One thing you have to give the Samsung Armani phone is it has style. The new Samsung Armani phone seems the best mix between technology and looks, but we're more interested in it as a gadget, not an accessory.
Cool features:
* Looks and high-quality build
* Small dimensions and compact "card" form factor
* 2.6" touchscreen TFT QVGA display
* 3 megapixel camera
* Office documents viewer
* Rich retail accessories
* Vibrating haptic response
* microSD memory card slot
* Stereo Bluetooth
Big disappointments:
* Slow interface
* Slow reading memory card
* Awkward web browser
* What 3G support
* No auto focus for the camera
The phone behind the Samsung Armani name is actually Samsung P520. That alone should let you know the Armani phone is an offshoot of the Samsung P-series. For example, the Samsung Armani has the same form factor and the same size and weight as the Samsung P310.
The contents in the retail box are a hard leather case, charger, data cable, memory card, a wired stereo headset, soft pouch you can use instead of the leather case and a cleaning cloth.
The Samsung Armani phone's body is made out of very nice polished metal with a brass color that certainly looks the part. The touchscreen display is sure no i-phone, but it's a hip high-end feature that everybody would appreciate if implemented properly. Everybody's first impression when they see the Samsung Armani phone is how small it is.
No more "calculator" looks
One thing the Samsung P300 and P310 were well-known for was their "calculator" looks. The hard leather case and the landscape display and the rectangular keys all helped with the impression. The Samsung Armani phone has done away with the hardware keypad no longer is a calculator look-alike.
In fact, the only hardware keys on the front are the Send and End keys, which are slightly elevated. They look like the touch sensitive keys Samsung has been putting in their sliders of late, but they are just normal buttons.
The right side of the phone houses pretty much all the rest of the available hardware buttons. The Hold key locks and unlocks the touchscreen display. The red key is in fact the On/Off key. The universal headset/charger/data port is right above them. The port is the same type we saw on the Samsung G600 and Samsung G800 - it's not retroactively compatible with older accessories. The left side of the Giorgio Armani phone by Samsung has a volume rocker and the hot-swappable memory card slot.
The back of the Armani mobile phone is bare other than the 3 megapixel camera lens and the accompanying LED flash. The camera is 3 megapixel one with no auto focus and is capable of recording video in CIF resolution. The performance of the LED flash is, well, standard is a nice way to put it. The back panels of the device are made of metal and have a really nice feel.
Probably the best place for the Armani phone by Samsung is in its hard leather flip case. The display of the Armani phone goes off once you close the flip. The case has all the necessary cutouts to allow hassle-free operation with the keys. Even the 3 megapixel camera on the back has its own aperture.
Removing the back cover is simple, and the battery is the same as the one in the Samsung D900 - at least in size, that is. The 880 mAh Li-Ion Armani phone battery is rated at up 220 h of standby and up to 6 hours of talk time. That may be overly ambitious.
Display is the keypad
The Armani phone by Samsung is equipped with a 2.6" touchscreen 262K color TFT display. In addition to looking great it also allows the user to punch their way around the user interface.
The display offers nice colors, contrast, and saturation but just isn't all that under direct sunlight. Of course the Sunlight mode, which boosts brightness and contrast in order to ensure legibility but it's not our favorite option. As you've probably already guessed it, the display serves as a keypad too. And it is a proper keypad, we may add.
Haptic Feedback
A nice boost to its performance is mostly due to the added haptic feedback. That simply means that almost every touch on the display produces a slight vibration that lets you know your command has been acknowledged. We say "almost every touch" since the Samsung haptics only take effect when an action is completed - after confirming something. When you dial a number the virtual numeric keypad doesn't give off any vibrating response.
Apple iPhone doesn't have haptic feedback, while the LG KU990 Viewty has it with a lot of user configurable options such as the vibration style and strength. The Samsung Armani only allows choosing between three levels of vibration intensity, which is not bad at all too.
Touch sensitive phonebook
stores up to 1000 contacts with multiple fields. It can display the names on the phone memory or on the SIM card, or both at the same time. A large variety of fields is available for each contact. Further, you can add each field more than once, which allows you to add up to 5 numbers per contact.
Of course, different ringtones and pictures can be assigned to each contact. Videos can also be assigned for this purpose should the user find that necessaryshould that be how you roll.
Finally, it is worth a mention that contacts can be organized in groups or sent via Bluetooth. The groups can have their own ringtone or picture but sadly there is no option for call filtering based on existing groups. The call log can be launched by pressing the Call key when in standby or from the main menu.
The Call log has four tabs with the Recent contacts being the default one. Each type of call gets a separate tab too, plus there is also a message and a wireless data counter. As far as call managing is concerned, you can blacklist certain numbers and thus reject all their calls and messages.
We bet messaging makes you curious
The Samsung Armani phone handles all four popular types of messages: SMS, EMS, MMS, and email. A single editor is used for the first three, while email has their own. Messages are converted from SMS to EMS or MMS by simply inserting an image. Of course, a T9 dictionary is also present here for text input assistance.
The email client is adequate and can manage up to five accounts - POP or IMAP; download is user-defined, opting between headers only and entire messages. Any files from the phone memory as well as business cards, calendar events, tasks or notes can be emailed as attachments.
