While the iPhone 3Gs continues to have a hold on the high-end touchscreen market, the battle ground for the other end of the market spectrum is getting hotter by the day. The plethora of cheap touch phones by Nokia, LG and Samsung sure leaves consumers confused on what to buy and what not to buy. Nokia has its little handsets (5230, 5530, X6) rolling out, and the 5800 recently got a hefty price cut. Samsung is aggressively promoting its Star Series that comes in three variants, viz. the Star, Star 3G and Star 3G WiFi. LG has its Cookie on the lower-end that’s doing pretty well in sale numbers, while the GD510 will be releasing in stores soon.
We got a chance to take a look at the Samsung Corby, aka the S3650, which has just joined the touchscreen brigade. The “Corby” brings you the goodness of a bright capacitive touchscreen, thus competing with the stylus-powered LG Cookie KP500 and the Samsung Star. Perhaps Corby is the only non-stylus phone costing less than INR 9000 (USD 190) in India.
Design:
The Corby has a nicely curved body and a very appealing design. It feels much smaller than the iPhone, Cookie or my Nokia E63, and quite light weight as well. The left side of the phone has the volume keys and charger / headset slot, while the right side has the hold (keyboard lock) and camera buttons. The MicroSD slot is below the battery cover and is hot swappable.
The body is plastic, but compared to the feel of the LG Cookie and Samsung Star, the Corby looks much more rich in hand. This one certainly has more appeal in terms of its looks and design, especially when compared to the other handsets we have seen.
Features and usability:
The S3650 is no smartphone, with the software being good for basic navigation, music, text messaging and the like. The phone lacks WiFi, but comes with a web browser. Unfortunately (or not?) we failed to find the “as-seen-on-TV” Orkut and Twitter integration. The Corby features an FM radio and Bluetooth 2.1 AD2P. It is currently selling in India with a free 2GB MicroSD card, which nicely complements the handset’s 50mb internal memory.
Corby has 3 homescreens, and you can pull out icons from the sidebar to any of the screens. The menu similarly has 3 pages. You can ‘flick’ around the screens and pages like the iPhone, but the experience isn’t as smooth as is on the iPhone. This is not an issue with the touchscreen but rather with the UI behavior. Many times a swipe just makes the page go half the distance on either side and then back to the same page (Update: Incidentally I ran into a Samsung demo guy on my second visit to the market to get some pictures for this. And he managed to use this flawlessly in front of me. Guess I am addicted to the iPhone). I would rate this as: can be better! On the other hand, the screen is much more responsive and comfortableto use than the Nokia 5800 or the LG Cookie – that’s because of the capacitive love 
The text messaging is done with a standard virtual keypad, and T9 comes into good use here. This ensures that non-touchscreen users don’t find the typing experience too alien. A couple of walk-in customers I saw playing with the keyboard found it very comfortable to begin with. A full qwerty keypad (IMO) wouldn’t have worked on such an LCD touch anyway.
A couple of games I looked at were Cricket and Asphalt 4 demo (both of which is preloaded). The graphics and gaming experience aren’t great, but touchscreen is put to some use when playing them. An absent accelerometer doesn’t help the Corby much either.
We couldn’t get a demo of the Internet or music usage on this, but the Samsung guy at the store tells us that it plays music for 15 hours and offers 10 hours of talktime.
Camera:
Corby features a 2MP camera compared to the 3.2 megapixels that most its competitors house. Lack of flash might be another concern for you the user, but the camera clarity looked good enough to us. The Corby LCD looks much richer compared to the LG Cookie and thus the images appear very bright on screen, giving a better experience.
A couple of indoor shots taken with the camera (Disclaimer: The store managers pictured in this story were promised a feature on OnlyGizmos in exchange for us being able to demo the Corby 
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In the Box:
Standard accessories include a power adapter, a soft cover, headset, free 2GB MicroSD card and an extra battery cover (apart from the S3650 handset and its battery of course).
At one local dealer (Fine Connections) where we had checked out the Corby, just 2 pieces were left out of the total stock of 10 pieces received a day earlier (and was sold out the next day when we went back to take some pictures). That’s very impressive compared to the other touchscreen handsets selling at the same store. The best bargain price for the Samsung S3650 currently is around INR 8500 (the same as the Samsung Star). So if you are looking to grab one, you know what price to look for!
Compared to the LG Cookie KP500 and the Samsung Star, the Corby is certainly the better one in our opinion. You may wait for the Nokia 5230 to launch, but if you are buying a handset for your girl, get the Corby now.
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- Nokia 5800 variant, 5530 XpressMusic Specs leaked
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- Nokia E63 Review – First Look
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