I ordered my Samsung C5212 in the start of February, but it took some time before it arrived. The phone isn’t a smart phone, it isn’t a multimedia phone – it is “just a phone”; or maybe more correct it is “two phones in one”. It has the basic functions, talking, SMS, MMS, email and a camera. It even has a FM-radio. It has a browser (not a very good browser. I would say you WAP and not browse pages). It has GPRS/EDGE, but not 3G. The menus are easy but simple. Battery capacity is good, and the voice quality is great. But this isn’t way this phone is the perfect phone. The possibility to have two SIM cards is great. I use one number for work and one number for friends and family. Only having one handset is perfect. Bot numbers are available; and you easily change between the two numbers when you make a call or send a message. You can turn off one of the numbers, have different ring tones and (not that I think it will ever be needed) have two calls to each number.
This phone, or more to the point, this functionality is brilliant for travellers. When you travel to another country – you can put a local SIM card in your phone to use more attractive rates. Or you can use SIM cards from different providers to ensure that you get the best deals for calls or data traffic. This is why this type of phone will have problems winning the market. The big operators like AT&T, Vodaphone, Telenor, TeliaSonera etc – will not like you to have this option. Samsung’s experiment will be interesting to follow. Because if this functionality is accepted by the consumer as a key feature that will enable them to get more choices – then we’ll see smart phones with this functionally. Having you iPhone loaded with two SIM cards… one that gives you free local calls, and one with fixed data traffic – that will change the business model for the mobile industry.
This phone isn’t the perfect phone – but this functionality is.
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