Samsung SGH-M100

The latest addition to the mad race in the gadget world is the mobile phone from Samsung–the SGH-M100–which merges the functionality of an MP3 player into a cellphone. Samsung already has an MP3 player in the market–the Samsung Yepp. Now, it's put the same function on a

cellphone. 

This is a flip-open dual band GSM phone that gives you all the standard features found in other mid-range mobile phones. These include SMS, record of call details, sound and phone settings, organizer, security, and network services. The menu icons displayed on its screen are animated; also, when you move from one menu option to another, they slide in and out. If you find this a hassle, you can always disable these two features. The phone's backlight is a pleasant green and can be set to switch on and off with the flip. The M-100 offers you a whole selection of ring and SMS tones. If none of them sounds appealing, you can create your own tones and store them. 

You can create User groups for both calls and messages. You can also assign distinct ring tones to them, to help you recognize the caller. The phone also comes bundled with 10 games including Casino, Black Jack, Roulette, and Snake.

The M-100 has an infrared port to communicate with a notebook or a PC (if it has the port). It comes with EasyGSM software that needs to be installed on the notebook. The software allows you to access all the functions in the phone from the notebook using the infrared port. A great utility if you spend long hours at your desk.

Let's talk about the music now. The built-in MP3 player has a 32 MB flash memory card that can store about 7-10 tracks of average length. A cable that connects through your PC's parallel port is used to upload songs to the phone using the MP3 Manager software supplied with it. The software is pretty straightforward and you can check the actual amount of free phone memory and the space your tracks are going to take up. We found this a better way to check the space than using Windows Explorer to do it.

The player can be controlled from the handset or from the remote control that you'll find on the headphones' cord. You can play, stop, skip, and seek through tracks. Volume can also be controlled through both the handset and the remote.

The remote also has a 'lock' tab that locks the keys to prevent them from being pressed accidentally. 

If a call comes in while you're listening to music, the music pauses and you can press a button on the remote to receive the call. To end the call, you just need to press the button again. However, the paused music does not resume on its own once the call has ended.

The player comes with a few preset graphic equalizer settings like Rock, Disco, Classical, Flat, etc. Two levels of Bass Boost give you better bass. The phone also comes with a connector cable that can be used to connect it to a pair of amplified speakers or even a music system.

Ashish Sharma in Gurgaon