

The best feature of the Beat270 is its audio quality as it comes with Samsung’s Digital Natural Sound Engine technology which enhances the sound quality of the phone. The device comes with a music player and an FM radio. However, the FM radio doesn’t play on the loudspeaker mode when it is kept on the silent mode. The handset also comes with a music recognition feature, where it can recognize the songs playing on the radio. The volume and audio quality in the hands free mode is also very good.

The music player arranges the songs in alphabetical order automatically. Users can also categorize songs according to artists, genres, album, and composers. They can also form their own play lists but for this a memory card is required. The Samsung Beat 270 comes with a 1GB MicroSD card, which is preloaded with 85 popular Karaoke tracks. When these Karaoke numbers are played only the music is heard. The lyrics are displayed on the screen so that users can sing along.

There’s More

The Samsung Beat 270 packs more entertainment for users with some good Java games. There’s also an option of shake and play, which can be used to play lottery and dice games by using the motion sensor feature of the phone. The motion play feature should have been added to the music player as well. As for connectivity, the phone has Bluetooth for which a USB cable has been provided. The handset does not accept GPRS setting automatically. Web browsing is not a very pleasant experience. Users will miss Samsung’s Access Power Browsing application.

The phone’s slider has to be kept open even for basic operations. It comes with an internal memory of 60 MB, which can be expanded through a removable memory card. According to Samsung’s website the handset gives a battery back up of 9.5 hours and a stand by time of 330 hours. However, the device we received for testing gave an average battery back up, which did not match up to the company’s claim.

Overview

The Samsung Beat 270 gives a good music experience and come with a 2.0-mega pixel camera. The other attractive features are:
A phone with cool looks. Has dual loudspeaker with excellent audio quality. Features like image editor and music recognition.