Slow memory reading
The file browser in Samsung Armani is the same as in most Samsung feature phones. There are different tabs for the phone memory and the memory card but they have similar folder structures.
Images, video, music, sounds, all different file types have folders which allows the handset to sort the memory contents. Operation of the file browser is one of the best among non-OS phones. You can copy or move files one by one or by multiple selection, and you can create and delete new folders. Furthermore, you can sort files in a given folder by name, date, type or size to easily locate a specific file.
Everywhere throughout the file manager, you can pick files you would like to lock to prevent accidental deletion. A flaw we have found in many Samsung handsets is unluckily also present in here - the unusually slow card reading.
It's got an intriguing music player
Armed with 60MB of internal memory and a microSD card slot, the Samsung Armani phone will tempt many as a portable music player. The music player controls are so intuitive that it seems it's the place where the whole cross-thing originated - the cross-like pattern is just the very essence of music control with the Samsung Armani phone. However changing from one track to another seemed to take ages. The device is seriously underpowered and is obviously not up to the task.
Back to the music controls, I think them interesting enough. The horizontal axis on the music player screen displays the current track running time. Moving the cross with your finger can skip portions of the track. A longer horizontal sweep skips to the next track in the playlist.
The cross can move along the vertical axis as well to change the current volume level. Additional options allow you to easily change repeat and shuffle settings, the current equalizer preset (there are several of them) and also give the track a rating, to later use for creating favorite playlists.
The only complaints we have with the Armani phone music player are that at times it's too slow and the handset itself doesn't have a 3.5 mm audio jack.
3 megapixel does not impress
The Samsung Armani phone is equipped with a 3 megapixel camera with no auto focus. It has a LED flash and the maximum image resolution is 2048 x 1536 pixels. Samsung has some great cameraphones on the market right now, but to tell the truth - the Samsung Armani phone is not among them.
The camera interface is intuitive and follows the current trend of presenting settings on a toolbar, while options appear as popup menus. The toolbar is placed as a column on the right instead of at the bottom of the screen.
The additional camera settings are found on the menu where you can switch between camera and camcorder, as well as turn on the Scene mode. Settings include stuff like picture quality (normal, fine, superfine), ISO (100-400), exposure metering (matrix, center-weighted and spot), shutter sound (can be set to off), zoom sound, brightness sound, default storage memory and default naming for photos.
The Samsung Armani camera has what can best be called medium image quality - it doesn't really fare that well in terms of resolved detail as you want it to, and the digital noise is too much. The dynamic range is not the best. I found no traces of purple fringing which Sony Ericsson mobiles tend to produce in excess for example.
In the so-called Camcorder mode the Samsung Armani camera is also able to shoot video. Like all recent Samsung handsets it records video in CIF video resolution (352 x 288 pixels) at 15 fps. If you put up with QVGA resolution (240 x 320 pixels) you will be able to reach 30 fps. The user interface of the camcorder is pretty much the same as the one of the still camera. The videos are captured in MPEG-4 format so they are easily playable on a PC with most video playing software.
Connectivity-wise Armani is not "hot"
In terms of connectivity, Samsung Armani is lost at sea. The handset lacks 3G or HSDPA and the USB slot is the newer wider type. Network data transfers are only carried out via EDGE.
Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP profile support will let you listen to your favorite tracks on stereo Bluetooth headphones. The Samsung Armani phone is equipped with the NetFront 3.4 web browser. Usually browsing with this web browser is nice as it displays pages nicely and correctly. However the browser and the touch-based UI just don't mix well. You can forget about iPhone-style scrolling with your fingers. To navigate a webpage you either use the set of virtual arrows that appear at the bottom of the screen or you should rely on finger swipes. Effectively you can scroll only one link at a time and that's way too tedious.
Organizer is as good but not great
The Samsung Armani calendar offers three standard views - daily, weekly and monthly. The events available for setting up are three standard types: appointment, anniversary and task. You can choose which calendar view should be default and you can pick the starting day of the week - the options are either Monday or Sunday.
There are five alarm slots with a wide variety of options - snooze time, repetition, and so on. You can choose a custom ringtone to wake you up at a preset volume level or whether your phone should automatically power up upon alarm activation. This feature can be quite handy if you have the habit of switching off your handset at night.
Other organizer offerings are the voice memo recorder, a world time application, a calculator, and a unit converter. You can use the memo and task applications for making notes. A countdown timer and a stopwatch are also available. The voice recorder records in .amr format and has a one-hour recording limitation, which should be enough for anyone.
Final words
The Armani phone by Samsung is stylish handset and a strong fashion statement. The huge price tag and the Armani name is going to make this device a winner with the fashion savvy.
For everyone else though, the Samsung Armani phone is way underpowered. And we don't mean the regular specs here. While it does seem a little bit out of place to speak about processing power in a fashion-centric device, truth is it ruined the experience for us. The Samsung F700 has the same UI and performs much better.
So, if we are to sum it up, the Samsung Armani phone comes with a well balanced set of features, be they not all exactly high-end. However, being so heavily underpowered and overpriced it will have a hard time turning into a success.
  
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