SEOUL, South Korea- Samsung has been pro-active with its handset division, with several launches across several market segments in the last few months. In its latest announcement, the Korean giant is beefing up its entry to the mid-level segment with the launch of four new handsets in these segments.

The Samsung S6700 and C5510 are slider 3G phones targeted at the mid-end segment, while the M2310 and M2510 are entry-level music phones in clamshell and slider form-factors targeted at this market.

Specifications-wise, the S6700 is the best of the four, offering the highest-end features such as a 3 megapixel camera, GPS, dualband HSPA along with expandable memory of up to 16GB via a microSD slot.

The C5510 is not far behind carrying most of the features of the S6700, except for a lower resolution camera and a smaller screen when compared to it. The M2310 and M2510 are entry-level music centric phones sporting DNSe audio enhancing technology.

Certain images courtesy of GSMArena

Samsung S6700

Live Image of the Samsung S6700 (Source: PhonesOnline)

The most impressive of the four handsets announced by Samsung yesterday is the S6700, of which the specifications include quadband GSM (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) and dualband HSPA (900/2100MHz) connectivity, A-GPS, microUSB v2, and Bluetooth v2.1 for connectivity.

The device also boasts of a 3.15 megapixel camera with autofocus, dual LED flash, geo-tagging, smile shot, image stabilisation, and wide dynamic range, along with support for video recording, and a secondary camera for video calls over 3G.

The camera is well complimented by the 2.4" LCD display with a resolution of 240x320 pixels, and capable of producing 16 million colours; and it is also equipped with an accelerometer.

Along with an internal memory of 120MB, the device also sports a microSD memory card slot for memory expansion up to 16 GB.

The S6700 is well-endowed in the software department with DNSe technology for enhanced audio, media player capable of playing MPEG4/H.263/H.264/WMV files, and the music player supporting MP3/AAC/WMA formats; support for Java MIDP 2.0, document viewer with support for Word, Excel,Powerpoint and PDF files, and voice memo.

The Samsung S6700 will be available in silver colour, while the market availability and pricing are yet to be disclosed to the media.

Samsung C5510

The Samsung C5510 has similar features when compared to the S6700 with noticeable differences in screen size at 2.2", compared to the 2.4" of S6700 (screen resolution and technology are the same for both); and 2 megapixel camera with autofocus, smile detection, video recording, and surprisingly, no flash.

At 99.8x47.5x15.3mm and 99.6g, the C5510 is noticeably sleeker and lighter than S6700 with its bulkier frame of 108x49.8x12.7mm and 105g, which accounts for the few extra hardware the S6700 boasts of.

Some other minor nuances include the C5510's lack of DNSe, secondary camera, and smaller internal memory capped at 20MB compared to the 120MB of S6700.

Both the S6700 and C5510 sport a microSD memory card slot for expandable memory up to 16GB.

Samsung M2510

Live images of the Samsung M2510 (Source: kutevjp.com)

As mentioned earlier, the M2510 is an entry-level budget phone in which 3G has been overlooked to keep the cost low, and being a music centric phone, the device is loaded with audio-enhancing DNSe technlogy, graphic equaliser, music recognition service, along with industry standard 3.5mm audio jack, stereo FM radio with RDS,  FM recording and dedicated music keys .

Other specifications include quadband GSM (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) connectivity, Bluetooth v2.0, and microUSB v2.0.

A 1.3 megapixel camera capable of video recording is complimented by a 2.2" TFT QCIF display with a resolution of 176x220 pixels, and capable of rendering 256k colours.

The internal memory is capped at 15MB, but the microSD card slot extends the memory capacity up to 8GB. Other preloaded software include support for Java MIDP 2.0, and phone tracking software for theft prevention.

Available in blue and pink, pricing and market availability is still unknown.

Samsung M2310

Live images of the Samsung M2310 (Source: Mobiletelefon.ru)

The only clamshell model to be announced yesterday by Samsung, the M2310 is the entry-level music phone for consumers on a tight budget. The device basically rides on its music centeric capabilities comprising of audio-enhancing DNSe technlogy, graphic equaliser, music recognition service, along with industry standard 3.5mm audio jack, stereo FM radio with RDS,  FM recording, and dedicated music keys.

Its features are pretty basic comprising of quadband GSM (850/900/1800/1900MHz), a 2"  internal QVGA display with a resolution of 120x160 pixels, and 1.06" external CSTN display with a resolution of 96x96 pixels. A VGA camera capable of video recording, Bluetooth v2.1, microUSB v2.0, and a microSD memory card slot (expandable upto 8GB) complete the specifications.

Available in blue, market availibility and pricing is kept under the wraps.

Having announced handsets in the high-end smartphone segment with its Jet and Omnia line-up, and camera centric phone with its Pixon 12 in the last fortnight, the Korean electronics giant is now turning its attention to the mid and entry-level markets, where the sheer numbers make it a very attractive segment. With Nokia leading this segment in emerging markets of India and other developing countries, whether Samsung will be able to dent a blow to Nokia's market share in these markets will largely depend on pricing of the above four models in these markets.

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